People talk about themselves too much.

I don't think personal topics are the problem. The problem is when it's all take, no give. Validate me, validate me, validate me. And no effort to relate your personal life to other people's personal lives.

Another thing that bothers me is threads that involve no risk. Only safe statements and no penetration into cliches.

So...so long as there is relatedness and escalation- I'm fine with personal and whiny. In fact, I prefer it to cerebral bullshit.

 

Right. I get the peeing on the dog thread. I missed it unfortunately. But there is a difference between a thread about you peeing on your dog and a thread about you going to the store tomorrow. The difference is that people aren't funny enough to make jokes about your 'going to the store' thread. Its super easy to make jokes in a 'i just pissed on rover' thread. Its the creative endeavor. As simple and easy as it is in a lot of cases, humour is always creative. So where people can't make jokes the thread is boring because it lacks creativity, but where people can it's a worthwhile thread. obviously, degree aside. some of us just ain't funny and can't be ... even in a thread about pissing on a mutt.

What I'm curious about is whether or not you are serious in thinking that a thread about pissing on your dog has appeal because of anything outside of individual creative endeavor? is it really because it was about you and it was interesting? or are you just trying to make me look like a big idiot?

I can't think people creating threads about themselves and then complaining for a lack of notoriety are lame. who doesn't want to be influential? or, as is the case with us, notorious? its a natural human reaction to too many humans.

and so an innate creative nature and a desire for notoriety at least makes the poster care. and the reader care as long as the thread is about dog piss, and not a trip to the store.

 

you're right. on a practical level a problem is the me me me shit. but that is more of an annoyance. one which i understand to some degree and sympathize with

on the second point, its creepy rousseauian to watch internet interaction develop. very predictable and super unsafe, as our tool using ape ancestors must have felt. amazing apprehension.

 

Wake, so you thinks humor is it? There's interesting threads without humor. I think it's meaning...relatedness.

Is the OP talking about something that others can relate to, or at the very least interject their own meaning into.

I like to make open-ended threads (all of which Facey hates) because as far as I'm concerned the burden of improvisation has to be borne by both the OP and subsequent posters.

But the whole attention-whore thing...in a sense every thread is a cry for attention. It just depends on whether the attention is predatorial (I get attention from you, but no vice-versa- like Ivy's threads), or if it's mutual.

 

Wakey, I do agree with you. If you have nothing interesting to say, then you shouldn't post anything. At the same time, people don't often do this in my opinion and even if they do, then we have the choice to ignore them. If they complain about being unpopular, then we can troll them. Its all joy.

 

relation admits of degree. any response, even reading without replying is a relation. What I mean is that because people are essentially creative beings, they are more apt to interact (and maybe appear to care) where they can create. humour is the simplest creative endeavor. In seeing a person every weekend you share something immediate, online it takes time to develop. That thing is the relatedness, or meaning. And it is associative. I don't respond to 'i'm going to the store threads' and I haven't developed any relationship (at any level) to the OP. but I have with posters who post creative threads, be they funny or serious. The meaning follows from that. The creative is necessary for the meaning. Maybe even sufficient.

I understand what you're saying about creating an easily decoded thread. But I don't really understand the motivation.

 

that is a weak response.

i agree up until the point where we can troll. in all seriousness. troll away, fun fun fun sure sure sure. but really?

 

Yawn.

 

ok. i'm sorry about saying it was a weak response.

 

Haha. I remember one of birdmigration's threads (and he is the master, as far as I'm concerned- Ganja is good too):

Title: I went back to smoking.
Initial post: It helps me deal with all the stress.

Here you have an example of:

1) A personal meaning

2) An opening to other posters to relate (either as sympathizers or antagonists)

Is it humorous? In a sense. By it's unapologetic simplicity. Is it creative? Perhaps, for the same reason.

But it is neither creative nor humorous in the traditional sense. But what is creative? (I know what it is to be humorous).

How could anyone be creative without being personal?

 

You're right most of the people around here would fuck themselves if it was anatomically possible


Hotwater

 

yeah, but the whole problem occurs because other people would get a kick out of watching people fuck themselves.

that's basically the essence of this place.

 

Bird is a genius. He would have been a highly regarded Zen master if he lived in another place at another time.

 

Well we do have a tendency to talk more about sex in RT’s than the combined HF threads dedicated to love and sex


Hotwater

 

I don't know that thread so I can't say whether it was of the type that annoys mak. I imagine it starts with replies about individuals relating to the situation and providing their own stories. Followed right next by jokes. A good thread, why?

Is that the type of relation you're talking about? If it is, I've missed the mark in my interpretation of relatedness and meaning.

Ask me in a year and I'll tell you what I think creativity is. I don't know right now. I can only speak for the creative endeavor, which may or may not be creativity. The desire for and nature of creation is part of the definition of humanity. I'll have to think long and hard about what creativity actually is.

Don't you think it is super easy to be creative without being personal? Remember the notion that creative endeavor admits of degree. Or at least I think it does. As it comes from you may make it personal in a sense, but I don't think that is the same sense of personal we're talking about.

 

this could be so because, on the interwebs, its one of the most common things us nerds have in common...

fucking ourselves!

 

Yawn.

 

All I know is that academic discussions matter little to me until someone says, "Such and such has such and such meaning to me."

Otherwise life (or a discussion about any aspect of life) would be like counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...and to go on counting until you die. It would be a collection of empty facts.

It is not facticity that motivates us, it is meaning. Somehow I think that to be CREATIVE...to CREATE one has to be producing something which is entirely personal.

Otherwise it would be repetition or imitation, not creation. I've yet to see something being created which holds no personal meaning to the creator, is my final point.

 

Hi Face Eater.

and how are you?

 

does that mean end of??

because something created by me is also of me i can't deny the personal nature of creation.

which is why a thread like 'i'm going to the store' can't develop personal connection like a thread like 'i pissed on my dog'.

different facets here.