I am not a #news_garden op: I am a free man!

Posted on July 1, 2002 in IRC/Chat

There’s a theory of life that some people claim to follow: let the insults roll off your back. If they keep coming, the theory continues, it must be your fault, not the fact that the person delivering them has a self-control problem. There’s no shaking the advocates of this belief when they are not the subjects of attack. What they actually do is channel the anger at undeserving people. I found myself doing this on #news_garden. I had it done to me and saw it done to other ops several times by the channel owner.

The more hours that pass from my resignation, the greater the feeling of relief. Doubtless some official version is out there and they are telling stories of my madness, as they have told stories of the madness of others who have given up in frustration and walked. That’s the way things work in any clique: to perform character assassination on those who reject it. I am resigned to it. Eventually, they will turn on some other victim.

One friend who also left likened the channel to a kind of gladiator school. The chatters were the gladiators and the ops the crowd. No clear victories were allowed in this colosseum: they just liked to see the left and the right fight. I have witnessed the list owner go into self-recriminations about how he feels guilty about the times when he has baited people. I know he has baited me. He did so the other night with a couple of snyde comments he made on the channel about my knowledge of history. I ignored him and just went on talking with my other partner, clarifying my position as I went. I don’t deny that I’ve done my share of baiting and I fell into it once or twice as an op. But observe: I have given up my op bit. He remains his own thrall.