The Fun Argument

Posted on June 14, 2004 in Ettiquette

Someone at Personality Forge took me to task for complaining about “bot holidays”. These are days when the language of the site is altered to fit an “accent”. A couple of weeks ago, it was German Day followed by Cockney Day. Today it is “Old English” Day. And the server continually spews MySQL errors.

I wrote that I did not wish to take part in these days because I have carefully selected and, frankly, I already have fun with my bots on my own. I don’t mind if others take part. What I want is the option not to participate. A user who hid behind the name of his bot complained that the holidays were “fun” and that I was one of those people who “feel the need to complain”. Shades of George W. Bush, don’t you think?

The ones who advance these arguments aren’t all that different from those who scream “lighten up” when you object to something that isn’t very fun for you. If you’re not drinking, they want you to drink. If you’re not driving 40 miles over the speed limit like they would do, they want you to drive that fast. If you’re not joining in their racial caricaturing, they want you to join in. If you aren’t sticking firecrackers into toads and blowing them up, they want you to do that. If you aren’t humiliating prisoners in an Iraqi prison and posing for pictures….

As Dr. Dan pointed out in a recent comment here:

They don’t want you to feel better, they want you to shape up (i.e. snap into line with their point of view.) They have no tolerance for dissent, and heaven forbid you might find something offensive.

Or as I put it to the jerk: Forced fun isn’t fun.