Calvet wrote on Feb 10th, 2012 at 10:22pm:
I'll have a stab at this one.

While some people think you typing the same repetitive insults over and over is amazeballs(Straek highlighted this in the pay 2 win thread and you're doing it here as well) to other people it just comes over as pretty lame at best.

You've had several people try to drop subtle hints in your direction recently (This thread and the Pay2win one) that you might be overdoing the frothing at the mouth routine. 

I wouldn't mention it if you fell into the Epoch, Gunga, Eladiun sorta crowd who really don't care what people think about them, but it appears you do given your obsession with telling people about "Social indicators" and all that jazz.

You're obviously a smart guy, just a smart guy that's trying too hard to the point of being annoying to some. 

I doubt that this will meet your criteria for being deep enough, but it's the best I can manage  [img]

I dunno.  There are only so many insults and ways that you can say the same thing, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth saying.  And of course, that's trebly true when you're still getting mileage out of what you're saying.  If I'm still hitting the target with a certain phrase and it's getting someone to step up and continue arguing with me, I'm okay with that result.

And while I wouldn't say that I don't give a shit at all what people think about me - since I'm obviously willing to engage this seriously, for instance - I don't know that you're quite on the mark as to why.  I just find it interesting to analyze social groups because it teaches me a bit about humanity, which is pretty much my life's project.  I enjoy watching other peoples' behavior and analyzing it.  It's pretty easy to do with message boards, where people tend to be much more raw than they would be in real life, especially when they're upset and/or in a drama sort of mood. 

That said, I do care about what people think, to an extent.  But that extent only goes so far.  I pretty much know who I am as a person at this point in my life.  And I recognize that part of that involves being repetitive.  But considering that I'm also rather prolific in my posting, it's just not possible to come up with that many different things to say. 

I think I'll start repeating myself even more than usual if I finish here, so I'm going to just quote Hordo and then keep talking about myself.

Hordo wrote on Feb 11th, 2012 at 2:10am:
Dare I enter the arena? 

Yes, I'll play a little.

You are close, but not quite there with the real problem with Oak qua Troll.

I look at Oak [img] ...hmmm...ok I read Oak's posts, ahem, and I see a Troll on the cusp of greatness, but has way too much baggage to turn that corner.

Remember that game folks tend to play in their Teens or early 20's, "If you were stuck on a desert island what 10/20/whatever albums/songs/books/etc would you bring with you?"  It's like Oak is trying to play that game when he posts and has his 10-ish favorite responses from which he picks a semi-appropriate one and goes with it never venturing far off course.

This is not unlike the comedian or the joke-writer who makes generous use of various "sandbags" or standard, pat jokes that are easily at hand and universally accessible for nearly any quick-retort situation.  Make no mistake about it, Oak is pretty darn good at that.  But he could be so much better.

If Oak would just broaden his horizons and discover the wondrous energy found in the vagaries of the English language and it's sub-genre American Slang, he would put himself on the path of the legendary troll.  I do not dare suggest that he might ever arrive there, but he has the potential.

I look, erm, read Oak's posts, as I said when I began, and I see a Troll on a path...will he remain beneath his comfortable well-worn bridge and eat the poor billy goats that cross it from time to time, or will he move on down the path to that massive steel and asphalt troll cathedral spanning a huge gulf where he can have the choicest of poor victims for his porridge?

I can kind of respect where you're coming from with this one, but to repeat myself when I just talked about repeating myself, I don't think that I repeat myself in too much of an untoward manner. 

That is to say that I come up with a lot of off-the-cuff insults, and even those that I go back to the well for a fair amount of the time aren't necessarily used quite that often.  Strake found all of about 10-12 examples for each of the three 'overused catchphrases' that I use, which don't add up together to 1% of my posts.  Staples like that exist for a reason when it comes to insulting people.  They work pretty well and tend to get someone into the mood for some good ol' fashioned arguing.  They're evocative, y'know? 

I'm not saying that I never repeat myself, by any stretch.  But I also don't think that I'm just a catchphrase generator that vomits up the same ol' shit.  I'm pretty quick on my feet and can come up with some pretty good material on the fly.  I'm using Eric as a specific source on that one, he loves to go on about my one-liners.    But I can zing out original material at a rate that I'd have to say probably outstrips the average guy.

Which isn't to say that I think I'm the greatest, by any stretch of the imagination.  There are better trolls than me and people who make much, much better jokes on the Internet.  But I don't think that all my shit is just the same retreads with a facelift, either.  Not really. 

I do a lot of self-contemplation and I recognize a lot of my own worst habits.  I'm a fat, lazy bastard who doesn't put as much effort into a lot of things in my life that I should.  I'm a procrastinator.  I let my cleverness go to my head and forget that it's worthless without some kind of effort or drive behind it.  I come up with countless ideas and never follow through on them.  I can be very pushy, selfish and childish when I want something. 

I'm sure I could come up with another half-dozen examples, at least!  But the point is, I don't really mind copping to my flaws when it's something that I can face.  I just think that when someone's posted this much over a short period of time, they're bound to fall back on a few phrases now and again and that using a phrase about once a week doesn't mean that there's no creative material in the other 99% of my posts that don't use them.   

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, though.  After all, it'll give me a chance to respond, and who doesn't enjoy talking about themselves?   

I'm not saying that I never repeat myself, by any stretch.  But I also don't think that I'm just a catchphrase generator that vomits up the same ol' shit. 

I honestly didn't want to laugh at this one.  I gave it srsface for half a second...  and then I laughed harder than I have at anything on the Vault today.  Which, you may have seen, involves beating out some serious fucking competition. 

I do not know why it amuses me as much as it does either; but I seriously lulz over it at times myself

I'm curious about this statement.  I do agree with it, I'm just wondering how much this applies to you personally from your own point of view.  I seem to remember you insisting in the other thread for example that you would have no hesitation speaking to someone face to face the same as you post here.
 

I think that my understanding of that fact is what allowed me to realize that there's no reason for me to apply the brakes in person for something that I wouldn't apply the brakes for on the Internet.  If someone is engaging in shitty behavior, I feel like I should say something and call them out on it. 

Or, alternately, if I find that the regular group of people I hang out with is totally annoying, I tend to bait that person into highlighting to others what a fucking dickhole they are so that others can see it, too.   

Either way, it amounts to much the same thing.  I realized that there's no reason for there to be two different tiers of behavior between the Internet and real life, and that it's really just a blend of hypocrisy and fear that makes people act in a different way on the Interwubs. 

I think most people are willing to call out people for shitty behaviour. I'm sure you'd agree tho that there's many ways to call someone out.  I know I'm harping on here and I know that you've answered this a few times already, just that I've never met anyone in RL who communicates the way you do here sometimes and not end up with a visit to the local hospital  .

I mean, sure you can get away with stuff with people you know and who you claim some sort of friendship with, but telling some random stranger he's a worthless peice of shit or some similar outburst doesn't usually end well where I come from.

Yes, but as I've also said, it's not often that you find out that a random stranger has been coming somewhere that you consider to be a community of which you are a part while dressed as someone else, attacking people verbally, and then walking in another entrance dressed as himself and acting like he didn't just attack a bunch of people.   

That is to say that there's much less misbehavior IRL on which I have to call people out, and it has a tendency to be much less odious, because people also recognize that their actions have consequences.  And people definitely aren't going to engage in that kind of behavior and then show up and try to keep chit-chatting with everyone as though they're still good friends.    If they did, I would definitely respond with as much venom as I do to Arkat.

In real life, the most I usually have to do is tell someone to stop being such a dickhead to the waitress or something.    I guess I've just gotten lucky? 

You probably have been lucky. I run into at least one person a day who I'm cursing at in my mind lol.

Wait a minnit...

Didn't you kill yourself?

Not that anyone cares, but best to say in case there's any doubt.

I wasn't asking all that stuff because I think Arkat is a cool guy or anything and what he did was great, was just my own personal curiosity about the "Turn it up to 11" calling out  .