Why are we picking on the 13 year old?

June 20, 2006 9:18 AM

Why are we picking on the 13 year old? This is really distasteful.
posted by Saucy Intruder to Etiquette/Policy at 9:18 AM (367 comments total)

Well... He fought back pretty well, so I wouldn't sweat it.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:24 AM on June 20, 2006

Kid stands up for himself just fine.
posted by Shutter at 9:24 AM on June 20, 2006

A lot better than certain grown up members.
posted by sonofsamiam at 9:26 AM on June 20, 2006

peace out... prolly cuz life sux... mmkay, thanx.
posted by Duncan at 9:28 AM on June 20, 2006

Consider it a learning experience.
posted by mischief at 9:29 AM on June 20, 2006

I'm guessing some MeFites were lousy writers when they were 13, so they can't believe a 13 year old could write well. I got mistaken for a 30 year old when I was on BBSs when I was 12 or 13, so it doesn't seem remotely suspicious to me.
posted by Bugbread at 9:31 AM on June 20, 2006

Picked on might imply he can't defend himself. The reply I just read schooled his critics so harshly I was practically laughing. That kids gonna do fine.
posted by docpops at 9:31 AM on June 20, 2006

Not that I care either way, but people don't have to believe that this person is 13. Everyone has the right to be skeptical. I don't see why we'd fault anyone for not believing this person. Now, whether or not it was appropriate to vocalize the skepticism in the Green is another matter altogether.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 9:31 AM on June 20, 2006

He may have fought back, but he's still been scared off.

Nice kid, articulate, interesting, open. I hope he'll change his mind and stick around.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:31 AM on June 20, 2006

I suspect he's actually a dog.
posted by found missing at 9:32 AM on June 20, 2006

This can only end with an inline image of that aisian girl getting punched in the stomach.
posted by Cyrano at 9:33 AM on June 20, 2006

It was an AIMbot that achieved singularity.
posted by sourwookie at 9:33 AM on June 20, 2006 [2 favorites]

I wasn't implying that he can't defend himself. Looks like he most certainly can. The cynical nature of the accusation was just really grating.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 9:36 AM on June 20, 2006

Can't defend himself? I think he just defended himself so hard that he knocked people off the internet.
posted by danb at 9:40 AM on June 20, 2006

Yeah. It bugged me too, but I was just impressed with him, and his retort. I hope he sticks around.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2006

I thought he did a great job of explaining himself. I just hope he sticks around.
posted by idest at 9:43 AM on June 20, 2006

"Nobody is so cogent... yet can't tell the difference between whether and weather."

B.S. One of my best friends in college was an excellent thinker and communicator except that he couldn't spell to save his life.

"An epileptic monkey could build a site on iWeb."

LOL.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:44 AM on June 20, 2006

Nice smackdown.
I think this was my favorite line:
"... she doesn't like being called a 13 year old guy any more than I like being called a middle age lady. Gah."
It's O.K. to be skeptical if you do your research, people! All his bona fides are available on the web, just google.
posted by Floydd at 9:44 AM on June 20, 2006

Here he is with Bobby Kennedy on Air America. Very cool. I too hope he sticks around.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 9:51 AM on June 20, 2006

Why stop at questioning someone's age? Maybe User X is really not a doctor! Maybe user Y is just fantasizes about [sex act] and has never really done it! Maybe user Z is actually a man! Maybe user R only went surfing once and didn't even stand up on the board! Maybe user H doesn't even live in Chicago and has no idea where the best hot dogs are sold but just saw some Food Network show and now thinks they're an expert!

Seriously. We're using a text-only web site with some degree of identity cloaking here. We should all understand that while most people will represent themselves as fully and faithfully as possible, and others - mavericks, fantasizers, or game-players - might be constructing a persona. I think that's almost always not the case on MeFi (making it an exceptionally good community), but it's always a possibility. There's no need to remark upon this basic fact of internet life, or call out an individual user.

Thankfully, it's very rare to see someone's identity challenged here. An individual's facts and knowledge certainly can and should be challenged if they seem wrong. But the idea that you can somehow tell someone's age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or the like from their postings is not supportable.

We either give each other the benefit of the doubt, or we don't. That choice is up to each of us. I mostly feel my experience here is better when I believe what people say about who they are; and mostly, there is not much reason to think anyone would be lying. Experience bears this out (when you meet folks in the real world, more often than not, their identities are aligned). But even if I suspect that someone online is BSing about who they actually are, what is to be gained by challenging them? Judge people by the content they offer. Since the ferret's advice rang so true with so many people's own experiences of youth, and is so likely to produce good results, it's good content. That's really all we need to know.

For the record, I totally don't doubt he's who he says he is. There are plenty of such kids; I've been one, known many, and worked with more. I'm just jealous that there was no MeFi when I was his age.
posted by Miko at 9:51 AM on June 20, 2006

Ori should have at least looked up his site and did some searching before he insulted Chance.
posted by bigmusic at 9:55 AM on June 20, 2006

Teacup tempest. I find it hard to believe the kid's really a kid, but then part of me thinks, 'How can someone of above-average intelligence, much less one claiming to be among the top tiny fraction of American kids, write such bad prose?' If it's a kid, good for him for caring about shit, but he makes himself look a fool with his 'cuz' and 'kewl' and other juvenile writing tics - which combine with his occasional jargon-dropping to look like a badly play-acting adult.
posted by waxbanks at 9:56 AM on June 20, 2006

Also that's a terrible cover of 'Ring of Fire.'
posted by waxbanks at 9:57 AM on June 20, 2006

Miko is right on. So what is he's not 13 years old (and I believe he is- unlike a lot of you old folks, kids now *grow up* with the internet. It's not weird that someone that young would be on a site like this- I was at that age)? His answer was one of the best in the whole thread.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:59 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Would everyone freak out if I deleted every reference to the "he's a fake!" derail? It doesn't answer the question of how to connect with young people.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:00 AM on June 20, 2006

How can someone of above-average intelligence, much less one claiming to be among the top tiny fraction of American kids, write such bad prose?

He says it himself: laziness. He's done school for the year and is relaxing his writing from his English teacher's standards.

Kan't blaime im.
posted by Zozo at 10:00 AM on June 20, 2006

Teacup tempest. I find it hard to believe the kid's really a kid, but then part of me thinks, 'How can someone of above-average intelligence, much less one claiming to be among the top tiny fraction of American kids, write such bad prose?' If it's a kid, good for him for caring about shit, but he makes himself look a fool with his 'cuz' and 'kewl' and other juvenile writing tics - which combine with his occasional jargon-dropping to look like a badly play-acting adult.

Yeah exceptional kids don't have a hard enough time trying to kids, they should have perfect writing style as well. It's thinking like that that gives kids complexes.

Also that's a terrible cover of 'Ring of Fire.'

Not even relevant.
posted by bigmusic at 10:01 AM on June 20, 2006

waxbanks: As ObscureReferenceMan said, you're ultimately teasing a kid. That's kind of strange, right?
posted by Pacheco at 10:01 AM on June 20, 2006

How can someone of above-average intelligence, much less one claiming to be among the top tiny fraction of American kids, write such bad prose? If it's a kid, good for him for caring about shit

It used to be said that the gratutious peppering of language with four-letter curse words was also a juvenile form of speech. But that's no longer the majority view, so times have changed and language has evolved. As much as the word "prolly" grates me like a block of cheese, perhaps that's where the language is going. Don't fear the reaper.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 10:04 AM on June 20, 2006

Would everyone freak out if I deleted every reference to the "he's a fake!" derail?

Please do. It's noise.

waxbanks, tell the kids to get off your lawn while you are at it.
posted by mattbucher at 10:04 AM on June 20, 2006

mathowie:

After the fact, but, no, go ahead, axe away. None of that was an answer, so it deserved to go.
posted by Bugbread at 10:05 AM on June 20, 2006

Would everyone freak out if I deleted every reference to the "he's a fake!" derail? It doesn't answer the question of how to connect with young people.

I would vote against it, since FeistyFerret's comeback is a fine piece of prose in and of itself.
posted by Optamystic at 10:06 AM on June 20, 2006

It doesn't answer the question of how to connect with young people.

Nuke 'em. If people freak out, nuke them too. This is asinine. It says right in the account profile that it's used by a family, he references an article he wrote that's available online... what else do you need to know?
posted by prostyle at 10:07 AM on June 20, 2006

We had to hand crank our modems when I was his age, and it cost us 1 cent a byte, you knew we wouldn't waste what precious bytes we had. I worked all summer for enough bytes to just download one Commander Keen demo. Now the bandwidth shortage of '92 was another matter entirely...
posted by geoff. at 10:07 AM on June 20, 2006

Well, I missed out on seeing the flameout on this one.

it would be great if there was a Bizzaro MetaFilter where all the deleted posts went... you'd see nothing but noise. That would be great. Like, ironically great. As in, really not great in the least. But I'd pay another $5 for it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:07 AM on June 20, 2006

waxbanks : "If it's a kid, good for him for caring about shit, but he makes himself look a fool with his 'cuz' and 'kewl' and other juvenile writing tics "

Nah, he makes himself look like someone who writes the way they want to write, not the way others want to write. I had my own particular tics as a kid when writing. I knew how they came off, but I wasn't writing in order to come off a certain way, I was writing in a way that I enjoyed writing.
posted by Bugbread at 10:08 AM on June 20, 2006

I dunno... even though the comments are against guidelines it sort takes away the context of the fabulous response, doesn't it? Oh well.
posted by idest at 10:09 AM on June 20, 2006

The comments:

This is neither here nor there, but FeistyFerret's comments are a bad fake, witten by a mom. The easy signifiers of juvenile prose are laid on so thick that it rings like those awful pamphlets about drugs and safe sex that tried to talk to kids "in their own language". 'Kewl', incidentally, is a bit of a dead giveaway.
posted by ori at 12:38 AM PST on June 20 [+fave] [!]


Good catch, ori. I agree 100%. Nobody is so cogent (this may not hold true in all situations, but..), yet can't tell the difference between whether and weather.

13 year olds don't care about adults, much less want them around to "open anything up" for them. Either you are "bad" and you find the kids whose parents don't get off work 'til late so you can go smoke pot and drink and fool around with girls, or you're a nerd and you sit around and play magic with your nerd friends, or maybe you have parents that push you too hard and you aren't done with practice until 6:00 where you have to go to piano lessons then do homework and go to bed early.

Basically this is the time a kid develops a mind of their own. Anybody with a 13 year old knows this all too well. If the kid is an introvert, tell them to knock it off or they will grow up being lonely, unfulfilled, and playing WoW all day. If the kid is a jackass, well.. it is probably good to get all that jackassery out of the way when school is pretty much still daycare and they just shuffle you along from one grade to the next. Anything else you do impedes their independence, and that defeats the whole purpose.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 2:06 AM PST on June 20 [+fave] [!]

Mmkay. I know this is off subject. I'm sorry. But I have to do this.

I dont usually defend myself against people cuz what ORI and GOOSEONTHE LOOSE said is not really the first time this has happened. Lots of people have scrutinzed me. I will just tell you that it pretty much sux cuz even kids like me dont like to be stared at. I started teaching as an instructor at a marine theme park when I was 7 and back then a really importent PR person in the park announced that I HAD to be a fraud cuz kids my age don't use words like "diminish" and "torrid". That was the first time I ever faced someone not believing me just for being articulate and young. I think some people just can't get past the fact that maybe someone wants to find solutions to things when they are younger. I don't know why really.

Normally tho I don't get attacked for having "juvenile prose" (w/e) but just so you know, I'm on my summer break, this isn't the only board I post on, and I don't really care about writing like I have to for my English teacher in the middle of june. I'm pretty sick of writing perfect right now. But i'm NOT a fraud and i think that this time (for once) I will defend myself cuz if the guy who started this thread doesnt believe my ideas are true then when he talks to that kid in his family, he might not like how that "conversation" goes. I hope the rest of you will not be offended by what I'm going to say like that I'm trying to be disrespectful or an arrogant jerk. I normally just don't respond to stuff like this and I don't ever try to do my own credibility. But this time I'm just going to lay it out. And WILDER, thank you by the way. I'm glad you went to my site. You're exactly right.

Argh I hate doing this. Ok. Here is why I think all the stuff I put in my first post. I'm 13. I'll be 14 in July. I just finished 8th grade at a school that has been ranked #1 in the world by the college board. The kids from my school pretty much go to any university they want..yale, harvard, rice, naval academy, w/e. There are only about 30 kids in my grade. This is not pride, it's just fact: You don't get into schools like mine by being avrage. I AM prolly just about average at this school (except in science) but not average compared to most kids in my grade in other schools. When I was 11 I prolly scored as high on my SAT's as Ori and Goose did as seniors (ya I prolly did..sorry) but the kids I go to school are like, the type of kids who got almost perfect SAT scores in 7th grade, so its not really a big deal to any of us and we all know that the numbers don't always tell the whole story. To give you an idea, my friends clone genes to solve world hunger for 8th grade science fair projects. I was RESCUED by the head of the upper school and brought to my current school and I am surrounded by great minds. sorry I don’t usually talk abou this stuff but it's true.

Kids like me read boards like this cuz other kids (usually guys) our age are sometimes big d***s or brain-dead gamers who play Runescap or World of Warcraft all day, and if we hung out with them ALL the time, we'd turn out just like them. I'd really rather drink bleach. (Trust me, when my mom reads this i'm gonna be in trouble for language. But it's the truth.)

So here's the deal. I started apprenticing with a licensed master falconer when I was 5. I have had the chance to learn things and be around wildlife that you've never dreamed of and this is cuz someone took me under his wing and was my mentor when i was waaay young. He accepted me as his student cuz he recognized the type of naturalist I am and he knew what would happen to me if someone DIDN’T work with me. The school told my parents that they had "Nothing for me. Go Find him a mentor." I was discussing non-placental mammals at age 4. So they brought me to my falconer and I only went to school 4 days a week. The other days I was working with wildlife or conducting research. Its not like there's a line of people who want to work with little kids by the way. I know cuz when I go to schools to talk to kids with my animals, I can barely get them to sit still cuz I swear they all had red bull for breakfast or something. Just wiggley and squirmy. I don't really know how my falconer did it but I think I am considered a pretty calm person which makes sense cuz animals trust me. Anywayz I formed my philosophies around biology cuz that's what falconry and raptor rehabilitation is. I held a dead chick while a falcon ate it off of my glove while my friends were holding playdoh. I watched dead rats get ground up wtih vitamens and be force fed to dying eagles becuase some freakin lazy adult dumped toxins in a field that the rabbits grazed. The eagle hunted those rabbits and got sick and went blind and eventually died. I totally get it. I get the science behind what is going on in the natural world. I get the cause and effect. I also get what happens if you don't get prepared for meeting these problems when you are young. When you see the stuff I've seen, you have a diffrent idea about the world. And you realize that if you want to make a diff and turn things around, you better make some friends fast and get serious about what matters. Sometimes those friends are adults who meet me and know right away that I’m not "normal". Do I hang around with adults, like for fun cuz I have no friends? Psssh. No. Not even close. I HAVE friends. Do I realize that unless adults in the animal world trust me they aren't going to give me access to what I need in order to complete my mission? Umm yeah. It's pretty obvious that you guys own everything even if some people are kind of laaaame. So Yeah, I do spend time with adults. And I do have a good relationship with them. I'm 13 and yes, I actually like my parents cuz they are excedingly KEWL. I didn’t even know that was weird until I mentioned it on my site and people emailed me about it. Even my friends like my parents. Sorry you don't like that word "KEWL" btw. I dind't know it was "old" but you know what? I've been typing it that way for a couple of years now and actually most of my myspace friends still do too..so maybe it's just old to OLD people. Who cares? How could I possibly sidestep every idea of who you think I should be? Anywayz I digress.

You don't have to be einstein to figure out that stuff is going on in the natural world that someone better tell us kids about while we are still young. As in, the truth. Not some wack half-truth that everyone else has bought into. Cuz i could already tell, just by looking at a dying eagle or an owl with a broken neck that my gen is about to be in charge of mitigating (yes..another big word. I'm sorry. I'll try not to be too dumb or too smart for you...) problems that industry, bad goverment and some selfish adults are causing. (not all adults, but some.) It’s my generation that has to mop it up.

Because of my ability to read and learn plus my life experience with animals, I started to figure out what isn't being done right when teaching kids when it comes to wildlife conservation. I've taken my message to national and state conventions of zoological instructors and the media. My work is in the hand book for the national wildlife federation. National Geographic has covered my projects and funded one of them.

And FYI, my topic when speaking to adults (which I don't like to do) has ALWAYS been that we kids need mentors and that Kids need to be told what is going on, straight up. This is documented online and you can find evidence of this yourself. Its exactly what I said in my post. You have to take us with you or come into our world if you want to make a diff. You can go to my website and find a link to my 2002 AZAD abstract where I wrote about this whole deal of how we are not being given real life experience enough to know what lies in our futures (conservation wise).

My bro and I have produced wildlife documentaries under own our own video label with my very own face (not my moms), I currently have commercials and shows running on both Disney and Discovery with my own face not my moms. I have done radio shows and interviews with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is a falconer and friend, and if you need to hear my 13 year old voice, you can go to his AirAmerica radio website (Ring of Fire) archive and listen to my interview from this fall, which is dated and lists my age. I'm pretty sure my mom can't fake my voice. Or if you're so cynical, you can just google my name which is the name of my website found on our profile and look everything up that's out there. There's a lot and I take a lot of crap for it from my friends who google me. Thanks for being a part of that.

My parents wouldn't let me sign up for Meta alone cuz of some of the content (and cuz I'm not really allowed to do stuff on the internet w/o someone knowing), so I had to get them to sign up with me like as a family. My mom does come on Meta sometimes, but I think she has mentioned who she is or atleast has mentioned that she's married when she has posted answers to stuff. My dad just reads stuff. My bro could really care less about Meta (no offense but this isn't his thing.)

I asked my mom if she minds if I defend my words here and she said go for it... she doesn't like being called a 13 year old guy any more than I like being called a middle age lady. Gah.

Yes, I do know the diff between weather and whether. I was typing fast cuz I was very passionate about what I was trying to say. I actually ran part of my posts through spell check and then copy pasted but 1. it didn't pick up that mistake and 2. I added a lot of stuff once I had it in the comment box.
My website doesn't contain mistakes like "weather/whether" because I had two teachers and my parents help me fix everything they could find on it before I loaded it. I use iWeb btw which is just drag and drop templates so don't even bust on me that it's too professional. An epileptic monkey could build a site on iWeb
.
Part of me says "why bother defending myself?" I don't really have to justify my position or my age (or my juvenile prose) cuz in the end what does it matter? You're not the first ones to bust on me for being too smart and too dumb at the same time. You're not the first ones to question my passion. You're not the first ones to try to distract me with judgemental comments. You're pretty much like all the kids i left back at the public school..close minded and threatened by someone who is different or has had a different experience. After you there will prolly be someone else (wow. I can't wait.)

But I think it's getting to the point that it's important to defend myself or at least defend my mom cuz it sucks that you took shots at her like that. And I think that at the end, I'll be the one left standing cuz I am working toward something big in my life and I have people who know me pretty well and think I can get there and are trying to help me get ready. I think I have a mission and a purpose and a calling. What do you have? Enough time to bust on me and my mom I guess....laaaame.


I am not going to stay quiet cuz someone doesn't like how I say stuff or doesn't believe that my ideas are my own. Why would I give everything up for someone like that? Pssh.

Next time you decide to make big authoritative statements about a person's character in public, maybe you could try to get to know him first. Cuz if you had emailed me, I would have told you all this stuff privately which is how I would have liked it better.

And I was thinking that Meta was for everyone. That was my mistake I guess.

Again I apologize to everyone else on this forum for being off topic but sometimes...well you just can't take it lying down anymore. And I don't think someone should let someone else bust on his mom. Thanks

Now I'm going to go write a pamphlet for "Just say no to drugs" so I can earn enough money to buy a prius when I'm 16. Psssh... *irritated*
posted by FeistyFerret at 7:56 AM PST on June 20 [+fave] [!]
posted by bigmusic at 10:09 AM on June 20, 2006 [6 favorites]

GuyZero : "Well, I missed out on seeing the flameout on this one."

It wasn't a flameout, really. A few folks accused Feisty of being an adult masquerading as a kid. Feisty put them in their place, not in some sublime scathing witty retort, nor in an angry vitriolic screed, but just relatively calm and straightforward. It was a good reply, but not a flameout in the minya sense, nor a "schooling" in the...uh...(who has written a good schooling on MeFi?)
posted by Bugbread at 10:10 AM on June 20, 2006

Actually, jdfan and jheiz...those comments really hurt my feelings and I doubt I'll post anymore. I hate the feeling defending myself leaves me with. But thanx. i appreciate it.

peace out.
posted by FeistyFerret at 9:20 AM PST on June 20 [+fave] [!]
posted by bigmusic at 10:11 AM on June 20, 2006

Er, nevermind, there they are.

So all is good with the world. The retort still exists, but AskMe has been restored to the "answering the question" mode which is its raison de etre.
posted by Bugbread at 10:11 AM on June 20, 2006

Kids write suckily. As long as you can understand him, and it isn't to annoying such as capitalizing every first letter, its not really a problem.
posted by Suparnova at 10:11 AM on June 20, 2006

Thanks, bigmusic... I'd have hated to see FeistyFerret's excellent rebuttal disappear.
posted by idest at 10:12 AM on June 20, 2006

I like the kid's answers but missed the flameout. Who were the troublemakers?
posted by dobbs at 10:13 AM on June 20, 2006

I've been there, and I'm still here 4 years later. To be fair, it was a pretty sucky debut FPP on my part.

On preview, yeah, and his comeback was lot better than mine too.
posted by Orange Goblin at 10:15 AM on June 20, 2006

@bigmusic:

Yeah exceptional kids don't have a hard enough time trying to [be] kids, they should have perfect writing style as well. It's thinking like that that gives kids complexes.

Piss off. As a former 'exceptional kid' I know well what it's like to have no idea how I came across chattering to adults. Honestly I wish I'd been told more often how I could improve my writing, at that age, rather than being praised for earnestness. Then again, I take prose rather more seriously than the average, um, most everybody. :)

@Pacheco: That's quite fair, but I'm not teasing. Bad writing is bad writing, and this casual writing by the kid is earnest, and admirable in a way, and kind of bad. His 'I'm lazy and therefore write badly' remark is telling and plain sad. (Though it does make me wonder, again, why schools fail so utterly to convince kids that writing better is a year-round project.)

Though in fairness I do admire the expectation of casualness and even-handedness that FeistyFerret seemed to bring, I'd love to be able to convince him that shoring up his prose early on will make worlds of difference for him later in life, when he no longer gets the benefit of the doubt for being so young.

I retract my doubts about the kid's authenticity - that was unfair, and FeistyFerret, if you're reading, I apologise. Now go read John Gardener!
posted by waxbanks at 10:18 AM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret for President in 2028!
posted by ferociouskitty at 10:18 AM on June 20, 2006

Sigh.

'Gardner.'
posted by waxbanks at 10:20 AM on June 20, 2006

Yeah, I saw a bit of that... people here are so thick sometimes. We've had a number of perfectly articulate and intelligent 13- and 14-year-olds around here at various times. Some of them have even stuck around. I'd trade FeistyFerret for our two or three overzealous midnight cops very quickly.
posted by furiousthought at 10:20 AM on June 20, 2006

Thanks bigmusic.
posted by dobbs at 10:21 AM on June 20, 2006

death to @
posted by cortex at 10:21 AM on June 20, 2006

waxbanks--
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:23 AM on June 20, 2006

His 'I'm lazy and therefore write badly' remark is telling and plain sad.

It's not telling, and it's not just plain sad. It's a mark of self-awareness about his writing that I don't usually see from older people with poor/non-standard writing habits—I reckon that he has a pretty good idea what formal, polished writing looks like.

You should see the godawful work email I get. Cut the kid some slack.
posted by cortex at 10:23 AM on June 20, 2006

Hey, what happened to my complaint about his "you can't prove a negative" idiocy?
posted by Plutor at 10:27 AM on June 20, 2006

So all is good with the world.

Yeah, except that a good kid, who would have contributed far more to this place than a great many members I can think of, has been driven away by the usual gang of assholes. "Dur, no kid can rite like that! He rites too SMART!" Jesus. Reminds me of when I was in third grade and some fucking school librarian made me read a couple of paragraphs of Willy Ley's Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel out loud—and paraphrase them—before she'd let me take the book out. Yeah, real kids don't read books with big words!

bigmusic: Thanks for reproducing the comments, so I can 1) appreciate FeistyFerret's amazing ability to put the idiots in their place and 2) know who said idiots are.
posted by languagehat at 10:29 AM on June 20, 2006

Learn the distinction between being mistaken and being an idiot.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:31 AM on June 20, 2006

(For Plutor)
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:31 AM on June 20, 2006

Foul mood today, sorry. cortex, you're somewhat right but I still say it's a failing to think that strong prose and spelled-out words are somehow harder work than AIM-speak.

sam: Um what does that convention mean? I'm decremented after returning?
posted by waxbanks at 10:33 AM on June 20, 2006

l0lz0rs, j00 no unerstant teh internet speeks
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:34 AM on June 20, 2006

As a former 'exceptional kid' I know well what it's like to have no idea how I came across chattering to adults.

I was also a former exceptional kid. I now get paid to write things and pride myself on my verbal expression. However, I don't work to my highest standard when online. I'm conversing, not composing. My posts on MeFi are riddled with typos and incomplete revisions and occasional distracted misspellings.

Have at me.
posted by Miko at 10:34 AM on June 20, 2006

On second thought, don't. I was baiting you and I'm sorry. I'd rather let the tempest die than move on to a discussion of written expression in the online environment.

And I hope FiestyFerret returns.
posted by Miko at 10:38 AM on June 20, 2006

posted by puke & cry at 10:38 AM on June 20, 2006

How the camera lies. Actually, she has that poor man's arm trapped between her Herculean abs.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:39 AM on June 20, 2006

Holy Christ that image is unnecessary!
posted by waxbanks at 10:41 AM on June 20, 2006

Miko - Yeah. Let's get back to Iraq-related cockwaving! :)
posted by waxbanks at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2006

cortex, you're somewhat right but I still say it's a failing to think that strong prose and spelled-out words are somehow harder work than AIM-speak.

It's not a failing, it's a fact. IM speak (or any other conversational vernacular) has the advantage of being familiar and informal—looser requirements for presentation, structure, etc. I operate in a looser mode in IRC, and in spoken conversation with friends, than I do when I'm writing for an audience, and my formality in the latter case depends on the audience and the purpose.

I'm not sure if a lot of your objection is specifically keyed off chatty fad spellings like "cuz" and "u r" and so on. Maybe you're arguing that it takes effort to type that instead of the common spelling, so it's not lazy? If so, consider that typing "cuz" instead of "because" is, once it is at all practiced, an easy, lazy thing to do. So is not capitalizing. So is eliding terminating punctuation.

I like to write well. I like language. I've worked on my writing, in an informal, half-assed manner, since I was FiestyFerret's age. I've gotten much better over time, but it still takes some effort. And I still slip into easier, more conversational modes when (a) it's fitting and/or (b) I'm too tired/distracted/irked to put out the effort.

Language is a varied and nuanced beast. Get over it.
posted by cortex at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

So here's the deal. I started apprenticing with a licensed master falconer when I was 5.

I'm going to save that one for the day my flameout final comes.
posted by mullacc at 10:46 AM on June 20, 2006

Oddly enough, I was just reading this old Metatalk thread where Miguel claims to be a famous Portuguese writer and everyone scoffs at him because his name doesn't appear in Google.

Thing is, I just came back from a trip to Portugal. The man is a rock star there.
posted by vacapinta at 10:47 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'm guessing that some of you folks weirded out over the articulation-to-slang-ratio of FeistyFerret's prose may not actually talk via e-mail to thirteen year olds very often. Unsurprising, since the point of the thread is that adults are not great at communicating with adolescents.
posted by desuetude at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2006

I wish I had been taken under a falconer's wing when I was his age. Not a huge fan of nature, but say it out loud and tell me it doesn't sound damn cool.

Good for him. Hopefully he'll stick around.

And what waxbanks said.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:54 AM on June 20, 2006

you know what the problem is here? it's not overzealous internet detectivery. It's FUCKING CRAPPY internet detectivery.

If you have a suspicion that someone isn't who they claim to be, then go find some evidence, bitch! MeFi has set a fairly high bar as far as these things go, and crappy "My reading comprehension grants me prescient insight into the nature of anyone who posts here" charlatanry just degrades the site's stellar reputation for crack detective work.

Do the legwork or shut your face, encyclopedia brown!
posted by shmegegge at 10:56 AM on June 20, 2006

cortex: Language is a varied and nuanced beast.

Nuh-uh!!

Enough of this.
posted by waxbanks at 11:00 AM on June 20, 2006

shmegegge : "Do the legwork or shut your face, encyclopedia brown!"

I can see from the way you use prepositions that you're actually a 192 year old Andean, and therefore can't actually be on the internet. Which is a shame, because what you say is true, but I'm going to have to pretend I didn't read it.
posted by Bugbread at 11:03 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Nuh-uh!!

Right, right.

*cuts off right hand, goes to lunch*
posted by cortex at 11:03 AM on June 20, 2006

Whatever. This is a fucking endless argument, and the people that mistreated this child by acting the way they did in that thread are dead wrong. Whether they were doing it directly or, in this case, by proxy.

At the end of the day, anyone that is enough of a dick to act like that to a 13 year old online is either a complete asshole in real life or they just don't know how to take a deep breath.

Whatever happened to the golden rule? Hypocrites.

In sum, would you lonely internet warriors have spoken to that child, except for example via IM, in the same manner that you approached the question? I sure fucking hope not.

Would you have spoken to that child that way if you were in front of them, looking him or her in the eye, knowing if she felt scared, or if he felt nervous? If you say yes to that, I hope we never meet.

If you answered yes to those two questions and still behaved poorly in that thread, shame on you, you're missing some big point.

My only suggestion is to just take a deep breath and treat people on the internet in real life the way you want to be treated in the real world. Sometimes it's easy to miss something that obvious, and I'm always helped by reminders, so there you have it.

addendum: the only good thing about MetaTalk is that there are enough people here that can end a thread with jokes. If we didn't have that this site would have crashed and burned in the first year after 9/11. Keep laughing, it's like yoga for lazy people.
posted by tweak at 11:12 AM on June 20, 2006 [2 favorites]

oops rewind after If you answered, replace yes with no
posted by tweak at 11:14 AM on June 20, 2006

Heh, I'm starting to feel like the only member of Metafilter who was unexceptional as a kid. Good on Feisty! He sounds like a fantastic person and I hope he isn't gone for good.
posted by Marit at 11:14 AM on June 20, 2006

Except that users who "picked on him" for not actually being a 13-year-old kid did not, kinda by definition, believe they were picking on a 13-year-old kid.
posted by occhiblu at 11:19 AM on June 20, 2006

Metafilter: Where all the children are above average.
posted by found missing at 11:19 AM on June 20, 2006

Waxbanks forgot to drink his Geritol this morning. I hope you're happy after making fun of a pre-teen.
Ass.



From the thread posted by Vacapinta, re: whether or not Cardosa is a real author, "And despite being reasonably well-lettered, I have no idea what the Bodleian Library is, or where on god's green web the Portguese Biblitoteca Nacional might be. Get over yourself, will ya?" Posted by stavros

that had me laughing hard.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:20 AM on June 20, 2006

I was exceptional when I was young. Now I'm just handsome.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:23 AM on June 20, 2006

I was an exceptional child too. You know, in that other special way.
posted by idest at 11:26 AM on June 20, 2006

You're still exceptional in my book, idest :)

As for the whole issue at hand, wow. Thanks a ton for reposting the deleted comments, bigmusic! It was great to read FF's rebuttal.

I can kinda empathize with the general "us smart kids weren't respected enough" meme, and having read the backstory FF provides in his spiel, I sorta regret that I wasn't quite exceptional enough to get taken out of public schools. Sounds like he and his peers are being given absolutely incredible opportunities.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 11:31 AM on June 20, 2006

People often forget that the difference between kids and adults often isn't smarts but wisdom. He sounded totally believable as a 13-year-old, probably a little indulged and a little arrogant, but whatever.
C'mon, don't you guys remember that that's one of the most frustrating things about being a kid? That as a moderately bright kid, you're smarter than a tremendous plurality of adults around you? And that it's only with time that you realize that being intelligent won't prevent you from doing incredibly stupid shit?
posted by klangklangston at 11:34 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

occhiblu : "Except that users who 'picked on him' for not actually being a 13-year-old kid did not, kinda by definition, believe they were picking on a 13-year-old kid."

Exactly. The argument here shouldn't be "you shouldn't treat kids like that", because "that", in this case, is "believing they aren't kids". That's something everyone, including ori and goose, would agree with. "You shouldn't believe that kids aren't kids", along with the corrollary "you should believe that adults who pretend to be kids aren't kids". Since they thought Feisty is an adult masquerading as a kid, if that's the argument we're presenting, then the only thing they did wrong was not being omniscient.

Instead, the argument should be "you shouldn't accuse people of lying unless you have a damn good reason to". In this case, the reason ("he uses too much kiddie slang" "he is cogent but confuses weather and whether") is not a damn good reason. That's what's wrong here. It's not that ori or goose treated a kid badly; they treated someone they believed to be an adult as a liar. The problem is that they treated a person (age unimportant) as a liar based on extraordinarily flimsy evidence.
posted by Bugbread at 11:37 AM on June 20, 2006

Note: I was only a very mildly exceptional child, which is why I can't spell "corollary" correctly
posted by Bugbread at 11:39 AM on June 20, 2006

Last night, me and Boba Fett were discussing the exact same thing - at the end of the night we were both quite drunk but we came to a simple conclusion -

no disintegrations.

Advice we can all take to heart I think.
posted by longbaugh at 11:40 AM on June 20, 2006

And FYI, my topic when speaking to adults (which I don't like to do) has ALWAYS been that we kids need mentors and that Kids need to be told what is going on, straight up.

Holy smokes, this kid has a better handle on life than most adults I know. And from the sound of it, his parents do a damn good job of parenting, too. I should add that mentors are important all through life, not only when you're young.
posted by SteveInMaine at 11:43 AM on June 20, 2006

For what it's worth, I've been corresponding with Chance since this thread and have no doubt in my mind that he's exactly who he claims to be. Unfortunately, blind cynicism is a powerful force, and he doesn't much want to come back to MeFi and be attacked. He obviously can't prove who he is, and I don't really think he should have to do so. I think it's sad that our community has closed its door in his face (to paraphrase his latest email to me).

Quite frankly, I think the members who doubted him owe him an apology. I think that this community should welcome everyone who can contribute and be happy for outstanding contributions rather than angry at the contributor.

Of course, some people may not care what I think, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who joined MetaFilter thinking it was above nonsense like this. (Yes, I know- I'm naive.)
posted by JMOZ at 11:48 AM on June 20, 2006

bugbread/occhiblu: seriously, whatever. The principle remains, the age/person/status are interesting codicils.
posted by tweak at 11:50 AM on June 20, 2006

He's obviously Photoshopped. The telltale blurring of 'whether' into 'weather'; the 'cuz' and 'kewl' that the standard Photoshop EarlyTeen filter produces - those are dead giveaways.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:52 AM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Tweak:

That's what I'm saying. The principle in question is "Don't call people liars unless you have damn good reason". People arguing "Don't treat kids like that" are totally missing the forest for the trees. So I don't know what you mean by "seriously, whatever", because it seems like we're in agreement.

JMOZ: I dunno how long Feisty has been a lurker, but you might want to point out that only a few people get long lingering reputations here, so he probably won't continue to get attacked based on people disbelieving his age. Just advise him to avoid this thread (because that would result in a truckload of drama), and his time at MeFi should be fruitful and enjoyable (to the degree that anyone's is).
posted by Bugbread at 11:57 AM on June 20, 2006

Quite frankly, I think the members who doubted him owe him an apology.
posted by JMOZ at 2:48 PM EST on June 20

I hope that happens, JMOZ.

I also hope Chance is following this thread and is not too hasty in his decision to stay away.

I remember the first time I was on the receiving end of a similar ill-considered and baseless accusation. It was in a music discussion on GEnie and I was called a liar for relating a story from an interview I had done with a famous musican. I was young and that interview meant a lot to me. The accusation that I had made it up stung even though I knew the accusation to be baseless.

My first reaction was to walk away from the GEnie music forums. I'm glad I didn't. I'm not particularly happy that I've had to develop a thicker hide to play in the online sandbox, but I think what I've gained in knowledge and friends over the years makes it worth it.
posted by LinnTate at 12:01 PM on June 20, 2006

I emailed Chance my thoughts on this and encouraged him to stay. Ultimately, he is an adult (albeit a 13-year-old one) and will make his own decisions.
posted by JMOZ at 12:06 PM on June 20, 2006

<bumper sticker>My other internet persona is a seventy year old vietnamese woman</bumper sticker>
posted by blue_beetle at 12:13 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm not sure what the big deal is. Seriously. The criticisms weren't all that strong, and while they were directed at FF they also dealt with the standard internet problem of attributed or claimed expertise that is actually unconfirmed. I certainly agree, since they seem to have been wrong, that it would have been better to have done a bit more keyboard work before writing the criticisms, but that's in the nature of a mistake and not a mean spirited attack. (People are saying FF was mistreated, c'mon, really? Mistreated? Or simply not believed. Jeesh.)

It is clear from the response that FF is a 13 year old, for as well written and exceptional as it is, it's the response of someone quite young. It's both arrogant and overbearing (nowhere near restrained or mature); and certainly the notion that this minor questioning of FF's veracity is enough to keep him from Metafilter, while too bad, demonstrates the kid's age as much as anything else. Were an adult MeFite to make that statement they would be told to grow a pair.

I think it's nicer and better to treat people with respect until such time as they prove they don't deserve it, but the couple of comments questioning FF in that thread were so mild by Metafilter standards (and almost any other standards) that the response seems baffling.
posted by OmieWise at 12:14 PM on June 20, 2006

no disintegrations.

I will be laughing about this - the image of Boba Fett chatting about MetaFilter over booze - for the rest of the day.
posted by waxbanks at 12:24 PM on June 20, 2006

Jesus, this place is truly flypaper to assholes.
posted by bardic at 12:25 PM on June 20, 2006

flypaper to assholes

Another problem solved.
posted by found missing at 12:31 PM on June 20, 2006

bugbread: cool, thanks for clarifying.
posted by tweak at 12:33 PM on June 20, 2006

It's been a long time since I have been as dumbfounded as I am right now by people's failure to recognize the native, coruscating, brilliance of this kid's prose! I would be found dead of sheer smugness if I could write anything as good as what this child spins so 'casually' out into the void.

I would apologize to FeistyFerret for raising the issue of his true identity in the first place, even though I know he knows it was only a trope to express the wonder and pleasure I felt at being able to read this tiny sample of his work, if I didn't realize so clearly that the world will never note or remember for an instant what we say here, but may remember forever what he does from here on out.

What is that Swift quote, 'when a true genius appears you will know him by the dunces in confederacy against him?'
posted by jamjam at 12:33 PM on June 20, 2006

Needs to be repeated:

Quite frankly, I think the members who doubted him owe him an apology.

Since FeistyFerret has taken the high road with his lucid and calm response, I'll be juvenile:

May those of you who were total dicks in that thread be cursed by the naxosaxur flaming BIOS STD if you don't apologise.

and on preview: but the couple of comments questioning FF in that thread were so mild by Metafilter standards (and almost any other standards) that the response seems baffling.

This has pretty much already been hashed over but, if you want to play meta-detective:

• Do it on MeTa, not as a thread derail in AskMe
• At least click through to the user profile and make a rudimentray search of teh Intranets
• have the cojones to apologise when you are wrong
• the above goes double if your target is a minor with an above average intellect that can contribte more to this community than you can

All uses of 'you' intended in the general sense, and BIOS STD Curse recinded if FeistyFerret is apologised to.
posted by romakimmy at 12:39 PM on June 20, 2006

Jesus, this place is truly flypaper to assholes.,

Word boogie.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:48 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm not sure what the big deal is. Seriously.

You are a liar and a fake.
posted by cortex at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2006

Notice how that's a shitty and totally unsubstantiated violation of basic fucking civility?
posted by cortex at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2006

Yeah, notice how I said that I thought it's better to treat people well? I understand what the offense is, and I agree it's an offense. I don't agree that it's that big of a deal.
posted by OmieWise at 12:52 PM on June 20, 2006

But it is sort of a big deal, insofar as bad behavior of any sort is. I'd say that baseless knee-jerk allegations of straight-up Nobody Knows You're A Dog masquerades are a steeper offence than most of the things that muster complaint around here. It's presupposing a complete lack of credibility on the part of another user, which is worse, I think, than simply thinking they're a jerk or wrong about something or being impolite, etc.

I didn't mean for my example to come off so harshly as a rebuke, though. The point is that no one should be met with "you are a liar and a fake" in the course of conversation without exceedingly good reason. There was no exceedingly good reason, and that makes it pretty awful behavior.
posted by cortex at 1:00 PM on June 20, 2006

OmieWise:

I hear what you're saying, and I agree that it seems quite mild, and yet I'm with the people on the Feisty side of the fence. After some consideration of the paradox, I'm thinking maybe it's that people are often jerks on MetaFilter, but folks have such thick hides that nothing bad really comes of it, so we don't notice how jerky said behaviour is. In this case, a decent member (whose age I really couldn't care less about either way) got quite offended that he was called a liar for the absolute flimsiest of reasons, which kinda shined the spotlight on the jerky behaviour. That is, it's not that this case is no big deal because worse stuff happens, but that we've got some pretty big behavioural problems which we've become inured to because it's become the norm. At least, that seems the most likely way of reconciling why I agree with you, but also with most of the other folks in this thread.
posted by Bugbread at 1:12 PM on June 20, 2006

You all have done a much worse job defending the kid than he did himself. Let it die for fuck's sake.

people's failure to recognize the native, coruscating, brilliance of this kid's prose!

I'm going to need an apology for being subjected to that hyperbole.
posted by found missing at 1:17 PM on June 20, 2006

hyperbole? or truthperbole?
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:21 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'll take the chance to defend myself, here. Thanks, bigmusic, for reproducing the relevant posts here.

When I was 11 I prolly scored as high on my SAT's as Ori and Goose did as seniors (ya I prolly did..sorry)

I grew up in Israel, and finished highs school in Canada. English is not my first language, and I never had to write the SATs, so I suppose I don't have a gauge handy for how mediocre I am beside you, but I'll give you the benefit of doubt.

you're not the first ones to bust on me for being too smart and too dumb at the same time.

I probably phrased my suspicion poorly, because you and a number of people interpreted it wrongly. I didn't mean to say that poor and awkward syntax cannot be reconciled with meaningful, even profound sentiments. Nor did I mean to say that people as young as you are cannot possibly be the source of such a sentiment (see languagehat's response, for example).

What rang false to me was not that the prose was slapdash, but the contrary, that it seemed carefully written to appear so. You managed, in a brief span, to produce all the linguistic signifiers of an adolescent online. This style, which, being the one that comes most naturally, presumably corresponds with the way you actually think your head, comes off as sounding incredibly strained, as though you're trying hard to hit all the right notes; hence the comparsion to government-produced pamphlets for teenagers. In the language of the stage, you were over-acting.

I am not a big jerk, even though I was pinned as one in this thread. Wilder sounded hurt that I was casting aspersions on something she found so richly illuminating, so (not wanting to derail the thread further) I wrote her an email saying that, "FWIW, I think the observations and advice offered by FeistyFerret are keen and useful, and I don't think you're wrong to derive hope from them." In her response (I hope you don't mind me reproducing it here, Wilder -- it didn't seem private), she wrote that:

[My daughter said that] yes she could easily have written this and would have thrown in the “prolly” and other teen speak purely through bashfulness. She would be aware that while she writes in the “formal” voice which is heavily emphasised by the education system here, were she to participate in a discussion with adults about this she might try to “prove” she knows what she is talking about and is not just some precocious high-achiever (nerd in their speak) like this kind, so she would throw in the teen stuff for credibility. I felt that was the false note you so cleverly identified..

I think this is a keen suggestion, but it doesn't satisfy me completely. My close friends and I have all had our experiences in being dubbed gifted or whathaveyou, in my case writing some of the marticulation exams Israelis write at the end of their last term of high school when I was, like you, eleven. My anecdotal findings are that precocious children are superb at emulating the jargon of wisdom and maturity, but often lag behind in actual growth. This might well be because they often have no meaningful social sphere within which to engage as they mature.

In short, to me, there is something incredibly false about your response -- there is no unity of authorial voice and syntax, nor voice and semantics. It's not as though these insights could not have been yours; it's that the upstanding adolescent posture of the writing is a touch overdone, making it sound like someone else's insight. Whether it was actually written by your parents, or you merely pantomimed their pedagogy yourself, I am no longer sure of.

Either way, AskMe was not the appropriate contex to raise this, and for that I apologize. But don't bail out on your career as a Metafilter wunderkind just as it's about to take off, just because one unkewl curmudgeon insisted on calling your bluff.
posted by ori at 1:22 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

So he's gone from a liar and a fake, to someone with no original ideas of his own? I'm betting he's thrilled with that apology.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:26 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori, I'm losing respect for your usually well-reasoned responses.

Have you ever...actually...met a kid?
posted by Baby_Balrog at 1:26 PM on June 20, 2006

ori : "In short, to me, there is something incredibly false about your response -- there is no unity of authorial voice and syntax, nor voice and semantics."

I dunno, that lack of unity of authorial voice is one of the things that made it seem authentic. When I was in high school (so, admittedly, older than 13), one of the things I enjoyed in my writing was mixing formality and informality. I guess I liked the idea of making language work for me, instead of working for the language, so I'd take a bit of this and a bit of that. I remember one relatively formal essay on Hamlet where, in the middle of something rather strictly and formally written, I refered to a character as "a jerk" (which is not something you do in AP English class essays). So mixing teenspeak and adultspeak somewhat at random seems to me very much the hallmark of someone who is 13.
posted by Bugbread at 1:30 PM on June 20, 2006

Whether it was actually written by your parents, or you merely pantomimed their pedagogy yourself, I am no longer sure of.

Some people seem to be mistaking big words with good writing. This is not good writing.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:34 PM on June 20, 2006

To say that you have a tin ear, ori, is to demean a metal both ubiquitous and useful.
posted by jamjam at 1:35 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm on my way to WallMart to buy some duct tape, a power generator and some non-perishable food items to see me through this coming pile-on.
posted by ori at 1:40 PM on June 20, 2006

I started apprenticing with a licensed master falconer when I was 5.

When I was five, I was carried off by a falcon.

But seriously: Come Back, FeistyFerret. Don't let the assholes grind you down.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 1:40 PM on June 20, 2006

Don't let the assholes grind you down.

Absolutely. There are completely different websites where you get ground down by assholes and I hope your parents don't let you visit them. I do suggest checking them out when you get to college though. And rumour has it that certain campus fraternities have parties where you can do it yourself.
posted by GuyZero at 1:57 PM on June 20, 2006

ori : "I'm on my way to WallMart to buy some duct tape, a power generator and some non-perishable food items to see me through this coming pile-on."

You can't show good humour in the face of a pileon, that's throwing water on the fire.
posted by Bugbread at 1:58 PM on June 20, 2006

This kid's like a character out of a Wes Anderson movie. He should stick around.
posted by amber_dale at 2:08 PM on June 20, 2006

My close friends and I have all had our experiences in being dubbed gifted or whathaveyou, in my case writing some of the marticulation exams Israelis write at the end of their last term of high school when I was, like you, eleven. My anecdotal findings are that precocious children are superb at emulating the jargon of wisdom and maturity, but often lag behind in actual growth.

That's nice, but try to fail less. Some precocious children play the teacher's pet and consciously emulate the style of "wisdom and maturity" as they see it. Others (certainly many Americans – and perhaps this is the source of some confusion here) are proud of their adolescence, believe it or not, and like to flaunt it in their self-expression. Some do both. Fuckin' "unity of authorial voice," jesus, that shit's not unconscious, it takes years to develop. I don't have that! So yeah, nice appraisal there.
posted by furiousthought at 2:09 PM on June 20, 2006

By the way, I just showed the original thread (minus my callout) to my sister, who's fifteen. I told her that either I say that it was written by a thirteen year old, and no one else bought it, or else I say it's a fake, and everybody else bought it. I refused to tell her which is which. I asked her what she thought.

My sister said she was not entirely sure, but that it sounded like it was written by "an adult trying to sound like a teenager"; in particular she picked up on "video games, skateboarding, hanging out after school, getting on AIM and stuff like that" being a composite of canned adult perceptions of what it is teenagers do.

Of course, you could give me a taste of my own medicine and claim I made this up, which would be fair enough; I don't really care. But try this, as an experiment, with your children or siblings, if you have any.
posted by ori at 2:13 PM on June 20, 2006

You were a promising child too, ori. But what could have and should have ripened to genius has rotted, instead.

My advice to you is to try to contain that rot, rather than attempt to pass it on to one as yet uninfected.
posted by jamjam at 2:14 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori, if fifteen-year-old girls had any particular insight into the psyche of thirteen-year-old boys, don't you think that adolescence would be a Very Different Experience?
posted by desuetude at 2:16 PM on June 20, 2006

ori : "But try this, as an experiment, with your children or siblings, if you have any."

My kid said "gurple, buh. abooo. agun!"
posted by Bugbread at 2:18 PM on June 20, 2006

Actually, I'm lying. I didn't show it to him. But since "gurple, buh, aboo, agun" is about all he says anyway, I'm 95% likely that's how he'd respond if I showed him the post. The other 5% likelihood would be crying.
posted by Bugbread at 2:20 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Ah, found it! The Simpsons episode where Homer joins the Itchy and Scratchy show as "Poochie":

The cartoon continues, as Poochie capers about in a proactive and
outrageous fashion, including skateboarding and basketball -- both at
once.

Poochie: [hands out his hand to Scratchy for a high-five] Catch you on
the flip side, dudemeisters. [Scratchy extends his arm --
Poochie withdraws his] NOT!
Hey, kids, always recycle... [screams] to the extreme! Bust it!
[he drives away in the sunset, past the fireworks factory]
-- And thus endeth the cartoon, "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"

posted by ori at 2:22 PM on June 20, 2006

ori said: In short, to me, there is something incredibly false about your response

I say: FeistyFerret, there is something incredibly true about your response. (You're not the first ones to try to distract me with judgemental comments. You're pretty much like all the kids i left back at the public school..close minded and threatened by someone who is different or has had a different experience.) And remember that everyday, new people sign up at MetaFilter and old trolls eventually go away.
posted by mattbucher at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2006

jamjam said, "You were a promising child too, ori. But what could have and should have ripened to genius has rotted, instead."

ori may be wrong, but jamjam is being an asshole.
posted by mullacc at 2:27 PM on June 20, 2006

ori, maybe you should be a man and just apologize? You vomited up all that pointless garbage but still managed to avoid apologizing. Then again--this is my surprised face.
posted by nixerman at 2:28 PM on June 20, 2006

And matt, I really don't understand how/why you clean up after assholes but take no measures to ensure it doesn't happen again. It's only a matter of time until we see more of such behavior in the green. I guess this is just the big down side of having no rules.
posted by nixerman at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2006

Ok, nixerman, maybe you're right.

I wasn't following AskMe that day, but I did click on the "fantastic post" link from the front page. Normally, I try to stick to the question; but a sidebar nod elevated (in my mind) FeistyFerret's response to a more meta level -- i.e., it was now an ambassador for MeFi for first timers or casual visitors. I stand by my opinions and my reasoning, but eegardless of how meta it was, it was still a person on the other end, a point cortex illustrated well, so I sincerely apologize if what I wrote was hurtful.
posted by ori at 2:40 PM on June 20, 2006

Okay, ori, so you still think FeistyFerret is not a 13 year old boy, right? And you have a need to try to make us to see sense-- bringing us all sorts of "evidence." Fair enough, I guess...

But the thing is, you haven't offered even a qualified apology. You know, on the off-chance that you're just plain wrong? Something like, "Hey FeistyFerret, I'm still not convinced. But if I'm wrong I apologize."

By the way... out of curiousity I reproduced your experiment, using the same methodology, with two of my three of kids (14 and 17). Both of them had pretty much the same response: "I know kids just like that" and "Who cares? This is so lame, Mom. You really ought to get outside more."

And on preview I see your apology. Good form.
posted by idest at 2:44 PM on June 20, 2006

Metafilter: Based on our analysis of your posting semantics, we refute your claim to be 13 years old and demand you reveal your true identity. Are you my mommy?
posted by blue_beetle at 2:48 PM on June 20, 2006

Reading between the lines, I think we're all just upset that we scared the poor guy off. He was smart, interesting, and could have been a helpful member of the community. He communicates at a level much higher than his age, and could therefore help you old people (ha!) understand what he's going through in a way that most young teenagers can't. I don't think anyone was way out of line, but a little more politeness couldn't hurt.
posted by danb at 2:53 PM on June 20, 2006

> If you have a suspicion that someone isn't who they claim to be, then go find some evidence, bitch! MeFi has set
> a fairly high bar as far as these things go, and crappy "My reading comprehension grants me prescient insight
> into the nature of anyone who posts here" charlatanry just degrades the site's stellar reputation for crack
> detective work.

shmegegge, is this bunny outrunning this airplane? Or not? Thread needs some of that crack detective work. Go on, swing for the cheap seats!
posted by jfuller at 3:49 PM on June 20, 2006

Here's his mom's contribution, for what it's worth:

IAMTAD (I am married to a doctor) and he says someone with those simptoms is probably experiencing problems with a nerve originating in your lower back. I didn't tell him that I was asking him so I could post back to you (yeah..umm malpractice???) but I would listen to those first two posters..and go see someone about it. Get a consult to spine ortho doc. from your family practice person.
-Angela
posted by FeistyFerret at 9:08 PM NST on June 6

ha ha. I meant symptoms. Should have run spell check. Sorry!
posted by FeistyFerret at 9:11 PM NST on June 6

While there are certain similarities, such as the "ha ha", the "..", the curious misspellings, and the abbreviation of doctor, why, if she was pretending to be her son, would she sign the post? Parents can go to great lengths to advertise their gifted children, certainly, but hey, give him the benefit of the doubt. It's too easy to resent those who actually seem to be doing great things with their lives.
posted by RGD at 3:50 PM on June 20, 2006

you know, I don't think anybody here (unless I've misunderstood people) thinks you were wrong to be suspicious of FF's post. but, for god's sake, the smallest amount of research would have provided you with plenty of reason to believe that, at the very least, it's a lot of fucking work to go through just to give someone good advice as if you were a superbrilliant 13 year old. You can have as much confidence in your ability to nail exactly who someone is or isn't based entirely on one lengthy askme answer as you want, if you REALLY insist on it, but Occam's Razor suggests that it may be time to consider it "overconfidence."
posted by shmegegge at 3:53 PM on June 20, 2006

jfuller, I'm not following your argument.

are you saying that mefi doesn't have much decent detective work in its history, and that saying that a rabbit outran a jet is evidence of this?

i'm assuming that i wasn't clear that i was referring to mefi's various instances of detecting and eliminating self-linkers and such in fairly short order. if I wasn't clear on that, I hope I've been so now, and apologize for any confusion. If I was clear, and you disagree that that represents a decent record for quality internet detecting, then I don't know what to tell you. Good luck with that.
posted by shmegegge at 3:58 PM on June 20, 2006

Herein lies the problem - lots of smart people come around MetaFilter, but they quickly realize the loudest people on Metafilter are dumb and troubled by their own slack, and religiously lash out at anyone new, smart, witty, whatever.

So the interesting ones drift away.

See you never.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 4:03 PM on June 20, 2006

just finished 8th grade at a school that has been ranked #1 in the world by the college board.

Does anyone have access to the College Board list? I can only find Newsweek's, which doesn't show any San Antonio school in the top 100 (nor any Texas school in the top ten.)
posted by ori at 4:23 PM on June 20, 2006

Those rankings are BS anway, and I say this coming from a school that was ranked 70 something by the college board. Basically, they take the total number of students who took AP tests. End of story. So to make a good school, just give tons and tons of AP tests.
posted by matkline at 4:35 PM on June 20, 2006

world news and report*
posted by matkline at 4:36 PM on June 20, 2006

"Who cares? This is so lame, Mom. You really ought to get outside more."

Kewlest meta-kid of the day! Well, ok, second-kewlest.

RGD: look, I got Grissom on the line from Vegas, he says his team is a little busy with a multiple murder plus kidnapping case involving a buddhist monk who run away with a single mom or maybe killed her and a stripper who was set or set herself on fire while falling or being pushed from the balcony of a casino during a roadshow in which a drug baron posing as fashion designer is suspected to have run over three models one of which was probably a man with porphiria, but as soon as they solve that, like, in the next twenty minutes, he'll send over the Internet Posting Forensics experts for an accurate tests. So we'll know for good who's the mom and who's the gifted son.

Meanwhile, you are all under strict orders not to touch the scene of the crime, you could be misplacing the prolly's and kewl's and contaminating the ha ha's.

it's a lot of fucking work to go through just to give someone good advice as if you were a superbrilliant 13 year old.

shmegegge, the funniest thing about that is that the superbrilliant 13 year old in question is already known as superbrilliant, has already been on NPR, National Geographic and is mates with a Kennedy, ffs. What kind of tortured thought processes would lead anyone to even imagine that his mother would need or even want to pose as her son to 'advertise' him on Metafilter? No offense to the popularity of Metafilter, just a matter of perspective...
posted by funambulist at 4:42 PM on June 20, 2006

Well, OK, the school he attends (according to his website) is not even in the top 1000.

but the kids I go to school are like, the type of kids who got almost perfect SAT scores in 7th grade, so its not really a big deal to any of us

Well, the school's own quick facts page says that "the average SAT score from the last three graduating classes is nearly 1400. ".

shmegegge, the funniest thing about that is that the superbrilliant 13 year old in question is already known as superbrilliant, has already been on NPR, National Geographic

Do you actually have evidence for this? Googling for "Chance Ruder" and NPR comes up with nada. Just curious.
posted by ori at 4:51 PM on June 20, 2006

That's cute how ori "apologized" and yet is still trying to debunk the kid.
posted by smackfu at 4:52 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori. You are just plain wrong. My school website is www.keystoneschool.org There are plenty or links about our ranking with the College Board.

And not that it matters, but my brother's school "Communication Arts Magnet High School" was ranked #64 in Newsweek this year. And it is in San Antonio.

Where did you learn to do research?
posted by FeistyFerret at 4:55 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm just waiting for FreakyFerret's mother to come online and tell us he's succumbed after a long battle with leukemia. Then we could all calm down.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:55 PM on June 20, 2006

I think this is the link you're looking for.
posted by smackfu at 4:55 PM on June 20, 2006

ori believes in "presumed guilty until proven innocent."
posted by shmegegge at 4:56 PM on June 20, 2006

Then there's the National Geographic bit. I'm guessing you're basing it on an article printed on the web edition of MySA.com, which is affiliated with the Express News. Well, it says that,

National Geographic Kids is celebrating its 30th anniversary in September and has asked to include him in their "Top 30 Movers and Shakers for the Earth" article.

But not only can I not find any mention of Lance and National Geographic, I can't even find the "Top 30 Movers and Shakers for the Earth" article, or any mention of it, anywhere.
posted by ori at 4:56 PM on June 20, 2006

"leading the world in four Advanced Placement areas for schools in its size range" != "a school that has been ranked #1 in the world by the college board"
posted by ori at 4:59 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori. The name is CHANCE. Write it down. Get it right or just back off. If you looked at my site, I have a page documenting 2 National Geographic articles.

geez.

And you bust on me for being imperfect.
posted by FeistyFerret at 4:59 PM on June 20, 2006

not only can I not find any mention of Lance and National Geographic

that would be because his name's Chance.
posted by shmegegge at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret, glad you're back -- do you have any scanned clippings from National Geographic, or links, or links to the NPR program you participated in?
posted by ori at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2006

funambulist: Twenty minutes? There are torn printouts of six IM conversations stamped into the greased floors of twelve buses travelling to different three different cities over the next six hours, and I've got to find every single one.
posted by RGD at 5:01 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm not back Ori. I'm just tying up a couple of loose ends.

I don't owe you anything. Nada. You can do your own research to try to prove something that you can't.

I avoid adults like you at all cost.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:04 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori:

I'm just curious, is the argument that he's giving fake credentials being made as evidence that he's not a kid, or as a separate, new issue?
posted by Bugbread at 5:05 PM on June 20, 2006

Well, you have a scan of the National Geographic bit, which is convincing enough, but a vol. and issue. would still be nice, or a reference to the NPR interview. Since I'm been pretty much crowned King Asshole of MetaFilter by this point, I ain't holding back.
posted by ori at 5:07 PM on June 20, 2006

Oh by the way, Feisty, I hope you got my joke. You probably weren't around in the Kaycee era. I wasn't wishing you dead is all.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:09 PM on June 20, 2006

You said it, I didn't. At least an a-hole puckers up sometimes. It doesn't always spew out crap.

And no. I'm doing giving you jack. I don't owe you anything.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:10 PM on June 20, 2006

bugbread, I'm just fed up -- my apology, apparently, wasn't enough, and I've been crowned (obliquely) by TheJesseHelms "dumb and troubled by [my] own slack". There's something here that smells fishy to me. I've already been described as some kind of cynical antichrist. My standing can't go down much lower, and my curiosity will be abetted. Hell, if I'm completely and utterly wrong, I will have learned an important lesson.
posted by ori at 5:11 PM on June 20, 2006

that's *I'm not giving you jack*

I know I must be careful with my spelling around here now. Check.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:12 PM on June 20, 2006

How about a link to your website, it's not on your profile page...
posted by fondle at 5:13 PM on June 20, 2006

oops, sorry...
posted by fondle at 5:14 PM on June 20, 2006

Really Ori? I don't think you've learned anything. I think you've proven that.

If your apology was sincere you wouldn't keep posting wrong things that haven't been research correctly.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:16 PM on June 20, 2006

fondle, he erased all the info from his profile, but you can see his website in the Project he posted.
posted by Penks at 5:17 PM on June 20, 2006

It amazes me that people would claim someone was stupid because they don't know the difference between 'weather' and 'whether'. That's so absurd. Spelling is in no way correlated with intelligence, unless it's correlated negatively. People who attack other people for spelling are invariably very stupid people.
posted by delmoi at 5:17 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

ori: Hopefully the lesson learned is that everyone else thinks you're an idiot.
posted by delmoi at 5:18 PM on June 20, 2006

We've managed to come full circle to the original Meta post, except now there's no we.

Why are we picking on the 13 year old? This is really distasteful.
posted by smackfu at 5:20 PM on June 20, 2006

delmoi, if you'd read my posts earlier this page, you'd see it was nothing to do with spelling. i wasn't even the one who noticed the difference between "weather" and "whether".
posted by ori at 5:20 PM on June 20, 2006

feistyferret, I would like to caution you against engaging in this any further. Typically, around here this kind of thing just goes badly for all parties involved and no one's any happier by the end.
posted by shmegegge at 5:22 PM on June 20, 2006

"If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

Ori has given us all the most decisive disproof of this hopeful proverb anyone could ask for, today.

"Enough. Or Too Much."
posted by jamjam at 5:23 PM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret: Don't let the assholes get you down. Unfortunately there is a lot of cynicism around here, so if you let people get to you this might not be a good place to hang out. Too bad because there really is a lot of intelligent discussion around here.
posted by delmoi at 5:24 PM on June 20, 2006

:::12 MetaFilter user(s) link to this user::: growabrain goodnewsfortheinsane (muse) ObscureReferenceMan (muse) Suparnova (crush) sadie01221975 (muse) Marit (muse) Space Kitty (muse) Sprout the Vulgarian (muse) desuetude deborah (muse) Squid Voltaire jdroth (muse)

lllllllol you are crushing/musing on a 13-year-old boy...thats pretty lame right there. and probably illegal in most states.
posted by naxosaxur at 5:25 PM on June 20, 2006

Shmegegge: I know, I know. My dad just said the same thing. You are right. Ok. I'm done. Thank you everyone. I saved all your emails. I'll try to write you all back.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:27 PM on June 20, 2006

i wasn't even the one who noticed the difference between "weather" and "whether".

Please point out where I said you were.
posted by delmoi at 5:27 PM on June 20, 2006

Publication: National Geographic Kids magazine (formerly WORLD)
Title: Kids Did It!
Date: Sept. 2005
Pages: 16-17
Subject(s): Children
Notes: 30th Anniversary Collector's Edition
3-D contents theorize what life will be like 30 years in the future; glasses included.
Contents: 30 kids to watch, where they live, and what they are doing.
Included: Photos of all the featured kids.

posted by bigmusic at 5:28 PM on June 20, 2006

ori : "my apology, apparently, wasn't enough"

I'm not trying to bait you, but where was your apology? I saw that you wrote something up above that was quite reasoned and sane and stable, but it still ended up being "I called your bluff" (that is, "you are bluffing"), so I don't think that's it. Perhaps it was a different comment?

shmegegge : "feistyferret, I would like to caution you against engaging in this any further. Typically, around here this kind of thing just goes badly for all parties involved and no one's any happier by the end."

Ditto. You seem like a good guy, Feisty, which is why I advised you against participating in this thread. It never, ever goes well.
posted by Bugbread at 5:29 PM on June 20, 2006

"And despite being reasonably well-lettered, I have no idea what the Bodleian Library is, or where on god's green web the Portguese Biblitoteca Nacional might be. Get over yourself, will ya?" Posted by stavros

that had me laughing hard.

I'd just like to note that despite this, Miguel and I became (at least for a time, until he disappeared from our ken, jolly good internet friends, and I miss him, virtually speaking).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:31 PM on June 20, 2006

Got it
I'll be quiet now.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:31 PM on June 20, 2006

Do you actually have evidence for this? Googling for "Chance Ruder" and NPR comes up with nada. Just curious.

Maybe you wouldn't have so many problems if you knew how to google. I mean I entered in the exact same string you quoted and got 114 links. The first one is at a site called "amazing kids! of the month". Unquoted it's 441k results.

Really dude, just shut up before you embarrass yourself anymore.
posted by delmoi at 5:32 PM on June 20, 2006

Er, I should clarify: I found the part where you apologized for putting a non-answer in the AskMe thread, and that's appreciated. I think the other apology which was requested but not provided was for calling Feisty a liar based on thin evidence.
posted by Bugbread at 5:32 PM on June 20, 2006

Oops, I misread you. Heh. Oh well.
posted by delmoi at 5:32 PM on June 20, 2006

I don't think Chance ever said that he was NPR. Funambulist did say that though.
posted by bigmusic at 5:37 PM on June 20, 2006

by the way, bigmusic is my fucking hero. first he puts an entire shakespeare play into a thread, then he saves the deleted stuff from feisty's thread, THEN he goes and finds the national geographic issue ori's making a big deal about using a simple search for the kid's name on the national geographic site. word up.
posted by shmegegge at 5:38 PM on June 20, 2006

It really seems to me like ori's behavior on this thread is nothing short of harrassment, which I think might deserve a time-out. I wonder if mathowie or jessamyn might agree....
posted by JMOZ at 5:41 PM on June 20, 2006

Mmkay. My dad read this verse to me cuz I was all freaked and angry. It says:

"In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry."

It is 7:50pm and the sun is almost gone. I don't have much time to say this so I'm going to just say it.

Ori. I'm sorry for getting mad. I forgive you for not really believing me and I understand. I'm sorry you got attacked. I'm sorry I said that about a-holes. That wasn't very respectful and messed up. I wish I hadn't let my frustration get me. I'm really sorry for that.

I hope we can be friends someday. I would like all of us to be friends. Ok? Everyone? Please?

wildly,
chance
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:42 PM on June 20, 2006 [3 favorites]

And the kid's good-looking, too. Maybe with any luck he'll get rich and meet my daughter.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:45 PM on June 20, 2006

bigmusic: my bad! it was Air America Radio, not NPR. Someone posted the linked to the audio clip above.
posted by funambulist at 5:46 PM on June 20, 2006

Maybe your daughter will get rich and fund my research? :-)
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:46 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Hahaha wow ferret, you're kewl! :D
posted by fondle at 5:48 PM on June 20, 2006

Sometimes when youre the dork all the time, it helps to get people to laugh a little. hey you said kewl. :D
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:49 PM on June 20, 2006

Oh gawd... I'm practically weeping here...
posted by idest at 5:49 PM on June 20, 2006

This has got to be the strangest MeTa thread I've seen since I started lurking here a few years back. I'm glad it looks like Fiesty's staying. Good on 'ya kid for not letting the internet get 'ya down. I think everyone should take a step back, breathe, and leave this developing farce alone. The best point I saw here was bugbread's comment about the snark psychosis that seems to permiate the Meta-community. The problem I see is that, for all our posturing, we are still on the internet, and so we still are, for the most part, a bunch of fatheads most of the time. It's cool though, it's just the internet, and we'll all get over it. Having said that:
"I'm on my way to WallMart to buy some duct tape, a power generator and some non-perishable food items to see me through this coming pile-on."
Ori, you can't possibly be who you say you are. WallMart? It's too easy. Wal-Marts are all over the place now, not just in the States, and everyone knows they're named after the Waltons and not the things that divide rooms. That Yakov Smirnov routine won't work on me buddy boy.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 5:49 PM on June 20, 2006

Cool (or "Kewl" which I said when I was around that age :P). Hope you stick around FeistyFerret. It can be very upsetting to be attacked, but if you are going to have strong opinions then you're going to get attacked. That's just how things are, and you've got to just let it pass.

Anyway, good luck.
posted by delmoi at 5:53 PM on June 20, 2006

Not if he meets mine first.
posted by dg at 5:53 PM on June 20, 2006

delmoi- while I agree with what you're saying, I'm not sure that, "I am who I claim to be" really qualifies as a strong opinion. *ooh, a nit! Let me pick it!*
posted by JMOZ at 5:54 PM on June 20, 2006

"Maybe your daughter will get rich and fund my research?

Ah, the times they are a-changin'.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:57 PM on June 20, 2006

delmoi- while I agree with what you're saying, I'm not sure that, "I am who I claim to be" really qualifies as a strong opinion. *ooh, a nit! Let me pick it!*

I'm not saying it does, but he obviously does have some strong opinions as well. I guess what I meant was, people who stand up and say things get attacked. People who don't, erm, don't. The nail that sticks out of the board gets pounded on and all that.
posted by delmoi at 6:00 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm just happy he didn't turn out to be u.n.owen
posted by Tenuki at 6:05 PM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret, I forgive you, too, for making things up about your school. I will carry on elsewhere, not in this thread.
posted by ori at 6:09 PM on June 20, 2006

whhat? I did not.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:10 PM on June 20, 2006

OH MY FUCKING GOD!
posted by shmegegge at 6:10 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

haha.
(but I didn't)
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:12 PM on June 20, 2006

Bah, forget it. Best friends forever, etc.
posted by ori at 6:13 PM on June 20, 2006

naxosaxor:
I put "crush" because I am also 13, and nerds are rare in my parts.
posted by Suparnova at 6:13 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori. shut up. tell them I didn't make it up or I'll come to canada and womp on you.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:14 PM on June 20, 2006

:-)
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:15 PM on June 20, 2006

supernova, i'd respond but i'm actually more afraid of my gf than of ori. I'll just say thanx. :D
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:16 PM on June 20, 2006

Haha, you are very welcome.
posted by Suparnova at 6:17 PM on June 20, 2006

she carries a violin and has mad nija skill from gymnastics. danger danger. haha
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:18 PM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret, I forgive you, too, for making things up about your school. I will carry on elsewhere, not in this thread.

WOW. Was that supposed to be sarcastic?

By the way, if you go to the schools website, there is a part in the flash animation that says "Ranked #1 in something" Science I think. There's no link to a story, but the school itself claims that they are ranked number one in something.
posted by delmoi at 6:19 PM on June 20, 2006

that's *ninja* and *skills* gah.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:19 PM on June 20, 2006

Keystone's Advanced Placement Program
Declared Best in the World in Four Subjects
posted by delmoi at 6:21 PM on June 20, 2006

delmoi i'll check but for some reason safari doesn't open up our school page for me. I have to ask to borrow my dad's laptop. then i'll tell you where to look. But I think if you look in the NEWS menu, there are tons of links. And yeah we did dominate in science too.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:22 PM on June 20, 2006

Mmkay you found it. uh Kewl. *ducks and covers*
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:23 PM on June 20, 2006

Dear ori, shut up please. Seriously.


posted by chiababe at 6:24 PM on June 20, 2006

Wow, ori. Just wow.

Baptism by fire, Feisty. It happens, but congrats for doing so beautifully. You earned your name, and then some.

*spits in ori's general direction*
posted by mediareport at 6:26 PM on June 20, 2006

And then a 37-year old lesbian develops an internet crush on a 13-year-old boy. I think *I* need to take a break from Metafilter now.
posted by pomegranate at 6:27 PM on June 20, 2006

Nooo. It's ok everyone. Just let's be friends. I don't want ori to feel like I did and I dont want anyone to be mad. Lets just be funny ok? Or smart or something. Lets just decide to do that.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:28 PM on June 20, 2006

I take offense to being called a 37 year old lesbian.
posted by Suparnova at 6:29 PM on June 20, 2006

feisty, my all caps exclamation was at ori. it wasn't meant to criticize you in any way, but was rather meant to imply that I was agog at ori's response.

imagine me looking like this when i say it and you get the idea:

|||
oo
 |
 0
posted by shmegegge at 6:30 PM on June 20, 2006

Nova... ha not youuu. Hey do you have a myspace?
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:32 PM on June 20, 2006

I don't tagline very often, but I like this a lot.

Metafilter: Lets just be funny ok? Or smart or something. Lets just decide to do that.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:35 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Indeed I do.
posted by Suparnova at 6:35 PM on June 20, 2006

oh my gosh. aren't you going to get in trouble for putting it HERE? go put it on friendz only. i"m serious. go do it right now.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:39 PM on June 20, 2006

Wow.

Matt, thanks for taking this off the Ask post. I ran back to check if there were more miserable people attacking Feisty, and was glad to see all our comments gone.

bigmusic, thanks for salvaging the comments -- specifically Feisty's -- so that I could see them.

I got really bummed as I read through this post as I saw all the comments of Feisty going away and I was pretty sad that the cynic parade had won out.

But then..! I got so excited and almost yelped when I discovered he had come back and that he had not given up on the site. And THEN he had to go and turn the other cheek and forgive that total asshole ori (I am not as evolved Feisty, sorry). I mean, wow.

If Chance.. (sorry, I try to stick to nicknames) started a religion, I would probably sign up. I mean, woot. Much love to him and his family and everyone else responsible for making him who he is.

And Ori, I think you're a total jealous prick. I hope you learn one day that it's ok to say "Woops! I was wrong, my bad", and that no one will think less of you for it. You can't force something to be right for you because you're too stubborn to give up.

OH! AND Chance, I think Jesse Helms was saying the opposite of what you took him to say. YOU were not the dumb and the like, it was people like Ori, who somehow feel threatened by you. So..reverse your perception on that.

<3
posted by cavalier at 6:39 PM on June 20, 2006

Hope you stick around, Feisty. Intellect is great but it goes so much further when combined with the maturity to let things go, as you have. (But if you don't, well, thanks for your terrific contributions . Best wishes!)
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 6:40 PM on June 20, 2006

I just changed it to my real age so that it is automaticaly friends only.
posted by Suparnova at 6:46 PM on June 20, 2006

FeistyFerret, I forgive you, too, for making things up about your school. I will carry on elsewhere, not in this thread.

Fucking hell, it's been ages since I've actually been eyebrows-up surprised by a MeFite. What a knob.
posted by bonaldi at 6:51 PM on June 20, 2006

Here, I hope "carry on elsewhere" doesn't mean Ori's gone to email. Leave the kid alone, you obsessively suspicious loon.
posted by bonaldi at 6:53 PM on June 20, 2006

Nova do you want to see Josh's video to get into comm arts? I'll send you a link. stay on for a sec.
posted by FeistyFerret at 6:57 PM on June 20, 2006

Cool.
posted by Suparnova at 6:59 PM on June 20, 2006

Durrr, I just re-read parts of the thread and realized it was Ori complaining about being called dumb by Jesse and not FeistyFerret. So, nevermind Chance, my bad...!

And Ori's profile now reads 'gone as of 20 june 2006'. There's something fake about that warble warble..
posted by cavalier at 7:01 PM on June 20, 2006

ya I know cav, but I didn't think it was a good idea to mention it.
posted by FeistyFerret at 7:03 PM on June 20, 2006

cavalier: ".... And Ori's profile now reads 'gone as of 20 june 2006'...."

For those who were awaiting a flame-out, "Not with a bang but a whimper." (T.S. Eliot)

Not a lot of style, and certainly no grace, but at least he had enough decency to walk away (eventually).
posted by JMOZ at 7:10 PM on June 20, 2006

thank god. not that ori's gone, but that SOMEONE flamed out, finally. do you have... any... idea how long we've been waiting for it to happen? it's been like really muggy weather and you just want it to fucking RAIN for christ's sake.
posted by shmegegge at 7:11 PM on June 20, 2006

I dont want anyone to be mad

Feisty, it doesn't work that way. The site runs on the respect we have for the usernames behind the posts/comments - some folks call it social capital. ori just lost a ton of that here. It's pretty much impossible for this not to affect how a lot of us will take comments from ori in the future, and that's independent of whatever you work out between the two of you.

On preview, ori's apparent decision to drop the account (and probably come back under a new name) makes perfect sense. There are some things you just kind of know you won't be able to come back from easily, and ori's astonishingly stubborn and obnoxious participation in this mess is probably one of those things.
posted by mediareport at 7:14 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

FF - glad you're back.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 7:16 PM on June 20, 2006

>I dont want anyone to be mad

>>Feisty, it doesn't work that way

Damn straight.

Unlike the rest of you prodigies, being angry and bitter was the one thing I excelled at as a child.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:41 PM on June 20, 2006

Ori:

I hope you come back, too (maybe under a different name). Sure, you were being a bonehead here, but I got the sense that normally you're a decent enough type, and this just stuck in your paw. Maybe I'm wrong, but if this is the only flaming you've gotten, then sign up under a new name, carry on posting, and just never address this issue again.

And if you fuck up with the new account, then maybe it's time to move on.
posted by Bugbread at 7:43 PM on June 20, 2006

Is anybody else anticipating ori's return and subsequent un-masking at the hands of MetaFilter Detectives (The MeDicks!) with breath bated out the wazoo and trembling fingers chock full of snark just waiting to be typed?

...

Liars.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:56 PM on June 20, 2006

FF:
After reading through the whole thread, I has happily astounded to see your "turn the other cheek" response.
If more people kept a level head like you did, well, I would actually partake in political threads, USA would not be in Iraq, and we would all be one big happy family.

BTW, I read your AskMeFi post and if you're interested in working on genetics or other molecular biology disciplines I know my college research professor would have been stoked to just sit and talk science with a teenager who actually cared. Maybe your teachers could to set up a meeting with a professor at a University in town. While, if they have the equipment you say they do, you could still do the research at school, talking to one would allow you to find possible opportunities for research (I did cancer research for a while and just jumping into it without a mentor would be pretty difficult) and general guidance in that discipline of science. Heck, I'd be interested in exchanging e-mails related to cancer if you want (was my college concentration- e-mail's in profile)
posted by jmd82 at 7:59 PM on June 20, 2006

This thread made me happy. A lot of people on this site could learn a thing or two from FiestyFerret.

Also, I thought I was young around here, at 19. Jeez.
posted by danb at 8:19 PM on June 20, 2006

FiestyFerret

Heh. Starting with me.
posted by danb at 8:20 PM on June 20, 2006

Wow. What a perfect illustration this whole epic (starting in the ask thread through this one) is of "adults" failing to be able to communicate with kids because they've lost touch with that part and have only suspicion and cynicism left - which leads them to do some of the most classically "childish" shit ever seen.

And by "adults" I mean, of course, ori.

Of course, you could always just APOLOGIZE WITHOUT QUALIFICATION and then shut up, and most people would forgive you in a second.
posted by soyjoy at 8:49 PM on June 20, 2006

so, don't hate me or anything for it (not that i see any reason to) but i'm ori's 15-year-old sister (the one he was talking about), and i had some things i wanted to say about this whole argument/discussion/whathaveyou.

the point is, my brother may have been pretty blunt and 'uncorteous' with what he said about FeistyFerret. He may have been wrong, too. but you have to at least try to be fair and understand where his suspicion stemmed from- he did, after all, apologize and tried to understand your point of view.

i've read the thread, and i can appreciate that FiestyFerret (ie Chance) is intelligent, mature, whatever. It's just that being a teenager of roughly the same age as chance, and living in our North American, western, first-world, whateveryouwanncallit society, i'm on the computer alot. so i'm what you'd call exposed to teenage internet speak for several hours a day.

after reading this post which my brother sent me, and before knowing his opinion (i really don't care if you believe me, but i know i'm not lying so i don't care), i could see that some of this "teenage internet speak" sounded pretty forced, kinda like an adult who really wanted to sound like a kid. kinda like someone who knew kids well (ie a parent) who could write what he or she wanted while emulating the internet writing style of a youth.

all in all, i have to be honest and say i'm still not sure if it was indeed Chase that wrote that post. sure, you can answer me and say you're not really sure it's alona writing this post- again, i truthfully couldn't care less. i'm just stating my opinion on this bias-free forum.
posted by alona at 9:18 PM on June 20, 2006

I don't think alona is 15.


KIDDING! haha. I really don't care.
posted by graventy at 9:21 PM on June 20, 2006

It's moments like these when solipsism is really a comfort.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:29 PM on June 20, 2006

I hate that chatspeak shit, I don't care how old you are. It makes you sound dumb. If you know the english language you should be able to type it out. Ori's sister seems to be able to.

Also, please don't refer to a 13-year-old as an adult. I don't care how well spoken he is, he's not an adult.
posted by puke & cry at 9:31 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Are there any other family members who want to chime in on this? Because this is really pissing off my Uncle Ned.
posted by horsewithnoname at 9:34 PM on June 20, 2006

Yeah, horsewithnoname.

Your mom wants me to tell you...uh..nevermind.
posted by graventy at 9:39 PM on June 20, 2006

wow, i've discovered that people here can make fun of just about anything you say, no matter how irrelevant it is to the topic.

maybe that's the charm of this place!
(i'm not sarcastic at all, it actually is quite interesting)

anyways, i think it's safe to call this argument over. unless anyone has anything else they want to nitpick at?
posted by alona at 9:42 PM on June 20, 2006

I don't think anyone was making fun or nitpicking anything you said, alona. Although you might be referring to something else? Anyway, this argument was over before it started.
posted by puke & cry at 9:49 PM on June 20, 2006

There was a comma splice up there, somewhere.
posted by cortex at 9:52 PM on June 20, 2006

I find this whole thread really interesting. Initially I thought this was some ingenious trolling to try and create a huge flamewar, which it certainly has. Perhaps it could be a troll, I'm not sure, however, I am astounded how the thread progressed.

Ori posted his view citing that he thought that the whole thing is fake. And he was brutally attacked continually without rational jusitification.
I think he just hit a nerve in many people, especially Americans. One thing it seems that Americans revere is the whizkid, the kid that embodies some great thing, the kid they want their daughter to marry. This is the kid who will go to the holy Ivy Leagues (another classic American staple to show how America is great).

Upon Ori hitting this nerve, I found it rather predicatble how people lashed out. He did criticize some core American beliefs and it is only natural for Americans to justify them. But the manner in which it was done, which is strongly malicious and unsophisticated, is completely uncalled for. I thought that people here were of sufficient maturity to hold rational debate regardless of the topic at hand. I find it incredibly hypocritical that Americans which culturally venerate and emulate thinkers such as Voltaire would do the opposite.

The reason why most people are defending the kid is because he is a part of Americana. People got pissed off that this came under attack and launched an emotional attack on its attacker, Ori. And of course people chided in with the demagoguery comments to fuel it.

As for this kid, I find him to be a complete bullshit artist. If you check his website, it's the most fabricated piece of crap ever. I find it hard to believe that he actually makes any of the content himself, doing so would be remarkably egotistical and vain, even for an arrogent prodigy child. Everything is so contrived. Look at the essay about his name, who writes that? It's the sort of stuff you find listed as the ideal college admissions essay that got the student accepted. Those essays are entirely false, as is FeistyFerrett.
posted by etienne at 10:09 PM on June 20, 2006

Regarding alona: This could be a brilliant move by ori to make enough people scrutinize someone who claims to be a 15 year old girl so that the insuing debate, itself, becomes distasteful. Then everyone looks like hypocrites.

Well played...ori...well played.
posted by Pacheco at 10:10 PM on June 20, 2006

Etienne, could you please tell this confused American what country I would need to be from to find Ori's behavior acceptable?
posted by BinGregory at 10:16 PM on June 20, 2006

@Pacheco

Perhaps, but I really doubt it. I don't think he has any grand scheme.
posted by etienne at 10:17 PM on June 20, 2006

oh god please stop using the fucking at-sign to address people
posted by cortex at 10:28 PM on June 20, 2006

Hey, wow... hi. I'm a little late for this party, I guess. If anybody cares, though:

I'm really just sorry that it cost ori his dignity to sort this all out. This should have been a calmer exchange where people who smelled something fishy were simply disabused, but it seems most mefites post with their pitchforks and torches next to their mouse.

Also, thanks for the empathy occhiblu.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 10:28 PM on June 20, 2006

BinGregory - ok, tell me why you find Ori's behaviour unacceptable.
[this is not sarcasm or anything, I'm want your answer]
posted by etienne at 10:29 PM on June 20, 2006

tell me why you find Ori's behaviour unacceptable

Because he was being a grade-A asshole. You have suspicions about someone's authenticity, you do some homework and approach the idea carefully. You don't just stack up your assumptions and open up a broadside. It's shitty, shitty behavior.

Only from a position of supremely confident presupposition could ori's behavior not be questionable—and as most of the folks here don't seem to see his assertion as meriting significant (let alone supreme) confidence, shit met fan.

As for the style and substance of the conversation: such is Metatalk. Neither condoning nor condemning it. It is what it is.
posted by cortex at 10:37 PM on June 20, 2006

It's shitty, shitty behavior

and that merits a vociferous attack?
posted by etienne at 10:47 PM on June 20, 2006

and that merits a vociferous attack?

Why, yes, actually. Shitty, shitty behavior merits a vociferous attack. Yep. Sounds like just the thing.
posted by mediareport at 10:56 PM on June 20, 2006

i think it's safe to call this argument over. unless anyone has anything else they want to nitpick at?
Boy, have you got a lot to learn about this place.

oh god please stop using the fucking at-sign to address people
A-fucking-men - that annoys me a hugely disproportionate amount. Oh, wait, now we know there are kids around, do we have to stop swearing?

and that merits a vociferous attack?
At the very least. I see you also have a lot to learn about this place.
posted by dg at 11:05 PM on June 20, 2006

So wait, are we heading towards some sort of Americans vs. world divide in this thread? What a weird development.

Among other things, if I were judging the behavior of someone from a different country, I'd try to be a little circumspect. After all, there might be things about the culture you don't know.

I don't really care that Feisty is the most brilliant kid ever or anything. He does seem like a valuable member to have around, though, and diversity of viewpoints - age as well as country! - is valuable. I see no reason to doubt that FeistyFerret, or the person currently writing under that name, is 13, and no way to actually sort out the difference, because multiple people are known to use the account. A determined spoofer can fool everyone for years without that advantage. We know that well enough around here.
posted by furiousthought at 11:20 PM on June 20, 2006

are we heading towards some sort of Americans vs. world divide in this thread? What a weird development.

Nah, Etienne's just trying to keep things alive by posting over-the-top idiocy. Total sock puppetry.
posted by mediareport at 11:36 PM on June 20, 2006

now, there were certainly some people who were losing their ever-loving minds about ori's remark before anything really terrible was said, but by and large the reaction, as can be seen at the top of this thread, was "well, the kid's taking it fine. no biggie."

I'd say the point where things started getting out of hand might be here, although since I'm myself I can say with some authority that the anger in the tone of that comment was entirely exaggerated and directed not at someone criticizing a brilliant 13 year old but rather at someone accusing folks of being a liar because they honestly believe that they have a near flawless understanding of how a 13 year old writes.

Where I would actually place the moment where the first "I'm so angry because someone was mean to a kid," comment came in was here. But notice how far down the thread that is.

The rest of this was people talking about mountains and molehills, and not liking a thread derail in the green before those two comments. So no, I'd say that etienne's accusations about cultural bias and "vociferous attacks" are largely fictional. The real anger and insults started being thrown around when ori made his backhanded/insulting apology. If you honestly can't see why people would be bothered by that comment, and especially the ones that followed it, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you're not quite following the implication of his final statements?

Or, maybe you're just ignoring it.
posted by shmegegge at 11:49 PM on June 20, 2006

MetaFilter: maybe you're just ignoring it.
posted by Duncan at 12:32 AM on June 21, 2006

so, don't hate me or anything for it (not that i see any reason to) but i'm ori's 15-year-old sister (the one he was talking about), and i had some things i wanted to say about this whole argument/discussion/whathaveyou.

Best laugh of the day.
posted by delmoi at 12:48 AM on June 21, 2006

When I was 11 I prolly scored as high on my SAT's as Ori and Goose did as seniors (ya I prolly did..sorry)

Dear Jesus. Fuck this kid, man. You people are defending this? Ori's skepticism, which was only an aside, was both innocuous and defensible. FeistyFerret, on the other hand, immediately whips out this snooty punk kid bullshit, shades of that little cunt in Todd Solondz' Storytelling. Ori could have been gracefully ignored if his skepticism offended oh-so-delicate sensibilities*; the true ugliness came not from ori, who turned personal only in reaction, but in the perverse, irrational and vicious mob outpouring on display in this thread:

Why are we picking on the 13 year old? This is really distasteful.
posted by Saucy Intruder to etiquette/policy at 9:18 AM PST

*spits in ori's general direction*
posted by mediareport at 6:26 PM PST on June 20

ori: Hopefully the lesson learned is that everyone else thinks you're an idiot.
posted by delmoi at 5:18 PM PST on June 20

You were a promising child too, ori. But what could have and should have ripened to genius has rotted, instead...
posted by jamjam at 2:14 PM PST on June 20

And Ori, I think you're a total jealous prick.
posted by cavalier at 6:39 PM PST on June 20

Of course, ori has good company, because this same exact sort of irrational anger greeted the "Kaycee-Nicole" skeptics who, in an extremely similar manner, were said to be "monsters" "attacking" a poor defenseless cancer girl:

STOP! STOP!! STOP!!!

this is deplorable. it's making me sick to my stomach!...as far as i am concerned, all the cynics can go to hell.
posted by bwg at 11:30 PM PST on May 18


...I'm 99.9% sure this is not a hoax at all (like I'm 99.9% sure that gravity pulls things down towards earth).
posted by mathowie at 2:07 PM PST on May 19

why do we have so much trouble trusting? ...maybe we should take the blinding light we have so strongly focused on being doubtful/judgmental/jealous/nitpicky about everyone else's lives and turn it a little more inward, look at what these thoughts say about ourselves...
posted by queenkelly at 9:40 PM PST on May 19

insensitive buffoons...Next time I see "My [grandma/friend/livestock] just passed away..." on one of your sites, expect an email from me demanding you prove it. Then we'll see how *you* feel.
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 11:35 PM PST on May 19

How perfectly goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure.

* Godforbid anyone express the slightest degree of doubt over an unusual Internet identity. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go talk to that nubile 18 year old gymnast on MySpace who's been mysteriously eager to have AIM sex with me.
posted by dgaicun at 1:34 AM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

Among other things, if I were judging the behavior of someone from a different country, I'd try to be a little circumspect. After all, there might be things about the culture you don't know.

Although etienne was doing his best to pass for a 13 year old, I have unmasked his ruse. He is in fact Bernard-Henri Levy.
posted by BinGregory at 1:40 AM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

Yep. Um. FeistyFerret is now on my list of people who are going to quietly revolutionize this world, and ori is now on my list of incontrovertible sociopaths. Only about eight people have ever made either list, and nobody has ever been dropped. (Not because it's disallowed, only because these kinds of personalities make it fantastically unlikely.)

And FeistyFerret, for what it's worth, give your dad the compliments of a random 25-year-old on the Internet. Even though no actual Bible admirer would be as young as 25, or would know a big word like 'incontrovertible'.
posted by eritain at 1:42 AM on June 21, 2006

Previously on CSI:Metatalk...

an unusual Internet identity

Hmm, so he fooled the National Geographic, AirAmerica, Discovery, etc. too? Or is his mom an extraordinarily accomplished ventriloquist? Whatever it is, that's clever, you have to admit.

And, out of curiosity, exactly what is similar between someone posing as a cancer patient to solicit money from well meaning gullible people, and (someone who you believe is posing as) a kid boasting exceptional accomplishments after giving a reply in AskMe about how to interact with kids?

Now I don't believe anything tragic and irreparable happened just because some people were being ridiculously obsessive jerks on the internet. But what I can't get my head round is, what possible motivation grown men (hmm, not much evidence there) can have to treat this as if it was, I don't know, Rumsfeld claiming the Iraqi WMD were hidden on Mars?
posted by funambulist at 2:17 AM on June 21, 2006

question for parents and metafilter users who have kids:

do you let your 13-year-olds and "tweens" join, post, and read metafilter, metatalk, askme? At 13, is it protocol to allow your kids' complete control over website visits from their home computers? How does it work at 13?

i'm just curious...
posted by naxosaxur at 3:11 AM on June 21, 2006

Ori was an idiot. His scepticism may have been innocuous and defensible as an initial reaction, but most people would have researched a little before having the nerve to post about it within the question. He compounded this error (of not checking first) by continually appearing unable to find evidence for things the kid mentioned, which I personally was able to find easily.

It looked worse that he refused to actually apologize, and that was the bit where he came across as a prick. Personally, I found his behaviour to be distasteful because I managed to find sufficient evidence of Chance's identity with about three clicks, and after his long rebuttal, there was tons of google-able information. This made it seem as though he were being deliberately obtuse. However, it is possible that this was merely his idiot side reappearing, as both he and his sister have been unable to spell 'Chance' right for an entire post, which probably explains their complete lack of google-fu on the subject. (Seriously, what kind of random dyslexia gets you guys 'Chase' and 'Lance' and whatever else you tried?)

PS: I am not american. I am just as insanely jealous of superkids as anyone else. Luckily I don't like animals, so I'm less jealous of this one than most.

Although it is possibly coincidental, the kid's entire website has disappeared. Either ori has unmasked a gang of fake child prodigies, they're having unrelated server problems, or he's taken it worse than it seemed and pulled his website as well as his profile. I think that would be sad.
posted by jacalata at 4:05 AM on June 21, 2006

naxosaxur, my kids know about MetaFilter, but have little interest in spending time here, let alone joining. I have, occasionally, sent then links to threads I find helpful, amusing, or interesting. And yes, they have complete control over what they visit from their own computers.

My 17 year old daughter goes to a 'laptop school' wherein every kid is online in every class all day, so she got her own laptop and a lot of autonomy at age 13-14. I'm sure she has seen things I'd rather she hadn't, just as I'm sure she is sometimes doing things she (prudently) doesn't tell me about.

Having demonstrated an ability to handle the internets, the 17 year old paved the way for her sister (14) , who was given her own laptop for Christmas this year. I trust that I've raised them well enough to be sensible.
posted by idest at 4:07 AM on June 21, 2006

No, please, naxosaxur, don't use that word.
posted by danb at 4:09 AM on June 21, 2006

Jacalata. I'm just trying to fix these two broken links that roll over and work but look bad. that's all. I took it down to look at the html to see if the prob is in a page name or something.it takes a long time to load up cuz it's iWeb which is huge files. slowness.
posted by FeistyFerret at 4:29 AM on June 21, 2006

Ferret: good to know, I hope you stick around here too.
posted by jacalata at 4:34 AM on June 21, 2006

Stop the insanity. Stop blowing on embers.

I think ori's coming back as the sock puppet is really sad, and really funny.
posted by cavalier at 4:39 AM on June 21, 2006

Thanx. i'm frustrated with the links cuz everytime i bring it offline to fix a word or add a page, some link goes bad and turns into a question mark when i roll over it. I fixed it once but its not working this time. *annoying* Im going to switch to dreamweaver so the files wont be so big before school starts.
posted by FeistyFerret at 4:42 AM on June 21, 2006

well it's back up but it's not fixed. we have ProCare so I'll go see the apple guy this week to figure it out.
posted by FeistyFerret at 5:17 AM on June 21, 2006

You know, with the douchebaggery shown by nearly EVERYONE in this thread, directed at everyone ELSE in this thread, I sometimes wonder if a directed EMP at the server colo where Metafilter lives wouldn't be a bad thing.

Blow all you highly sophisticated, pretentious fucks called "database queries/users" into a blinking prompt that says "NTLDR NOT FOUND".
posted by disclaimer at 5:26 AM on June 21, 2006

or maybe its "NTLDR missing" - whatever the digital equivalent of a steaming crater is
posted by disclaimer at 5:28 AM on June 21, 2006

Feisty: DW is goodness. Your site will love you for it.
posted by disclaimer at 5:29 AM on June 21, 2006

You know, with the douchebaggery shown by nearly EVERYONE in this thread, directed at everyone ELSE in this thread,

I kind of liked how a few stragglers showed up today to attack the kid, just when things were dying down.
posted by smackfu at 6:26 AM on June 21, 2006

The treatment of Ori in this thread is off-putting and disrespectful, given the seriousness and sincerity of his long initial post.

Incidentally, @FeistyFerret - does your entire family use your login?
posted by waxbanks at 6:31 AM on June 21, 2006

Fuck man, stop with the "*annoying* slowness. Thankz cuz" bullshit. If you're really some doogie howser prodigy child learn to type like a normal human please.
posted by puke & cry at 6:31 AM on June 21, 2006

Oh my God, you're all retarded. That's the only possible explanation for the slo-mo flameout, the incredulity at Ori's sis, the knee-jerk defense of a arrogant teen, the endless rancor over a pea under the mattress...

The Kaycee responses are illuminating (though I tend to believe that Chance is a real, immaculately bred and groomed child).

But 200 some responses on this? You're all retarded.
posted by klangklangston at 6:34 AM on June 21, 2006

ps. I'm 4 years old and made out of wood!
posted by waxbanks at 6:35 AM on June 21, 2006 [2 favorites]

George Bush doesn't care about teenagers.
posted by Otis at 6:38 AM on June 21, 2006

My 17 year old daughter goes to a 'laptop school' wherein every kid is online in every class all day,

Oh my god that sounds horrible.
posted by agregoli at 6:46 AM on June 21, 2006

Metafilter needs age limits.

Or, when we apply for accounts, we have to prove our identity, either by meeting an admin in person (with a valid photo ID and birth certificate) or some sort of webcam-type solution.

We should probably submit resumes too, and verifiable life stories. We shouldn't be trusting these fuckers who say "IANAD" or "IAAD" or what have you.
posted by graventy at 7:23 AM on June 21, 2006

Sometimes I feel it's just me and 30000 dhoyts in here.
posted by Krrrlson at 7:29 AM on June 21, 2006

He's on to us. Me. Whatever.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:32 AM on June 21, 2006

Actually, I'm a bhoyt.

Incidentally, @FeistyFerret - does your entire family use your login?

Profile used to say as much, I think.
posted by cortex at 7:48 AM on June 21, 2006

Apparently I had an IQ of 165 when I was 14. It's fucked now because I smoked shitloads of dope and drunk til Jack Daniels smelling piss was the order of the day. I don't think I am smart, maybe I have a wide series of interests and very little depth but you know what? I don't get jealous easy.

There's plenty of people on MeFi who are smarter than me, plenty who are stronger than me, better at chess and everything else but I guarantee we are all better at one thing than someone else. tkchrist might whup my ass in a fight, but maybe I can paint better than him. Languagehat might speak more languages then I can remember, but maybe I could climb mountains better than he can. For every weakness I have there is a corresponding strength and we are all alike in this. Don't get jealous of another person's skills and capabilities because there is always something you can do that they can't.

So in summary - wear sun screen.

Otherwise, Bobba and me have decided that whilst no disintegrations was the order of the day yesterday, that disintegrations are now back on the menu.
posted by longbaugh at 8:32 AM on June 21, 2006

Oh my god that sounds horrible.


agregoli, why does that sound horrible? She chose that school, likes that school, and is doing well in that school. Her sister, on the other hand, chose a large public school, likes that school, and is doing well in that school.

Where is the terrible? Not defensive, just curious.
posted by idest at 8:58 AM on June 21, 2006

> Incidentally, @FeistyFerret - does your entire family use your login?

Profile used to say as much, I think.

And was, in fact, quoted as such upthread. Odd that waxbanks, who has been participating in this thread from its first hour, would find that a relevant question to ask. But then you see that waxbanks uses that godawful "@" sign in front of names and you realize waxbanks is simply beyond hope.

I have to say, though, the sister thing - whether a literal sock puppet or an honest-to-god sister prodded to come on here - was hilarious. Mostly because of an odd resonance: I've only ever had the "I had a friend of mine look at this thread and they agreed with me" tack presented to me once before, and that was in an e-mail from a user, since departed, whose name I won't cite but who made the phrase "cut off my hand" a household word in MetaTalk. I'm not saying that ori, or his sister, is actually that very person (though it would be fun to make ori prove that he isn't, as FeistyFerret is supposed to prove he's not his own mom) - I'm only offering it as an insight into what kind of person thinks that is a valid rhetorical strategy. Made me chuckle, anyway.

And to anyone else who keeps beating the "you've been mean to ori" drum, remember the phrase "you are a liar and a fake." It's not just that ori was wrong, but that such a charge should not be made without extremely convincing documentation - and sad to say, the workings of ori's mind in hearing certain words or phrases does not qualify as such.
posted by soyjoy at 9:20 AM on June 21, 2006

dgaicun: FeistyFerret, on the other hand, immediately whips out this snooty punk kid bullshit, shades of that little cunt in Todd Solondz' Storytelling.

Oh, that's lovely. Thanks for your contribution.
posted by pardonyou? at 9:38 AM on June 21, 2006

naxosaxor:
My parents don't particularly monitor my computer use, besides generally looking over my shoulder at odd moments. It is that way for a large majority of my friends. I was introduced to Meta through my older brother.
posted by Suparnova at 9:56 AM on June 21, 2006

From now on I'm going to assume everyone else here is a talking dog.
posted by puke & cry at 10:10 AM on June 21, 2006

Well, apparently ori has left the building so there you go. The system works!
posted by nanojath at 10:24 AM on June 21, 2006

Well, I'm not sure that's the system working, exactly. I didn't want ori gone, I just wanted him to acknowledge and consider modifying this specific behavior.
posted by cortex at 10:30 AM on June 21, 2006

I love pancakes. Don't need anything fancy in 'em, either, just good old plain pancakes.
posted by cavalier at 10:47 AM on June 21, 2006

I suspect some mefites (justifiably) envy the heck out of Chance, which may explain some of the rancor seen in this and the original thread.

If every brainiac kid could get the kind of supportive, off-the-grid mentoring that he's apparently received since he was tiny, we'd have a different world. Instead, too many kid geniuses are neglected, resented and beaten down by standardized schooling, which leaves them angry and hurt and still smart enough to they've missed out on something essential. (Note too: Not all mentoring is positive. Not all "mentors" are healthy or good.)

The wonderful thing about young genius is how idealistic it is, and if jealous mefites want to try to turn this young environmentalist into a cynic I wish they'd just back off. We need more idealism, more hope and more invention in this damaged world, not less.

I hope Chance stays around and contributes to many future threads. He's one of the more interesting contributors I've seen here, and I think he and the community would benefit from him hanging around.

Just an aside, at 13 it might be time to have that talk with the parents about having some online autonomy. A single identity is 5 bucks here, and one Ferret may be enough for the room.
posted by Scram at 10:56 AM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

ori hasn't left the building, he just changed socks.
posted by Floydd at 11:02 AM on June 21, 2006

I am ori. In fact, we are all ori.
posted by Pacheco at 11:26 AM on June 21, 2006

Metafilter: I avoid adults like you at all cost.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 11:36 AM on June 21, 2006

Wow.

Well, let me be the first to say it: etienne = ori.

Also, glad you stuck around, Chance!
posted by languagehat at 12:00 PM on June 21, 2006

man, I was just thinking "I can't believe languagehat hasn't stopped by to see the flameout! He's totally been begging for one for so long!"
posted by shmegegge at 12:14 PM on June 21, 2006

This is the best thread I've ever read. Humanity's folly and hubris in microcosm.
posted by influx at 12:25 PM on June 21, 2006

Well, hopefully this makes up for all the times people yelled at me for starting one.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 1:21 PM on June 21, 2006

Etienne is not ori
They are two individual dickheads.
posted by Floydd at 1:32 PM on June 21, 2006

Just because I agree with a few things ori said makes me him.
You guys have really villified him.
Look how true this has become
posted by etienne at 1:43 PM on June 21, 2006

Look how true this has become
Right. That's what we've been saying.
About both of you.
posted by Floydd at 1:48 PM on June 21, 2006

I refute that I have been a total dickwad. I gave my opinions and you gave your and I have yet to label you a dick.
posted by etienne at 2:25 PM on June 21, 2006

As for this kid, I find him to be a complete bullshit artist.

Yeah, you've been a real peach.
posted by cortex at 2:37 PM on June 21, 2006

Dickwad in reference to the comic
posted by etienne at 2:41 PM on June 21, 2006

Well, I'd be shocked if you stood up at a meetup and rattled off your pat thesis about nerve-pinched Americana-ists and what a bullshit artist so-and-so is. Likewise ori. Likewise some but not all of what has come from the other side of the conversation. The Anonymous Fuckwad rule seems to apply.
posted by cortex at 3:03 PM on June 21, 2006

This whole thread would have been completely different if it had happened in a real-life meeting. Which is why I brought up the anon fuckwad rule. A lot of important converational information is lost through this medium.

Why would you be shocked if I made this statement in real life?
posted by etienne at 3:16 PM on June 21, 2006

Because it'd be a tremendously weird and antisocial thing to do?

I recognize the big differences in online vs. face-to-face conversation, and like both for their differences. But the anon fuckwad rule is not a general statement of that difference; it's a statement toward one symptom of the difference.

I can't say every comment I've made on mefi is something I'd be comfortable translating to real face-to-face conversation, but I've been trying to move in that direction. If I'd be embarrassed to say it to another person's face, with or without an audience, there's probably something fundamentally crappy about it.

That's not necessarily the yardstick by which Mefi in general should be measured, but I think it's worth thinking about and paying some heed to. Most of the things that bother me here fall into that particular bucket of assholery, including a four paragraph telloff about how you've got these fuckin' Americanists figured out. That is why it would shock me to see you do that to a dozen living breathing mefites at a bar.
posted by cortex at 3:21 PM on June 21, 2006

If I had spoken that at a Mefi meetout, I would think that it would been digested much more easily. People would be able to determine the intonations of my voice, when I was being sarcastic, and so on. Plus people could interject. It would lead to a much more calmer discussion with a higher level of understanding on both parties' sides.
posted by etienne at 3:26 PM on June 21, 2006

If you want to take it in that direction, though, just about any comment can be explained away. "Well, you know, I would have said it differently, you know, in person."
posted by cortex at 3:29 PM on June 21, 2006

The anon fuckwad rule relates to comments made by people who attach their real names to their comments? Yeah, that makes sense. Come on, etienne/ori/goosebumps, you can do better than that.
posted by mediareport at 3:38 PM on June 21, 2006

True, although I think what I originally wrote was misinterpreted nonetheless, which would have suffered less misinterpretation face to face.
I completely agree with what you said re the mefi comments in real life and how you are trying to move towards that direction. I try to too.
Anyway, I would have wished to continue this conversation but I must go. I realize that I started in a way that was going to galvanize people, but I did so thinking people would be more rational. It's like all those conservative mefites that left because of their views being crushed.
posted by etienne at 3:38 PM on June 21, 2006

Come on, etienne/ori/goosebumps, you can do better than that.
for fuck sake I am NOT ori nor anyone else. Just a single person
posted by etienne at 3:39 PM on June 21, 2006

Riiiiight.
posted by mediareport at 3:41 PM on June 21, 2006

Eh, benefit of the doubt. Ask Matt to check IPs, come up with a little bit of background, or let it go. If ori was schizo enough to pull off a flawlessly seperate and unprovable sockpuppet, what would there be to do about it?

etienne, I'm always game for conversation, as are a lot of people around here, when you're willing to talk it out. Folks tend to get a bit galvanized online, though, and especially in Meta—complaining about irrational responses to your self-admitted provocation isn't going to earn you much sympathy. The real trick, if you're looking for conversation more than merely A Response, is not to be so provocative in the first place.
posted by cortex at 3:49 PM on June 21, 2006

"self-admitted"? Sometimes editing just doesn't pay off.
posted by cortex at 3:50 PM on June 21, 2006

Oh, shut the fuck up, mediareport.
posted by klangklangston at 3:52 PM on June 21, 2006

Oops. There goes your high horse, klang.
posted by mediareport at 3:53 PM on June 21, 2006

It's like all those conservative mefites that left because of their views being crushed.

is this a phenomenon that happened before i joined mefi? because i don't remember this happening.

regarding the you=ori thing, I think the majority of people who have said this, especially mediareport, are saying it tongue-in-cheek to get your goat, or just to amuse themselves and others regardless of whether or not your goat is, in fact, gotten. there may be some people who insist it's true, but there'll be people who insist on ANYTHING stupid being true. To ascribe, based on that behavior, an entire systemic flaw in the metafilter community (which seems to be your modus operandi, frankly) is a pretty foolish thing to do.

People would be able to determine the intonations of my voice, when I was being sarcastic, and so on.

I think this would be the perfect time for you to tell us precisely when you were being sarcastic. Was it when you said that americans rush to defend all brilliant children? or was it when you said that ori was brutally attacked? that would certainly make your argument more reasonable.
posted by shmegegge at 3:55 PM on June 21, 2006

I believe it was a "you're retarded" horse, actually.

On the other hand, the temptation to sing "klang klang klang goes the high horse" is nearly overwhelming.
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on June 21, 2006

I realize that I started in a way that was going to galvanize people, but I did so thinking people would be more rational.

Right, that's why I always enter a discussion shouting "Fuck you!" It's because I expect people to be rational.
posted by languagehat at 3:59 PM on June 21, 2006

OK, I've finally read through this entire thread. What a ride. Here's my meager contribution.

FeistyFerret: I get what you're about. Sorry we screwed up the planet so much, it's gonna be a hell of a mess for you, your kids & grandkids to clean up. Thanks for taking it on.

etienne: I'd be OK with dropping the whole matter but if you're going to continue the conceit of being ori's little sister, could you provide some verification of your own identity? Maybe a phone call to some reputable MeFite (is that an oxymoron?) not at the center of this nonsense or an email to them naming your MySpace account, something like that?
posted by scalefree at 4:10 PM on June 21, 2006

scalefree, it is alona who claims to be ori's sister. etienne is, as far as I know, unfettered by any claimed relationships within the mefiverse.
posted by cortex at 4:15 PM on June 21, 2006

It's like all those conservative mefites that left because of their views being crushed.

Just like the Force runs strong in the Skywalker family, avidly following MeFi social politics runs strong in ori & etienne's.
posted by scalefree at 4:23 PM on June 21, 2006

Now how did I miss that? Ah well, my bad.
posted by scalefree at 4:25 PM on June 21, 2006

What high horse? Pointing out that the vast majority of comments in this thread have been made by the obviously retarded isn't much of a high horse, and telling you to shut the fuck up when your endless nattering gets to be too much is both called for and something that I would happily do in person, shitcock.
posted by klangklangston at 4:29 PM on June 21, 2006

So it's handbags at dawn eh, ladies?

*measures up coffins*
posted by longbaugh at 5:35 PM on June 21, 2006

This was one of the greatest threads in MeFi history until you sh*tcocks (which is, I believe, the proper phrase) started blabbing about Intarweb etiquette.

To those of you defending ori, I was granting him the right to skepticism (although I gave FF the benefit of the doubt from the outset) until he asked for scanned articles. That was the point for me where he crossed over into prickishness -- at some point you just have to acknowledge that yes, FF might not be a kid. That's called the Internet, kids. He could actually just be some form of alien intelligence perpetrating a huge hoax on the world involving falconry, and you know what? You'll never know. So stop acting like a prick. Even if you ori was right, he was still a prick. End of story.

(Incidentally, I just realized that the previous sentence about non-falsifiability is pretty much precisely the same as FF's "can't prove a negative," meaning that I got pre-owned. Less incidentally, FF's response was one of the greatest (o/p)wnings/ninjaing/schoolings I've seen in my years here.)

(This is something of a late contribution/rehashing, I admit, but I wanted to re-rail the thread. Can we please stop talking about at-symbols and Penny Arcade strips and archive this thing?)
posted by spiderwire at 5:47 PM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

until he asked for scanned articles.

Oh, see, my own personal "AHHHH! SHUT THE FUCK UP" moment was when the scanned articles were deemed insufficent because a vol. and issue number weren't provided.
posted by desuetude at 6:43 PM on June 21, 2006

I believe I've worked the kinks out of the control mechanism for my new EMP detonator.
posted by disclaimer at 7:10 PM on June 21, 2006

spiderwire : "until you sh*tcocks "

What's with the editing of the swear words? We're all adults here.

*rereads thread*

Ohhhh. Riiiight.

/sh*tc*ck
posted by graventy at 7:45 PM on June 21, 2006

Now, a lot of people ask me about maple syrup. I don't think a good pancake needs it. However, true maple syrup, the darker the better, does indeed add a delicious kick. So fine, pancakes can be plain, and maybe just a hint of syrup, mmmm good.
posted by cavalier at 7:54 PM on June 21, 2006

If its dark syrup you are looking for, I would suggest cane syrup...especially Steen's. You will never use maple syrup again AND you will smother your pancakes in the goodness of pure Louisiana sugarcane.
posted by Pacheco at 8:08 PM on June 21, 2006

I really prefer a lighter syrup. The dark stuff is too sweet for me.
posted by JMOZ at 8:09 PM on June 21, 2006

Chance, there is one positive to the whole debacle that started with a great and earnest answer. And that is that I got to know a little more about you and your amazing accomplishments.

Thanks for that. I added you as a metafilter contact and I hope to hear more from you.
posted by freudianslipper at 8:26 PM on June 21, 2006

In this corner, wearing the foolscap and prickish aura, a wannabe poet, alleged university student and immature adult, we have, from Canada, Kid "Vol. & Issue No." Oriiiii!!!!!

And in this corner, wearing the cowboy hat, brass knuckles and earnest manner, a precocious, intelligent, and idealistic 13 yr old, from Texas, Feisty "Big Man" Ferrettt!!!!

FF remains standing and ori gets ko'd. Loved it.

FF you gave a great response in AskMe. Thanks.
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 9:50 PM on June 21, 2006

...until he asked for scanned articles. That was the point for me where he crossed over into prickishness...

Screw that, he crossed over long before that. I'll grant him a quick trigger finger on claiming FeistyFerret was a kid, which is either totally absurd or the perpetration of an intentional, detailed, backstoried fraud. I'll grant him the right to fum fuh a little when confronted with the obvious deficiency of his contention, which was backed up, in the end, by nothing more than a casual analysis of language.

His assumption could have been cleared by a modicum of research, maybe he would have, as I did over a week ago, discovered FeistyFerret's Wildlife Ambassador website and thought okay, so maybe he is really a 13 year old kid. Before I accused someone of being a liar and a fake I guess I'd spend 10 minutes examining the clear and easily available evidence. But anyway.

No, the point it crossed over is exactly the point Ori decided he couldn't hold up the "you're not thirteen" accusation and decided, instead of offering a simple, sincere apology, to attack FeistyFerret's resume instead. He's thirteen, okay? Let's let him fake at least a couple of articles for the New York Times before we start tearing into his credentials. By the time Ori was demanding scanned articles, he was well into sheer ridiculousness. You know? I am well convinced, on the meager evidence, to accept FeistyFerret for what he appears to be: an exceptionally bright teenager. I don't need to know for absolute sure what his school ranking is.

And now through floydd's comment I see Ori wrote a long apologia of sock puppets? Oh yeah, school me on being dishonest on the internet, man. I'm sure that "article" on Meta (ooh, aren't you just so clever?! With your poetry and everything) was purely theoretical.

Straight up jerk. One identity down, unknown number of "alternate identities" to go. Mmm, sock hunt.

To FeistyFerret and family I can only say, so, okay, this place gets like this sometimes. When people start seriously talking about pancakes it generally means there is nothing of any significance left to say. Welcome to Metafilter!
posted by nanojath at 9:59 PM on June 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

FeistyFerret, I'd also like to welcome you to MetaFilter. Thought your original comment on the AskMeFi rocked, all of your comments really, including those here. I felt inspired and encouraged reading your site.

Some years ago I watched a show about a boy called Craig Kielburger. He was 13 when he founded a human rights organisation, which is now internationally successful and has helped half a million kids around the globe. Kids can do amazing things. Some grown-ups too. :) I wish you the best of luck and much success with your work.

These are two practical sites I found useful about internet conflict:
Flame Warriors and Flamer Personality Disorder.
posted by nickyskye at 10:35 PM on June 21, 2006

Wow! I did not expect this. I jumped in the original to say to Ori and GooseonTheGreen to back off and read Chance's website before going any further and I come back two days later to this (It is Europe and I am working)
Whatever else you say about Ori, I'm not sure what the etiquette is on him posting my response in private e-mail correspondance as some kind of justification for his suspicions on this MetTalk thread. Hmmm!
Any way I'm pleased to see that my first suspicions about the cynical brigade on metafilter is not accurate (post removed I think as it responded to Ori and GooseonTheGreen). There is some amazing talent in this community, and the very least I expect from Metafilter is that we respect that talent no matter what shape or form it present in.
Oh and FF, my 16 year old says you rock :-). Please don't mention it to the Ninja GF
posted by Wilder at 12:44 AM on June 22, 2006

When I was thirteen I went to the dentist for a filling. He said the material he would tamp into the cleaned cavity was plastic. Then he paused and said, "By 'plastic' I don't mean plastic plastic, I mean...." and he hunted for a word.

I said, "Malleable?"

I was goddam lucky he didn't pull all my wisdom teeth out.

Next.
posted by mono blanco at 2:17 AM on June 22, 2006

Earlier I said:

I retract my doubts about the kid's authenticity - that was unfair, and FeistyFerret, if you're reading, I apologise.

This was the most fucked up thread I've ever read on this site. And FWV,VLIW my doubts are back - if the same person posted all the FeistyFerret posts in this thread, I feel sorry for that person, deeply so.) But enough time has passed that I can see the irrelevance and self-consuming ridiculousness of this whole affair. THANK FUCKING ALLAH!

I just wanted to come and celebrate with you guys, whom I (collectively) love and despise in almost equal measure. I mean OK let's admit it: mainly despise.

The @username convention is to catch people's attention, by the way. I'm trying it out, have never actually used it before this week that I can recall. I find it helpful in such threads. Meh.
posted by waxbanks at 9:47 AM on June 22, 2006

Hey look, waxbanks' head just exploded all over the internet.
posted by spiderwire at 3:35 PM on June 22, 2006

waxbanks, the reason folks don't like the '@' is that it's completely unnecessary and distracting. Look at the last time you used it: "Incidentally, @FeistyFerret - does your entire family use your login?"

Why not just do what the normal conventions of spoken English require, without adding a new symbol? Like so: "Incidentally, FeistyFerret, does your entire family use your login?"

See? Completely unnecessary. Even when you use it to start a response to a comment, like "@bigmusic:" it's unnecessary. "bigmusic:" works just fine, and has been used like that for years here. Please stop using a symbol that does nothing but break up the flow of conversation in an unnecessarily jarring way. Thanks.
posted by mediareport at 6:25 PM on June 22, 2006

clearly, some of the younger people in this thread are far more mature than some of the older people. calling someone a dickwad because his opinions don't match yours? insulting someone's nationality?
i appreciate the fact that people here are intelligent and when you put a lot of intelligent people in one room or on one forum, arguments are bound to break out.
now, how about a tip for you: instead of replying to this post with some sort of insult, why don't you re-read it, think about what i've said, and calm the fuck down!?
each person here is an individual and it's in threads like this where it seems no one else has any respect for that.
chase, i'm glad you stuck around, you seem like a smart, great kid. as for the other youths like myself, i think we lighten up the atmosphere around here.
clearly, you adults need some sort of reality check- no one here is going to kill you for your opinion. maybe if we weren't attacked for giving ours, us teens would state our opinions more frequently, and you wouldn't be so surprised next time you saw one of us posting a thoughtful reply.
posted by alona at 10:38 PM on June 22, 2006

alona: I know you're busy being young and intelligent and lightening up the atmosphere for all the old people, but for fucks sake get his name right as well, just once, ok?
posted by jacalata at 11:49 PM on June 22, 2006

i'm not busy being young and intelligent... as has been demonstrated, there are others here busy being just that.
posted by alona at 9:16 AM on June 23, 2006

dgaicun: read more carefully. Ori was just dumping tons of crap in the thread and agitating people. He couldn't let go of his theory, even in the face of mounting evidence. The fact that FF and Kayce Nicole were both defended is entirely irrelevant. People defend global warming and evolution and all sorts of true things all the time. People sometimes defend false things (like Ori's theory).

As an asside, I honestly thought this thread was pretty much done when I posted my last comment. How dissapointing it is to see it continued.
posted by delmoi at 1:04 AM on June 24, 2006

Man, I would have loved to have had metafilter when I was a kid. Although I fear I would have been far more insufferable then I am now.
posted by delmoi at 1:11 AM on June 24, 2006

This 19-year-old has stolen my name and piled up a list of achievements that I could only imagine. He must be destroyed, along with all other people who are younger/better than me.
posted by JDC8 at 8:53 AM on June 25, 2006