It was a Bad Call, Ripley, a Bad Call

August 16, 2010 5:22 AM

I agree with Artw – Jessamyn, I respectfully opine this was a bad call.
posted by WCityMike to MetaFilter-Related at 5:22 AM (210 comments total)

It would probably help if you opined why you think it's a bad call.

The author of the post wrote this as the first comment: "Just to clarify: I'm not posting this as "loljuggalos" but simply because violence against stage performance, regardless of their caliber, is absolutely fucking abhorrent."

Jessamyn's deletion reason is "This post was deleted for the following reason: the difference between loljuggalos and "this is fucking abhorrent" isn't really so much for an FPP. It's really a "look at this assholes" sort of thing which is already turning into an loljuggalos thread. -- jessamyn"

It's seems pretty straight forward. Making a post just because you feel the actions behind the links are "fucking abhorrent" doesn't make a strong post and weak posts have stronger tendency to be deleted.

Ok, what's next?
posted by nomadicink at 5:30 AM on August 16, 2010

I'm sort of ambivalent over whether the post was good or not, but could we get rid of the "look at these assholes" justification for deleting posts? At any given time, half of the posts on the front page could fall under that category.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:34 AM on August 16, 2010 [10 favorites]

could we get rid of the "look at these assholes" justification for deleting posts

Or at least acknowledge a distinction between "look at these assholes" and "we need to have a clarifying discussion about exactly what it is about these people that makes them assholes".
posted by DU at 5:36 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Also.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:37 AM on August 16, 2010

Ultra-violence, me droogies.
posted by telstar at 5:39 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I agree with the deletion.
posted by rtha at 5:40 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

...but could we get rid of the "look at these assholes" justification for deleting posts?

I hope not. To me, it's a good rule to have and helps to keep Metafilter from descending into a shit hole. I don't come to Metafilter for "look at these assholes" posts and were they to become ok here, I'd stop coming by as much.

There are plenty of places on the web where one can go to look at the freak show that is humanity (Hello, CNN). I personally would like to see Metafilter continue to strive for something more than that.
posted by nomadicink at 5:41 AM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

I'm all for seeing less "Look at these abhorrent people and the abhorrent things they did" around here myself, whether it's grarjuggalos or grarcops or grarpublicans or whatever. The New Post page says, "Found something cool on the web?" If your answer to that question is, "No, it's not really cool, it's actually ABHORRENT," maybe post it somewhere else?
posted by Gator at 5:45 AM on August 16, 2010 [12 favorites]

Newsfilter, Hatey-hate. We all know where CNN is. its url is in fact cnn.com. Not too hard.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:47 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

What do you want to happen here? Do you want the thread opened back up? Why? What value would that bring? Or is it that you have an idea about community standards and want to keep those in check? Or are you trying to alert the community to what you feel was an unjust action by one of our moderators? Why call her out like that? What is it that we should be having a discussion about?

I'm seriously trying to figure out what is going on.

Also, a jessamyn tag? Really? In other words, IMHO, "I agree with Artw – Jessamyn, I respectfully opine this was a bad call." reads pretty disingenuously to me. Nor is it respectful.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:47 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't come to Metafilter for "look at these assholes" posts

Who does? The point is, the declaration that something is a "look at these assholes" post is subjective and vague, and doesn't help the poster or other members craft better posts. Let's ask ourselves: why exactly did the mods think this was a bad post? Because we've had enough ICP posts on the blue lately and there is already an open thread on The Gathering of the Juggalos. So why not say that?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:48 AM on August 16, 2010

I took a look at the links from the deleted post. None of them seem particularly great, just a run of the mill wikipedia article, a standard CNN "here's a thing that happened" article, and a brief post on the band's web site (I think).

It's possible to make a good FPP related to this event. If, say, someone had written a fascinating analysis of the cultural or behavioral reasons why things like this happen, or any really well-written and insightful commentary on it, then that could be the meat of a good post. But this isn't that.
posted by FishBike at 5:51 AM on August 16, 2010

Recipe: take one subculture populated mostly by working class white people, add one talentless 'celebrity' and marinate in beer for several hours. Serve lukewarm.
posted by fixedgear at 5:52 AM on August 16, 2010

I don't really give a shit whether the post was deleted or not. I do read other sites than MetaFilter to get my "news", and I didn't expect MeFi discussion was going to be any more illuminating than the discussion on, say, Sensible Erection, which I also read (when not at work).
posted by kalessin at 5:58 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Tia Tequila + Juggalos? And someone is trying to revive the dead? Jeffery Christ Almighty. I'd be more likely to pour a thousand tons of concrete on top of the new grave to make sure no ghostly remnants walk MetaLand.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:02 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The point is, the declaration that something is a "look at these assholes" post is subjective and vague, and doesn't help the poster or other members craft better posts.

In this case I disagree, since the deletion reason specifically states the reason the author gave for making the post was weak.

I took that to mean, don't make posts just to point out how horrible something is. The post probably would have gone done better if it had discussed the juggalo community and it's relation with violence, both as means of catharsis and the worry from those outside the community. As it stands now, the post reads like it's about Tia Tequila and paints the juggalos as savage jackasses. What's the history here, do they hate Tequila, was this planned, does this occur at most juggalo concerts, what?

Side note: The title of this MeTa post is a line from the movie Aliens, in which a scummy bureaucrat attempts to pass of his decision that got Marines killed as just a "bad call". I'm not sure that's the message you want to spending with this post.
posted by nomadicink at 6:03 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

don't make posts just to point out how horrible something is

Really? No posts about terrorist attacks? Hurricanes? Earthquakes? Global warming? Global warming deniers? The Tea Party? Crazy Nazi plots? Hiroshima? There are many good posts that point out how horrible something is. The imaginary line for letting those stand and killing others is not whether some are "look at these assholes" or not. In every post in which "look at these assholes" is used as a justification for deletion, there is something more meaningfully wrong with the post. I humbly suggest that in the future the mods use more detailed and/or precise explanations for why a post is deleted.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:11 AM on August 16, 2010 [6 favorites]

The event is interesting, the pics and video in the 3rd link are interesting, but there is no information beside "she was bad and she was hammered".
What is there to talk about?
At least if we could know why her presence there was out of the ordinary (was it a provocation from the organizers?), why did they allow it to last for 3:30? and why security failed to protect an artist off the stage, there would be room for debate.
But the topic is framed as a snapshot (did you see this?) and it should last no longer than a snapshot.
posted by bru at 6:12 AM on August 16, 2010

Really? No posts about terrorist attacks? Hurricanes? Earthquakes? Global warming? Global warming deniers? The Tea Party? Crazy Nazi plots? Hiroshima? There are many good posts that point out how horrible something is

We're in subjective territory now, with "good". There have have been many posts about how bad something else, not all of them were good and not all of them stayed. No doubt if there was another 9/11 type of event, a single link CNN post MIGHT be allowed to stay just from the sheer magnitude of the event, but it's not guarantee.

To me, the reason this post was deleted is because the author admitted to putting it up just so people could sort of gawk and I can understand the mods not wanting to encourage that sort of behavior.

At this point, it's getting kind of unproductive to go back and forth over this. Jessamyn or one of other mods will probably be along soon to fully articulate why the post was deleted. Maybe we should wait until they chime in?
posted by nomadicink at 6:21 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Metafilter doesn't do white trash well.
posted by empath at 6:21 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Isn't it grand that we live in a world where 'loljuggalos' is not only a word, but a word that contains (at least!) three distinct layers of orthogonal cultural baggage, and the vast and often troubling implications that their intersection brings?
posted by dirtdirt at 6:23 AM on August 16, 2010 [19 favorites]

In every post in which "look at these assholes" is used as a justification for deletion, there is something more meaningfully wrong with the post.

I think the problem is more that there's nothing meaningfully right. A post doesn't start out as good and certain ingredients turn it bad. It starts out as bad and someone has to add good ingredients to make it good. "Look at these assholes" is a deletion reason because that isn't enough to make a post good, and it's often the only ingredient.
posted by scottreynen at 6:24 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

At this point, it's getting kind of unproductive to go back and forth over this. Jessamyn or one of other mods will probably be along soon to fully articulate why the post was deleted.

Ha! I suppose I should be satisfied that you're now also making my point for me, though I'm still not sure you get the gist of my argument.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:26 AM on August 16, 2010

"Recipe: take one subculture populated mostly by working class white people..."
Posted by fixedgear

Wow, Classist much? How the fuck do you ascertain that then? were they all wearing a badge with WORKING CLASS on it?

wikipedia: "According to Utsler, "[Juggalos come] from all walks of life -- from poverty, from rich, from all religions, all colors. [...] It doesn't matter if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or a crack rock in your mouth."

so, yeah, just blame the poor. jeez.
posted by marienbad at 6:28 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Um. What? You're disappointed that we aren't having a rousing discussion of Tila Tequila getting assaulted by juggalos? You did link to right post, right?
posted by desuetude at 6:29 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, a jessamyn tag? Really?

Just a fun side note, but Jessamyn uses the Jessamyn tag too. Cortex has been tagged a lot more in Metatalk though, so I guess we know who the real troublemaker is among the mods.
posted by nomadicink at 6:29 AM on August 16, 2010

though I'm still not sure you get the gist of my argument.

Your point is that you think the deletion reason for this deleted is vague and subjective and you'd prefer a more concrete reason be given for this and other posts. I disagree with your reasoning. Moderating Metafilter by hard and fast rules would be counter productive, IMO.
posted by nomadicink at 6:35 AM on August 16, 2010

At least if we could know why her presence there was out of the ordinary (was it a provocation from the organizers?), why did they allow it to last for 3:30? and why security failed to protect an artist off the stage, there would be room for debate.

My impression was that 'throwing shit at the artists' is pretty common there.
posted by delmoi at 6:38 AM on August 16, 2010

Your point is that you think the deletion reason for this deleted is vague and subjective

Yes.

and you'd prefer a more concrete reason be given for this and other posts.

I don't know about concrete. Just more specific.

I disagree with your reasoning.

You disagree that at any given time, many of the posts on the front page that do not get deleted could also be considered "look at these assholes" posts?

Moderating Metafilter by hard and fast rules would be counter productive, IMO.

Say what now? Where did that come from?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:38 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

How the fuck do you ascertain that then?

...

wikipedia: "According to Utsler, "[Juggalos come] from all walks of life -- from poverty, from rich, from all religions, all colors. [...] It doesn't matter if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or a crack rock in your mouth."

You are quoting Shaggy2Dope as a supporting citation on demographics.
posted by The Straightener at 6:38 AM on August 16, 2010 [46 favorites]

You know, we didn't even used to have deletion reasons. Deleted posts used to just disappear into the ether like they never existed. Mind-blowing, huh?

But now deleted posts are visible, along with a short explanation as to why they were deleted. There's no reason each and every deletion has to come with a lengthy dissertation as to why, when there's shorthand that's pretty well-understood on MetaFilter: "Double," "Self-link, banned, "Eh" or "Meh" to indicate something that's just too thin and weak to stay on the front page, and "Look at these assholes," which is a phrase that's been used around here for at least three years as shorthand for "This is a post that has little to no redeeming value, it's basically just to forum for us all to get our grar on about these abhorrent people and the abhorrent things they did, they suck amirite?" Sometimes referred to as "Outragefilter," which has been around even longer.
posted by Gator at 6:39 AM on August 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

You know, we didn't even used to have deletion reasons. Deleted posts used to just disappear into the ether like they never existed. Mind-blowing, huh?

Mind-blowing maybe that you're using as an example a situation where the site operated one way, people requested that it change, and it did.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:42 AM on August 16, 2010

Yeah, and how about all that other stuff I said?
posted by Gator at 6:45 AM on August 16, 2010

That other stuff you said was meant to support your argument that the site operates in a fixed way, and has for a long time. The example you used to begin that argument demonstrated the opposite of that.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:47 AM on August 16, 2010

Someone really must introduce the Juggalos and the Teabaggers.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:49 AM on August 16, 2010

You disagree that at any given time, many of the posts on the front page that do not get deleted could also be considered "look at these assholes" posts?

Oh yeah, I totally disagree with that. Those posts may have an element of "look at these assholes" or "lolwhoever" but the posts aren't built on that sentiment and I do believe that's the distinction here

Say what now? Where did that come from?

Oh, you just seem to be looking for more concrete guidelines and that doesn't really work with Metafilter as it currently is. There's a lot of gray areas in terms of moderation and trying to establish hard and fast rules for those gray areas, other than "do what's best for the community in the least painless way" is counter productive to what makes Metafilter a good site.
posted by nomadicink at 6:51 AM on August 16, 2010

I remember when cortex just hit you with a bat rather than giving you a reason for deletion.
posted by electroboy at 6:52 AM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

Could we get rid of the "look at these assholes" justification for making posts?
posted by Plutor at 6:53 AM on August 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

Oh, you just seem to be looking for more concrete guidelines and that doesn't really work with Metafilter as it currently is. There's a lot of gray areas in terms of moderation and trying to establish hard and fast rules for those gray areas, other than "do what's best for the community in the least painless way" is counter productive to what makes Metafilter a good site.

I'm not asking the mods to adopt new rules. I'm simply requesting that they stop using "look at these assholes" as a deletion reason. That's my two cents. Which I've now given several times. So more like eighteen cents. Which is probably (certainly) more than was necessary to get my point across. I bid you all adieu.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:55 AM on August 16, 2010

I generally oppose deletions, but I'd support this one.(*) It's current news that will be forgotten in a week and there's really not much to the story. It's just clutter, and an excuse for people to say "Wow, that's awful."

(*) If my opinion counted, which it doesn't, or things would be a lot different around here, oh yes.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:57 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's how you do disaster posts:

No posts about terrorist attacks?

Compelling first hand accounts...

Hurricanes?

Sattelite data, interesting forecasts (the NWS service people sometimes break through the scientific jargon with very direct and interesting warnings), great galleries of photos of the aftermath.

Earthquakes?

Real time mapping, animations of earthquake motion, etc.

Global warming? Global warming deniers?

Chewy data filled reports. Simulations of the effects. Interesting rebuttal attempts.

The Tea Party?

Substantial political/sociological/historical analysis. Primary document manifestos of the non-timecubey sort.

There are many good posts that point out how horrible something is.

Not if they just point it out.
posted by Jahaza at 7:00 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

working class white people

Fuck that guy!
posted by Deathalicious at 7:06 AM on August 16, 2010

Someone really must introduce the Juggalos and the Teabaggers.

Oy! can you imagine the offspring!? We'd have to call them Teajuggers or Baggalos or Tugblows or something.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:06 AM on August 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

I'm simply requesting that they stop using "look at these assholes" as a deletion reason.

Even when the poster gives that as reason for making the post?
posted by nomadicink at 7:10 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Maybe the "Deleted posts" page on the wiki could stand to be a little more fleshed out, with examples of the shorthand that the mods use. I almost added "Look at these assholes" to the In Jokes list, but it's not really a joke. (Not that anybody ever looks at the wiki of their own volition, but it would at least be something we could point people towards.)

In any event, demanding that the mods hunker down and give detailed, pinpoint-specific reasons for each and every deletion is just inviting more people to argue with them about said deletions.
posted by Gator at 7:12 AM on August 16, 2010

Most of those examples you cite, Gator, are reasonable shorthand for Very Obvious Things. "Double" does not need to be explained, although a link to the original post might be nice. "Self-link, banned" is also fairly explanatory, though perhaps not too much for those types who didn't read the FAQ (for the vanishing fraction who would in fact do so).

However, outside of those very obvious categories, terseness is not helpful to the poster. If MetaFilter is, in fact, a site with a heavy modality of discussion, than an electric buzzer going off and the post getting dumped in cold water is neither a good way to provide feedback for future posts nor particularly consistent with the site's thrust. "Look at these assholes" is at least interesting as a deletion reason, until you remember that the juggalos more or less pride themselves on being low-grade assholes (as opposed to high-grade Enron assholes). Any post about juggalos is, to some degree, about assholes. Even the odd "Oh, look, the juggalos did something semi-constructive" is a post about how a bunch of assholes did something vaguely right for once. Do juggalos then join the list of topics We Don't Post?

Good deletion reasons provide feedback.
posted by adipocere at 7:25 AM on August 16, 2010

Good deletion reasons provide feedback.

Just as reminder, here's the deletion reason given again: "the difference between loljuggalos and "this is fucking abhorrent" isn't really so much for an FPP. It's really a "look at this assholes" sort of thing which is already turning into an loljuggalos thread."
posted by nomadicink at 7:28 AM on August 16, 2010

Yeah, I'm responding to Gator. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
posted by adipocere at 7:34 AM on August 16, 2010

I removed the "jessamyn" tag from this post, I'm not sure what it was doing there. I'm one of a small team of moderators and while I made this decision, unless you really think that I'm some sort of bad actor, it's a site decision. If what you're saying is that I've gone rogue or something, that better be crystal clear in your explanation.

I'm not sure if juggalos need to be added ot the list of "what MeFi does badly" but griphus added in his first comment that he was just appalled at what had happened and thought it needed a MeFi post which is pretty much what "look at these assholes" is supposed to reflect. I guess we could also change it to "bad people acting badly" or whatever. And the thread, which was short, was already turning into just the sort of thread that griphus was hoping it wouldn't. And sometimes we have to decide between babysitting a thread and keeping people from making tons of predictable "let's make savage fun of people who are already the butt of everyone's jokes" jokes or killing the thread.

And linking to a comment in a thread from a few months ago that was already pretty much supposed to not be there? That's a little odd. For anyone just getting in ArtW made a "Man lame-o deletion" comment in the other still open juggalo thread.

So, if people want to see less of the "look at those assholes" reasons for deletion, super. Mine have been getting longer and longer because for whatever reason the only things I remove from MeFi are the contentious "this is going badly" sorts of posts and much less "this isn't that good for MeFi" so I try to explain myself. Other than that, I think if people want to see more juggalos posts stand I guess they have to make better ones.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:41 AM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

Someone really must introduce the Juggalos and the Teabaggers.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:49 AM on August 16 [+] [!]

Is this eponysterical? I'm having a hard time parsing...
posted by slogger at 7:43 AM on August 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

I hate this callout because I watched some of that dumb video. I would probably have not had the opportunity to do so since I thankfully missed the post while it was live. Granted, it's on me for looking at it, but some if it is on you for calling everyone's attention to it. Get a job.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:47 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Straight Dope boards call these kinds of threads "Recreational Outrage" and confine them to their dumping ground for suck, The Barbeque Pit. And even within The Pit, they label them so people are aware they're more sucky than the usual suck.

Absent the ability to double label them as stupid, I'm fine with not having Recreational Outrage posts at all.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:52 AM on August 16, 2010 [31 favorites]

My impression is that a lot of threads that are thin and then go badly (like the one in question here) also tend to accumulate a large number of flags (from people who rightly FIAMO). Would it be useful to also have that in the deletion reason? Something like "Look at these assholes is such a bad idea (this post had 24 flags when it was deleted) --jessamyn". This might prevent negative nabobs from concluding that this is a case of a certain mod going rogue.
posted by Plutor at 7:53 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I heard about this on the news the other day, and my first thought was, What was Tila Tequila doing on a stage? What does Tila Tequila actually do?

Which isn't to blame the victim or suggest she deserved what happened to her or anything like that. I'm just curious.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:01 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also: While I agree with the deletion, I think there could have been a decent post about this.

That said, there shouldn't be one now, of course, since there's already an open thread about the Juggalo Jamboree.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:05 AM on August 16, 2010

don't be a hater man

I'm trying to find the words to describe this kind of lame without being disrespectful
posted by nomisxid at 8:05 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Good deletion reasons provide feedback.

There was feedback here. Honestly, I feel like the "I don't have a problem with the deletion per se but I dislike the deletion reason" discussions we sometimes end up having aren't all that great because there's not a whole lot to say about it (they're short by design, generally off the cuff, and we're available for elaboration by email if you just want some clarification) and it's a tertiary bit of the actual site business of removing problematic posts. Small personal gripe; it's hardly out of bounds for metatalk, but its one of the less rewarding lines of discussion as I see it when there's not something really really exceptional about the deletion reason text in question.

And terse metatalk posts in response to purportedly terse deletion reasons aren't a great idea either; the reasons are intended to be mostly gestural for logistical reasons, but there's no duress nor low practical size limit on a metatalk post so explaining a bit of the substance of the objection is pretty much always a good idea if we're gonna have a public discussion about it.

As for the deletion itself, I think there's a good distinction to be made, per some of the conversation upthread, between "this is a bad thing" and "this is a significant thing", and that the latter is generally a better justification for a post than the former. Horrible Thing Happened isn't by itself generally good footing for a post, but if there's something more to it than that it has a better chance of going somewhere worthwhile.

So, fact-finding stuff in the face of shocking world geological/political events, a quality retrospective on a historical atrocity, a substantial and nuanced examination of a developing political story: those sorts of situations at least presents an opportunity for mefites to do something interesting with a thread beyond agree that something is awful. If there's a line to draw between problematic "look at this assholes/look at this awfulness" posts and the stuff more likely to stick around, that's a decent candidate.

This is always going to be sort of dicey because there aren't bright lines and the lines that there are are premised on a lot of subjectivity, but I think there's a lot of utility in trying to keep the bar for "this is bad"-flavored posts a bit higher than just pointing to whatever ugly cultural freakshow has come down the pipe most recently. Juggalos aren't a new topic on mefi, not a topic that goes in very interesting directions, and I can't for the life of me think of what about the post as presented was supposed to be good for metafilter.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:09 AM on August 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

Would it be useful to also have that in the deletion reason? Something like "Look at these assholes is such a bad idea (this post had 24 flags when it was deleted) --jessamyn".

Oh heck no. We try to keep direct references to flags to a minimum as it is and even at that it remains a sometimes contentious issue. Plugging that stuff into a deletion automatically is just asking for three or four new vectors of not-good in discussions.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:11 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Good deletion. Not an interesting event, or link to the event, or post presentation. Just lowbrow filler. We can do better.
posted by deern the headlice at 8:13 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

WCityMike, you know how MetaTalk works, so I'm surprised you dropped this thread 3 hours ago and haven't returned to at least explain what specifically you found problematic and why you think the deletion is wrong. If you want more of an explanation, you have to at least state clearly what the problem is. If your intention wasn't to get any sort of clarification but to just rail on one moderator, that's equally disappointing.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:25 AM on August 16, 2010 [8 favorites]

If no one who opposes the deletion can be arsed to explain why it was a bad call, this MeTa is about as useless as a Juggaloo Jamboree feat. Tile Tequila.

Which is pretty fucking useless indeed.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:29 AM on August 16, 2010

Personally I would be interested in seeing what happens with Jessamyn goes rogue.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:31 AM on August 16, 2010

Personally I would be interested in seeing what happens with Jessamyn goes rogue.

The FBI has not been here.*
Watch closely for the removal of this sign.

*Or have they? Mwahahahahahaha.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:34 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Jessamyn uses the Jessamyn tag too

There were two examples. One of the posts is really about jessamyn. The other was from 2001, predating tagging, so it was probably added by someone else on the backtagging team.
posted by grouse at 8:35 AM on August 16, 2010

"Recreational Outrage" would not be a bad phrase to add as a flagging reason, IMO. I know, I know, flagging reasons don't matter really, but still. It would be one of the more commonly used flags, I'd bet.
posted by bonehead at 8:38 AM on August 16, 2010

Jessamyn uses the Jessamyn tag too

Only around my apartment, but mostly I just have post-its that say MINE.

I think the larger point is that unless you really think I'm doing something that is extra-problematic, it's better to frame this stuff as "why are the guidelines the way they are?" and not "why is jessamyn screwing up?" unless you think I am screwing up in which case it's probably better to be really clear about that. People who are unhappy about how the mod team does things can sometimes turn that unhappiness into a laser beam of GRAR at one mod [WCityMike is not doing this, but we have all seen people who do] and that sort of thing, more often than not, obscures whatever the real issue is and can turn into a semi-toxic discussion.

Sure people may not like the individual mods, but in nearly all cases we're acting to support and reinforce one set of rules and guidelines, not bend the site to our personal will. So if this is a specific mod callout, it needs to be more clear why this is about the one mod and not the guidelines of how the site normally operates.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:47 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Risking the chance that I am throwing Faygo bottles on a dead horse, I too agree with the deletion. The OP was thin at best, and there is precious little outrage in me for a situation where anyone familiar with the Insane Clown Posse and the Juggalo followers gets pelted with objects AND then consistently yells (paraphrasing only slightly) "Fuck You! I ain't going nowhere" and then complains that Juggalos are rude and violent--and someone getting paid to appear on stage at a Gathering of Juggalos should-IMO-have the responsibility to BE familiar with Juggalo-culture.

Fifteen years ago or so, my son and his friend when to an Insane Clown Posse concert. I don't remember how they wound up on stage with them, I think the friend won tickets or something--and the friend got clocked with a 2-liter (it would be appropriate I guess if it had been Rockin' Rye). Friend got "lifetime passes" to any & all Insane Clown Posse shows, which, for both son & friend, lasted one or two more shows, because, well, they turned 17 and the fascination with Shaggy & Itchy wore off.

I am--in general--pretty clueless about Juggalos or Juggalo culture or what the Insane Clown Posse has been up to since the early days in Wyandotte, MI, but I watched the Tila Tequila video and thought back to a Stones concert in Pontiac, 1982, when Iggy opened and was run off the stage in about 15 minutes under a hail of objects. I'm pretty sure that the Silverdome didn't allow bottles in, but I could be wrong.

I only saw the TMZ video, but it looked like Tequila & her cohort were exhorting the audience to do exactly what they came to do. Posting this as "zomg, look at how nasty these rude people are" fails to examine the entire dynamic of exactly what WAS going on there, which might make an interesting post. I'll be honest though, if a post is about the Insane Clown Posse, I'll normally just move on along. For me, and forever, the ICP will be the Instant Composers Pool, r.i.p. Willem Breuker (1944-2010).
posted by beelzbubba at 8:49 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

I was disappointed to see it deleted because I am somewhat fascinated by juggalos and enjoy the threads despite the 'loljuggalo' jokes. ICP came out after I was done high school as far as I know, and I don't know if the juggalo phenomenon exists in Canada, so it's an interesting glimpse into what appears to be a fairly widespread subculture I know nothing about. After I saw this thread and it got deleted, I googled 'Tila Tequila' and 'juggalo' to see if any more updates were available and was directed to TMZ. I WENT TO TMZ TO READ ABOUT TILA TEQUILA AND JUGGALOS. This is a bad start to my week.
posted by Kirk Grim at 8:50 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I find all this OMG JUGGALOS! stuff hilarious. Did you shit yourselves over Alice Cooper, Kiss and Marilyn Manson, too?
posted by jonmc at 8:58 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was happy the post was deleted.

Juggalos need less publicity for their "ooh, ooh, look at me! I'm maaad" schtick.

Tila Tequila appears to have rung her PR agent before calling for medical assistance. If we all pretend she doesn't exist she might just go away.

The post was weak, but deleting it was doing society a favor.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:05 AM on August 16, 2010

Personally I would be interested in seeing what happens with Jessamyn goes rogue.


METAFILTER: CHAOTIC TATERS #1 (of 5)

Written by ASTRO ZOMBIE
Art by THE WHELK
Backup Story written by PHOBWANKENOBI, Art by FAINEANT

Continuing the fallout from the Sixcolors SockPuppet Saga!!! PB has been kidnapped by Yahoo Answers! Cortex is back in rehab over his donut addiction! Matt has a flat tire! Vacapinta lost in the Louvre AGAIN! With the team in dissarray, it's up to Jessamyn to defend the site that fears and hates the iPhone! Desperate times call for desperate measures as the 'rarin' librarian faces an onslaught of double posters, spammers and weird ass callouts from the Sinister Poopyheads Alliance of Macheads. Armed only with a searing wit and a delete button, how will she survive?!

PLUS: What does the admin screen look like? Find out at pb recalls his recruitment to the team, while being being tortured by actual answers from Yahoo!

40 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99
In Shops: 10/6/2010 Item Code: AUG10076e1 SRP: $3.99
posted by nomadicink at 9:06 AM on August 16, 2010 [13 favorites]

The funny thing, to me, is that folks are missing the fact that juggallos throw rocks (and firecrackers and bottles and all sorts of stuff) at bands they like as well as bands they loathe. They throw rocks at ICP themselves, and ICP throws Faygo bottles into the crowd.
posted by klangklangston at 9:09 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

jonmc, I probably did shit myself over Alice Cooper, but in my defense, I was three. Be interesting to see if it happens again.

See, klangklangston, that is interesting. I did not know that. I figured they would be, ah, rowdy, but I wasn't aware that they are doing the full on Blues Brother treatment, where chickenwire is a good strategy for the stage. That would be a great bit in the contract: "People will throw rocks at you. It's not personal. That's just what they do. Buy insurance." How do bands cope with that kind of nonsense?

Other things I have learned here: maybe "@user isn't such a terrible convention after all."
posted by adipocere at 9:20 AM on August 16, 2010

I just want to say I live in a world of total juggalo ignorance. I do not know what juggalos are. I think my life is better this way. I'm ducking out before someone educates me.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:20 AM on August 16, 2010

OP here. I wrestled with the post idea for a while before making it. Hell, I almost made the title "Singer Assaulted on Stage" just to steer it away from the fact that it had to do with juggalos and Ms. Tequila specifically. But it wasn't a good post and I halfway realized that when I had to follow it up with an editorial comment. That does not a good FPP make.

The other half came when I saw the first few comments. There wasn't any fodder for discussion. It was, as jessamyn put it, Look At These Assholes. Not Best of the Web. Not Important News. It was my being pissed off at the idea that we a performance artist can be assaulted in this day and age, and wanting to take it to the masses. GYOB territory at best.

...but I did read the article this time.
posted by griphus at 9:20 AM on August 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

I wanted to have a big debate on man's inhumanity to man. With tons of magnet jokes. :(

Fucking morality, how does that work?
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:21 AM on August 16, 2010

If something this freakish and weird happens I want to know about it via Metafilter.

So yeah, I'm not in favour of the anti-pop culture snobbery Metafilter displays sometimes, or the coddling of anti-pop culture threadshitting and general arseyness on the part of the snobs by the the mods, and that's basically what this deletion appears to be about. Lame.
posted by Artw at 9:25 AM on August 16, 2010

I wanted to have a big debate on man's inhumanity to man. With tons of magnet jokes.

Sounds polarizing.
posted by Greg Nog at 9:28 AM on August 16, 2010 [16 favorites]

That exactly why I'm glad it was deleted, ArtW. I don't want to be responsible for another "hey their weird pop music-based culture is dumb and fuck these guys" pileon thread, which it what it was developing into and fast. Now I just wish I'd made a better thread about it so there would've been more to say than that.
posted by griphus at 9:33 AM on August 16, 2010

WCityMike: Jessamyn, I respectfully opine this was a bad call

It's not actually respectful until you give your opinion, using words. As it stands, it's more like an angry look than a respectful opinion.
posted by Rumple at 9:34 AM on August 16, 2010

I agree with the deletion but I am grateful that the post led me to the CNN article that contains this sentence:

The witness asked not to be identified so that he does not anger the juggalos.

This will now be my go-to excuse for everything.
posted by Shepherd at 9:35 AM on August 16, 2010 [30 favorites]

I know I'm not checking this post with enough frequency to be ultra-helpful, but I have always been dismayed at there being a list of things MetaFilter doesn't do well.

Even so, I think what's not a good idea to post about on MetaFilter (at this point in time at this size of community - where we are so big that we're spontaneously forming cliques - not to be exclusive but it's just what human-monkeys do) about anything that necessarily categorizes folks as two different groups.

Because the assumption when you do that is that everyone reading your post belongs to the group who will agree with the common set of opinions about the other group (the one you're writing about) inherent in the post. And I don't think that assumption's safe with a community as large as MetaFilter is.

We've seen that in posts about any *-ism, about any set of cultural expectations, about musical groups, about political philosophies, whatever. The more a post differentiates the reader from the subject the worse the discussion seems to go.
posted by kalessin at 9:35 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Well said, griphus.

Now can you apologize to me for bringing this matter to my attention and causing me to feel anything remotely close to sympathy for Tila Tequila? Because that's hurting my brain.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:38 AM on August 16, 2010

the coddling of anti-pop culture threadshitting and general arseyness on the part of the snobs by the the mods

Well it goes both ways. We let too many Lady Gaga posts stand and then it's all "What is this site, TMZ???" There's a balance, honestly. We delete a lot of "Oh do I need a TV to understand this?" threadshitting and there is an awful lot of pop culture that makes it to the front page and happily stays there. If you think this is a larger problem sitewide then you, like WCityMike are encouraged to make a case for it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:39 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm not liking the whole "Let's call out a single moderator by name" thing. Especially about something as lame-ass and worthless as this example and in a one-sentence middle-finger drive-by.
posted by blucevalo at 9:41 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

We're not anti-pop culture here, we're just very eclectic about what pop culture we like. Gaga? Yes. Ghostbusters? Yes. Batman? Yes. Alien? Yes.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:42 AM on August 16, 2010

we're just very eclectic about what pop culture we like. Gaga? Yes.

what you mean 'we,' Kemosabe?
posted by jonmc at 9:47 AM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

...and causing me to feel anything remotely close to sympathy for Tila Tequila?

Lindsay Lohan spent weeks tending to an injured bird with a broken wing. It got better and as she watched it ascend into the freedom of a cloudless summer sky, the bird lost control and fell directly into moving traffic.

Also Paris Hilton's dog choked on a pig ear and died.
posted by griphus at 9:49 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

I don't want to be responsible for another "hey their weird pop music-based culture is dumb and fuck these guys" pileon thread, which it what it was developing into and fast.

...and now they'll do the same thing and harder next time.
posted by Artw at 9:50 AM on August 16, 2010

Recreational Outrage: "Look man, I can stop any time, I just had a bit of a relaxing week at work and I need something to put an edge on. Suck in some steam, you know?"
posted by quin at 9:51 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Poster has agreed the deletion was justified. Can this stupid thing be closed up now?
posted by languagehat at 9:51 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

That would be a great bit in the contract: "People will throw rocks at you. It's not personal. That's just what they do. Buy insurance." How do bands cope with that kind of nonsense?

Andrew WK had dancers with badminton rackets, IIRC. They weren't very effective. This happens every year - inappropriate acts are booked for the sole purpose of being chased off the stage. They call it the "Bubba Sparks Award", and the band that leaves the stage earliest earns it. The promoters will generally turn out the lights and give you the hook after a few minutes to prevent a full-bore riot from forming, but Ms. Tequila made some excellent use of the time she was allowed...

... and you better damn well believe she knew what she was getting into, and what she was doing once she was in it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:53 AM on August 16, 2010

...and now they'll do the same thing and harder next time.

Yes, because they're that organized and just waiting in the bush to ruin all your fun.

Who's got sentry duty tonight?!
posted by nomadicink at 9:54 AM on August 16, 2010

...and now they'll do the same thing and harder next time.

If that is what you honestly think then please make an argument for it. If you really think that we're just being duped by a small coterie of individuals who act in unison to keep pop culture topics off of the front page, I'd say you're giving us barely any credit for knowing how the site works, ow the users operate, or knowing how to support and implement policies and guidelines. I get that you weren't happy about the deletion, but do you seriously think this is an ongoing sitewide problem? If so, please point out another example or two.

We've seen people do this sort of thing before, flagging the hell out of certain topics without even RTFA or engaging with the thread and we've told them to Knock It Off. We don't like that sort of thing. If we were mindless robotos who only did what the flag queue said to do, then you could possibly make a case that this was a real threat, that people were gaming the site. However: We Are Not Digg. We have real humans who oversee what makes it to the front page. We can see who flags what, and sort of why. If the problem is that people don't share your opinion about what is good on the front page and what is not, that is an issue that you'll have to take up with the site at large and not just pin it on us. Here's your soapbox, make your case.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:00 AM on August 16, 2010 [9 favorites]

...and now they'll do the same thing and harder next time.

I think given enough context and things to chew over, a thread involving or even about juggalos can lead into a good discussion of pop culture, even if half the comments are nasty bullshit coming from either people with a personal dislike for them, or with a distaste for pop culture in general (and I definitely see that happen more than I'd like to.) If it were turning into something where there was an even amount of crap and conversation, fine. But it wasn't going in that direction and as far as I've seen, when it's a flood of crap off the bat, it tends to not get better simply because the conversation is stunted by all the feces you'd have to wade through to have it.
posted by griphus at 10:00 AM on August 16, 2010

I just don't understand what happened to these guys. They were so wholesome.

We're in the air and everywhere
Flying high, flying loose,
Flying free as a summer breeze,
We're happy as a summer breeze...

And now this.
posted by pracowity at 10:19 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Here's your soapbox, make your case.

Fuck that. That's nit a soapbox, it's a killing field.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on August 16, 2010

So yeah, I'm not in favour of the anti-pop culture snobbery Metafilter displays sometimes, or the coddling of anti-pop culture threadshitting and general arseyness on the part of the snobs by the the mods, and that's basically what this deletion appears to be about.

I can't say anything concrete one way or another for the emergent pop culture biases of the overall userbase—I think it's pretty complicated and that it's not so much collective snobbery in any real sense as it is that for any given thing the people who dislike it are often the first to speak up and criticism and dismissiveness are both pretty conspicuous.

But this post was DOA in my opinion; I read the post text and thought it needed deleting but Jess got there first. We agree that threadshitting sucks as feedback mechanism, but much as we'll try to deal with people crapping in otherwise fine threads we're not gonna put much effort into cleaning up and avoiding deleting bad threads just to avoid the stink of coddling threadshitters. Sometimes people behave badly in not-great posts. The behavior is still bad, but the posts still aren't great.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2010

languagehat writes "Poster has agreed the deletion was justified. Can this stupid thing be closed up now?"

There is a 'X' in the top corner of your browser. You can click it any time. You have the power to close this thread (and if you resist posting in it it won't even show up in recent activity).
posted by Mitheral at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

The power is YOURS!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:32 AM on August 16, 2010

Clicking "remove from activity" is a good option. It's the one i will certainly be taking now, as this thread stinks like a Wikipedia notability discussion.
posted by Artw at 10:37 AM on August 16, 2010

Your mom stinks like a Wikipedia notability discussion.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:43 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The witness asked not to be identified so that he does not anger the juggalos.


A group of guys who often wear ICP t-shirts moved into the apartment next to mine recently. I've said hello in the hallways a couple of times. We didn't throw anything at each other, and both agreed the SNL ICP skit was funny.

Yesterday, I came home from the tattoo expo, to find an empty bottle of white chocolate liqueur sitting in front of my apartment door.

Trash cans, how the fuck do they work?
posted by nomisxid at 10:51 AM on August 16, 2010

Fuck that. That's nit a soapbox, it's a killing field.

Dude, there's a still open thread about the 11th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos built around a single link YouTube post to a commerical, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about re Metafilter and pop culture.

There is a 'X' in the top corner of your browser.

I'M ON A MAC, DAMMIT.

...as this thread stinks like a Wikipedia notability discussion.

But I use Axe!
posted by nomadicink at 10:54 AM on August 16, 2010

I'M ON A MAC, DAMMIT.

Okay okay, there is a HIDDEN 'X' in the top corner of your browser.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:55 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The mods should stop hiding the X, it's not funny.
posted by nomadicink at 10:58 AM on August 16, 2010

It is if you have all the X, trust me.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:03 AM on August 16, 2010 [8 favorites]

I KNOW WHERE THE GLOWSTICKS ARE.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:05 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Trash cans, how the fuck do they work?

This strikes me as one of those apparently simple questions that could actually require substantial knowledge of a number of scientific and technical specialties to fully explain. Sort of like Clifford Stoll describes in his book, the Cuckoo's Egg, about being asked "Why is the sky blue?" during his PhD defense. The short answer is that the atmosphere scatters blue light, but then the next question was "And why does it do that?". Repeat until satisfactory knowledge of physics is demonstrated.

So, anybody want to try? You'll have to address why things put in the top of the can fall to the bottom, but also why they don't just pass right through it given the almost entirely empty nature of apparently solid materials. And perhaps a discussion of the chemistry and manufacturing of the trash bag might be in order. Maybe some biology and some more chemistry to explain why trash stinks so much. And more physics to answer why the stink escapes the can. How about the economics and politics of waste disposal?

All of which means that if some clever person wrote a book called "Trash Cans: How They Fucking Work", I'd buy it.
posted by FishBike at 11:08 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

JUGGALO RAVE
posted by shakespeherian at 11:10 AM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did you shit yourselves over Alice Cooper, Kiss and Marilyn Manson, too?

You and I are made of sterner stuff, of course, but, why, yes, people did shit themselves over Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Marilyn Manson. That's the rock n' roll tradition. A) Dude tries to make people shit themselves. B) People shit themselves. That's how it works. It doesn't work if either A or B is missing.

(I suppose "C" is necessary, too. Someone needs to mock the squares for shitting themselves.)
posted by octobersurprise at 11:13 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

I just enjoyed the the deletion because it showed me the new improved "The post was deleted before you made your shittacular joke, so here's a copy to save in case you thought it was awesome" reply that comes with posting in a then-deleted thread.

So thanks to pb+the admins, this jug's for you!
posted by cavalier at 11:18 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm really happy that's there now.
posted by grouse at 11:20 AM on August 16, 2010

That's how it works. It doesn't work if either A or B is missing.

Any artist who manages to accomplish B without A is an absolute genius. Also does using the brown note count, or is that being overly literal and/or cheating?
posted by griphus at 11:27 AM on August 16, 2010

The brown note is a myth. If it actually existed I would shit my pants.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:30 AM on August 16, 2010

Tag! You're it!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:41 AM on August 16, 2010

cortex: "The brown note is a myth. If it actually existed I would shit my pants"

Yes, it is a myth. And thus tubas cannot replicate it. So tell all your friends to STOP ASKING ME TO PLAY THE FUCKING BROWN NOTE!

And I won't play you a fucking polka or make elephant sounds, either, even though I do that anyways.
posted by charred husk at 11:50 AM on August 16, 2010

Also, a jessamyn tag? Really?

Just a fun side note, but Jessamyn uses the Jessamyn tag too

The posts you link to are from 2001 and 2006. I don't think there were tags in MetaTalk when either of those were posted. They were back-tagged, not necessarily by Jessamyn.

Incidentally, the FAQ is outdated: it says, "MetaTalk does not have tags."
posted by Jaltcoh at 11:53 AM on August 16, 2010

Andrew WK rocks Gathering of the Juggalos 08, complete with stuff being thrown at AWK, who was "honored to be asked to play this show." And after the event, he still was "extremely grateful," calling it an "incredible, life-changing time" (and he noted that by the end of his time on stage, "people were launching bottle rockets and large boulders").
posted by filthy light thief at 11:53 AM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

And thus tubas cannot replicate it.

Although if you could somehow manage to sneak up on someone with your tuba you might be able to recreate the effect
posted by Kirk Grim at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Incidentally, the FAQ is outdated: it says, "MetaTalk does not have tags."

Thanks, fixed that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2010

They were back-tagged, not necessarily by Jessamyn.

She hides X, she's capable of anything.
posted by nomadicink at 11:57 AM on August 16, 2010

If she hides X, but X marks the spot, how the fuck do you find it?
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 11:58 AM on August 16, 2010

I mean it's like "Can God make a rock that he can't lift?" It's blowing my mind, man.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 12:01 PM on August 16, 2010

..."honored to be asked to play this show." And after the event, he still was "extremely grateful," calling it an "incredible, life-changing time"...

I assume Andrew WK is permanently speaking in those terms, and means it whole-heartedly every single time. His toilet has the self-esteem of Warren Buffett on an coke bender.
posted by griphus at 12:02 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

If she hides X, but X marks the spot, how the fuck do you find it?

Y would you want to find it?
posted by nomadicink at 12:06 PM on August 16, 2010

Recently I heard some rap song playing in the background and I thought it was really cool. I wasn't paying that much attention but the production, samples and mixing were sounding pretty good. It turns out it was an old ICP song.

I'm not reaching for the face paint yet, but part of me wants somebody to hold and comfort me. Another part of me wants somebody to use some tough love and just preemptively beat the shit out of me.
posted by chillmost at 12:10 PM on August 16, 2010

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey: "If she hides X, but X marks the spot, how the fuck do you find it"

If you can't find it during that activity you are probably doing it wrong.
posted by Mitheral at 12:19 PM on August 16, 2010

A group of guys who often wear ICP t-shirts moved into the apartment next to mine recently. I've said hello in the hallways a couple of times. We didn't throw anything at each other, and both agreed the SNL ICP skit was funny.

Yesterday, I came home from the tattoo expo, to find an empty bottle of white chocolate liqueur sitting in front of my apartment door.


You're not giving them enough credit: an empty bottle of white chocolate liqueur is an almost perfect signifier of Juggalo culture. Perhaps this was their way of telling you that even an Insane Clown Posse fan can be self-aware.
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 12:22 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'll bet that many older Tea Party bagheads have juggalo offspring. I'd put money I don't currently have on that bet with a bookie known for keeping a pig farm.

Also: it was nice to get to the end of this ride and not have to skim recipes.
posted by batmonkey at 12:28 PM on August 16, 2010

I'm trying to come up with another band that has cultivated such an expansive subculture as ICP's juggalos. The Grateful Dead? Phish?
posted by shakespeherian at 12:30 PM on August 16, 2010

The deletion disappointed me to be honest, threads with a few jokes can be derailed back to the topic and I thought it was a good one. Not all posts are framed brilliantly and Tila Tequila fascinates me as one of those figures feminism Doesn't Do Well. Like 'sure she's a vapid talentless whore but even she doesn't deserve to be violently attacked', as if people have to make sure everyone knows they thoroughly dissaprove of her before they can even address the insanity.

So, the way people would have been discussing this on metafilter, where interesting things are often said, could have been great.
posted by shinybaum at 12:34 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

What's Milch doing these days?

30-second pitch:

Deadwood meets juggalos. Set in the future. Instead of the frontier west, the deindustrialized Midwest. Cities have been abandoned and in their place, vast, sprawling, chaotic juggalo communities. Shaggy 2 Dope runs the camp from his dodgy hangout, The Dark Lotus Saloon. Everything is muddy, dirty, disorganized, or on fire. Erotic. Animated.

And then I run out of time.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:37 PM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

What beverage would be the perfect signifier of GaGalo culture?
posted by vapidave at 12:44 PM on August 16, 2010

> What beverage would be the perfect signifier of GaGalo culture?

Stolen cheap liqueur from the back of mom's cabinet that she probably wouldn't notice gone?
posted by Burhanistan at 12:58 PM on August 16, 2010

unless you really think that I'm some sort of bad actor

Well, you were told to prepare two monologues -- one comedy, one drama -- for this audition ...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:59 PM on August 16, 2010

I'm not reaching for the face paint yet, but part of me wants somebody to hold and comfort me. Another part of me wants somebody to use some tough love and just preemptively beat the shit out of me.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE ... HOW THE FUCK DOES IT WORK?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:05 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not reaching for the face paint yet, but part of me wants somebody to hold and comfort me. Another part of me wants somebody to use some tough love and just preemptively beat the shit out of me.

BDSM
posted by nomadicink at 1:09 PM on August 16, 2010

What beverage would be the perfect signifier of GaGalo culture?

Alizé served in a miniature blown-glass bathtub vibrating at its resonant frequency.
posted by griphus at 1:10 PM on August 16, 2010

A single plum, floating in perfume, in a man's hat
posted by nomisxid at 1:30 PM on August 16, 2010

griphus: "Alizé served in a miniature blown-glass bathtub"

Finally before it is bottled, the liqueur is blessed by a Catholic priest.[citation needed]

I think you may be right.
posted by boo_radley at 1:38 PM on August 16, 2010

If something this freakish and weird happens I want to know about it via Metafilter.

To the extent that anyone can say what qualifies as freakish and weird, about 80 zillion freakish, weird things happen every day.

Some people take the "Me" part of Metafilter way too seriously.
posted by ambient2 at 2:02 PM on August 16, 2010

Recipe: take one subculture populated mostly by working class white people, add one talentless 'celebrity' and marinate in beer for several hours.

I know that the thread has moved on, but this is a pretty shitty comment.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:04 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Someone really must introduce the Juggalos and the Teabaggers."

I'm pretty sure they know each other. One is the offspring of the other.
posted by Eideteker at 2:13 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Are these juggalo kids prominent on your collective lawns? Because it's interesting to hear all this stereotyping of a subculture that I've never noticed down under. They paint their faces like clowns, right? So, they're kinda like goths but without so much eyeliner or white pancake makeup, yeah?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:28 PM on August 16, 2010

Well, if they paint their faces like clowns, that implies MORE white pancake makeup. But otherwise, that seems to be correct.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:29 PM on August 16, 2010

Are these juggalo kids prominent on your collective lawns? Because it's interesting to hear all this stereotyping of a subculture that I've never noticed down under. They paint their faces like clowns, right? So, they're kinda like goths but without so much eyeliner or white pancake makeup, yeah?

It's true that juggalo culture is difficult to explain. If only they would make some videos of themselves to show us what it is they enjoy and how it is they act.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:31 PM on August 16, 2010

I think goths and juggalos would be equally pained to hear someone declare that they are in any way alike (beyond the basic fact of being a subculture).
posted by Babblesort at 2:36 PM on August 16, 2010

If only they would make some videos of themselves to show us what it is they enjoy and how it is they act.

Or make an intelligent post showing the birth, traditions, language and rituals of the subculture. If only there was a website with a intelligent curious audience that might be receptive to such a post.
posted by nomadicink at 2:39 PM on August 16, 2010

Or make an intelligent post showing the birth, traditions, language and rituals of the subculture.

Good one.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:43 PM on August 16, 2010

Well, it would be more informative than a 17 minute infomercial for a festival featuring the Krazy Klown Krew or something, very much preaching to the choir.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:50 PM on August 16, 2010

yet another comment agreeing with the deletion.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:51 PM on August 16, 2010

I once spent a November weekend in Rochester, NY, for an annual house party. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express on the second floor. The room below us, and the two on each side, were occupied by the Insane Clown Posse and some of their crew, in town for a show. We'd seen the buses when we checked in, and half-considered going elsewhere, but decided to give it a go and hope that the party in Shaggy and J's room wouldn't be too awful.

When we got back that night, the TV was on in their room and there was some conversation, but no wild juggalette/juggalo hijinks. The next morning, we noticed that someone had removed the window screen; under the window in the landscaping were a bunch of cigarette butts, a few empty cans of Coors, and a KFC bucket. I ran into Shaggy in the hall later that day - he was getting ice. Nice guy. ICP isn't my cup of tea musically, but Shaggy and J have done a pretty good job of working outside the music industry and doing well for themselves. In a way, Ani di Franco and ICP have a lot in common.

tl;dr: when I said "Hi, have a good show?" to Shaggy 2 Dope next to a Holiday Inn Express ice machine, he wasn't an asshole.
posted by catlet at 2:53 PM on August 16, 2010 [6 favorites]

Satriani is an absolutely superb technician. He'd make a splendid circus juggalo, i don't doubt."

Metafilter has me so confused today.
posted by Elmore at 2:55 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

In a way, Ani di Franco and ICP have a lot in common.

My head just exploded. Brains everywhere.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:05 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Satriani is an absolutely superb technician. He'd make a splendid circus juggalo, i don't doubt."

Metafilter has me so confused today.
posted by Elmore at 10:55 PM on August 16

Oh, you little scamp!
posted by Decani at 3:21 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

We can see who flags what, and sort of why.

But only if you go looking, said cortex. So I'm not sure how that would work here.

Not that it really matters. The deletion was a righteous bust and this was a silly callout.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:59 PM on August 16, 2010

If only they would make some videos of themselves to show us what it is they enjoy and how it is they act.

That's fair, but Metafilter tends to be a bit more articulate and some members seem to have some anecdotes and thoughts about juggalos that might be more interesting (to some of us) than self-produced youtube videos by juggalos or whatever.

I guess I can't fault anyone for deleting a post on the subject of juggalos and Tila Tequila though; they're both likely to be lightning rods for scorn around here.
posted by Kirk Grim at 4:00 PM on August 16, 2010

The quote was running through my head, I'm glad to see it in the title.
posted by Brainy at 4:02 PM on August 16, 2010

Where is WCityMike anyway? If you're going to call someone out then at least have the decency to say something be in "stop trying to suck the life out of my soul" or "my bad, was hopped up on dark chocolate M&Ms" but say something.
posted by nomadicink at 4:09 PM on August 16, 2010

But only if you go looking, said cortex. So I'm not sure how that would work here.

Going looking involves clicking a link. If we saw a post that was getting a lot of flags but we sort of didn't understand why, we'd go looking.

And I think WCityMike has a day job, so while I'm not that psyched about the "MeTa and run" aspect, I assume that has something to do with it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:23 PM on August 16, 2010

There are actually numerous directions in which to take a conversation regarding this incident, like:

Insane Clown Posse is a largely self-made creature, touring heavily for almost two decades and releasing album after album independently; it could be argued that a big part of why they have the fan base they do is that their audience sees the band as fundamentally like themselves, fundamentally real. ICP clearly recognizes this themselves, either guilelessly or quite cynically (depending upon your perspective) emphasizing the "family" aspect of their gatherings. Tila Tequila is self-made, too, but her aim all along as has been to achieve a celebrity status that places her above the rabble -- fame for its own sake -- which is basically the antithesis of what ICP's fans are after from their heroes. Is the objection, then, one regarding authenticity (and it's pretty safe to say Tila Tequila doesn't have much of that), or an objection to a person who isn't particularly talented at anything but getting naked putting on airs?

Or is it the juggalos' issue with her purely sexist? Is this just a "tits or GTFO" situation that would befall just about any attractive woman who appeared on that stage? Does the atmosphere of the gathering, which features naked women making out while being doused with Faygo (!), just encourage men to treat women like shit?

Or is the issue class? No question that Tila Tequila is worth more than just about anyone in the crowd. While that may be true for many of the acts that play the gathering, there is a greater "one of us" sense to most of those acts than with Tequila, who seems like nothing so much as a booth babe at a science fiction convention, only she's a really famous booth babe and this science fiction convention is attended by drunk/high guys in clownface. (This is like the authenticity question, but not the same thing.)

Or is it just that her music was so awful that it literally drove the audience insane? I know that seems implausible, but if you actually listen to it, it starts to seem not impossible.

Or was the whole thing staged to bring attention to Tequila and/or ICP?

I at least am interested in this stuff -- I think it's important the same way that something like the JetBlue guy is culturally important. It says something about us and where we are right now, even if I don't know quite what. That may just be -- it probably is! -- just me.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:38 PM on August 16, 2010 [11 favorites]

I think that the deletion was a good idea. Not because of loljuggalo snark possibilities, but because of the links. I mean, come on. A wikipedia page on Tila Tequila. A minimal info CNN blurb. And the best one, a link to a Juggalo News thread?

No disrespect intended to griphus. Seriously. Just a thin post.
posted by Splunge at 4:50 PM on August 16, 2010

And I think WCityMike has a day job, so while I'm not that psyched about the "MeTa and run" aspect, I assume that has something to do with it.

WCityMike has made 82(!) MetaTalk posts, so he should know better than to do a drive-by dump like this.
posted by Rumple at 5:07 PM on August 16, 2010

There are actually numerous directions in which to take a conversation regarding this incident, like:

Agreed that there are many ways that this could have been a better post. The specific scenaria you've suggested do overlook the basic formula for this event, posted upthread in several cites of Andrew W. K.'s & Bubba Sparx appearances. I'm not saying that Juggalos aren't sexist, just that they are equal-opportunity abusers of any artist that appears. That Tequila seemed oblivious to this fact also explains why she flew into Chicago rather than Nashville or even St. Louis, both half the distance to Hardin County than ORD.
posted by beelzbubba at 5:24 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

WCityMike has made 82(!) MetaTalk posts, so he should know better than to do a drive-by dump like this.

Indeed, that was more my point.
posted by nomadicink at 5:37 PM on August 16, 2010

Sidenotes:

I didn't respond earlier because I have a day job and just got home a half-hour ago. The position is one where I have next to no free time during the day, so checking in on MetaTalk wasn't feasible.

The presence of a 'jessamyn' tag didn't have any special significance intended. When I write tags I try to choose ones associated with the post I'm making; since this was a decision of Jessamyn's that I disagreed with, I used her name as a tag. Nothing more significant than that.

I acknowledge that the context of the title quote makes it a bad choice.

Explanation:

I thought Jessamyn's deletion was a bad call because "lol_______" is, unless my understanding's different from the general understanding, a prefix for "ha, ha, let's all laugh at the ____________ in order that we might feel superior to them." I have to admit that I didn't understand what Jessamyn meant by the phrase "isn't really so much" (literally, I didn't understand the phrasing) in this context. I could see it as a synonym for "isn't appropriate", but not when it's being applied to something that's the *difference* between two things.

My understanding was that the deletion reason was saying: "The difference between laughing at the Juggalos and finding what they did here abhorrent is not one appropriate for an front-page post. It's really more a 'look at these assholes' post, which is already turning into a 'let's laugh at the Juggalos' post."

What made me feel this was a bad call was that her deletion seemed, essentially, predicated on a premise that a front-page post that derides an act -- a "look at these assholes" post -- is worthy of deletion in and of itself. If a thread is one that's purely fodder for mocking is created, then yes, I can understand *that* reason as a deletion (Sarah Palin's made yet another Palinism, etc.) -- but I really didn't see any traces, at the time of deletion, that the post was about ready to turn into a full-fledged mockfest. Before someone points it out, yes, there were already posts there that mocked the Juggalos, yes. No post is ever going to be free of the Peanut Gallery, especially not where mockworthy concepts are present. But I don't think they were overwhelming the thread yet.

I think what made it a bad call was misjudging the potential for the interesting discussions that arise out of topics such as those. I think the Juggalos engaging in mob behavior such as what has been described with the Tila Tequila incident ... it's horrific. But it had a potential for people to speak to what was going on there. I've had people bring me insight in threads, insight I would've never gained on my own, insight even into horrific mindsets. Maybe someone would've explained what was going on in their heads. Maybe someone would've explained Juggalos, period -- in a non-snark, non-soundbite way. Such insight is deeply valuable even when it's into mindsets or people who I'd find abhorrent.

Abhorrence stirs people, and that emotional stirring especially on Metafilter often yields some of the best gems on this site. I thought it was a bad call because I thought that she cut a branch that could've possibly yielded some very interesting conversational yields.

Jessamyn, Cortex, and Mathowie usually make excellent decisions in their moderating. I think I've thanked them a multitude of times. But it's not out of line to say, "Hey, no, I think this time you made a mistake."

Where I did err was in starting this thread without including this explanation.
posted by WCityMike at 5:38 PM on August 16, 2010

Oh hey, timing. Hi Mike!
posted by nomadicink at 5:40 PM on August 16, 2010

Or is it the juggalos' issue with her purely sexist? Is this just a "tits or GTFO" situation that would befall just about any attractive woman who appeared on that stage? Does the atmosphere of the gathering, which features naked women making out while being doused with Faygo (!), just encourage men to treat women like shit?

Good question, and I don't know the answer.

Maybe it's somewhere in the direction of a hybrid of malignant misogyny (how I see what you are describing) and Orwell's Two Minutes Hate.
posted by jamjam at 5:40 PM on August 16, 2010

I just spent twenty minutes on TMZ's chat as "assdan" chatting with juggalos and tila fans. The juggalos were nice. The tila fans were angry, but I guess that's to be expected.
posted by boo_radley at 5:47 PM on August 16, 2010

I just spent twenty minutes on TMZ's chat as "assdan" chatting with juggalos and tila fans.

Ass Dan lives!!!!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:53 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm willing to bet all of my greasepaint that Tila was invited to cause some kind of, oh I don't know, issue? Get her intoxicated. Throw her out in front of a huge crowd of intoxicated people and let's see what happens!

Guess what happened? Just what was expected. Go back to the promo for the event and watch what type of entertainment is most enjoyed.

It's like bear baiting.

What the fuck did her promoters or whatever they are expect? What did she expect? What, and this is my main point, did the crowd expect?

This is a bullshit cake with smooth horseshit icing. I do not condone injuring a ditzy young girl as entertainment. But really.

Not a FPP worthy event. Not even a ration human being worthy event. And I'm not putting down Juggalos or Tila fans.

Just the promoters of the event.
posted by Splunge at 6:25 PM on August 16, 2010

My understanding was that the deletion reason was saying: "The difference between laughing at the Juggalos and finding what they did here abhorrent is not one appropriate for an front-page post. It's really more a 'look at these assholes' post, which is already turning into a 'let's laugh at the Juggalos' post."

The intended reading is something like this:

"The difference between (a) the thing you say you're not trying to do and which you acknowledge is not a good motivation for mefi posts, "lol-subgroup" posting, and (b) the thing you say you are trying to do and which you suggest here that you think is an okay motivation for posting, "this-is-an-abhorrent-thing-that-happened", is not all that much of a difference functionally since (b) tend to go badly for reasons that are actually pretty similar."

I really didn't see any traces, at the time of deletion, that the post was about ready to turn into a full-fledged mockfest.

Part of how we look at this is that it's not a requirement that a thread is actively going badly for us to delete a post that we think is not good. Some of the stuff we delete goes away in the first couple minutes of its life before anyone commented. If it's not a good post, it's not a good post. The sort of comments that have accrued are a secondary issue at that point.

Abhorrence stirs people, and that emotional stirring especially on Metafilter often yields some of the best gems on this site. I thought it was a bad call because I thought that she cut a branch that could've possibly yielded some very interesting conversational yields.

That stirring often yields some of the worst stuff on the site as well. The potency of a prompt is not in and of itself blanket justification for any post built around the prompt; if someone want to try and build a really solid quality post around this story that highlights why this is interesting beyond visceral abhorrence-baiting, that's a different matter, but this one being deleted is not a problem just because we're denied in the process some hypothetical good comments. The tree from which this branch has been cut is a hardy one that has never been particularly discouraged by pruning.

Where I did err was in starting this thread without including this explanation.

I appreciate you coming back in to add it when you got a chance. And, yeah, far better to skip it for the time being if you don't have time to go into substantially in the first place. Metatalk isn't going anywhere.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:36 PM on August 16, 2010

But it's not out of line to say, "Hey, no, I think this time you made a mistake."

No, it isn't. But my (unsolicited) advice is that going forward, when you feel that way, you should either say it directly to the mods via the contact form or else leave it to somebody else to say. You and MetaTalk is not a great combination, for a couple of different reasons that aren't worth going into. Not snark, no offense intended...just honest, objective feedback. You would do well to cool it with the MeTa posts, for good.
posted by cribcage at 6:40 PM on August 16, 2010

if some clever person wrote a book called "Trash Cans: How They Fucking Work", I'd buy it.

Hell, I'd buy lots of books from the "Fucking X: How it Works" series. Especially if they started with apparently simple concepts and drilled down through all the building blocks like FishBike suggested.

Reminds me sort of, but not exactly, of a (PBS, I think) show I saw one time that started with a concept, and then kind of free-associated related things over and over until it was back where it started.
posted by ctmf at 6:53 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

James Burke's Connections.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:57 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

cribcage, while I'm not looking to start anything with you, I think a suggestion like that is really inappropriate.
posted by WCityMike at 7:04 PM on August 16, 2010

Metatalk isn't going anywhere.

Never trust anything that's grey.
posted by nomadicink at 7:08 PM on August 16, 2010

empath: "Metafilter doesn't do white trash well"


You know, maybe I'm obliviously missing the term being used ironically without an indicator, but "white trash" is prejudicial and ignorant, like many other anachronistic pejoratives.
posted by Red Loop at 7:23 PM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

ctmf writes "Hell, I'd buy lots of books from the 'Fucking X: How it Works' series. Especially if they started with apparently simple concepts and drilled down through all the building blocks like FishBike suggested."

I love How It's Made for just this reason.

jessamyn: "James Burke's Connections"

Someone has to update connections, and not in the sucky way TLC *ugh* did. You hear me Hollywood, Connections is the sequel you should be making.
posted by Mitheral at 8:13 PM on August 16, 2010

Can someone start an @username thread on MetaTalk? So that I can voice my support for you while not taking the inevitable heat for starting the thread? KTHXBYE
posted by Justinian at 9:20 PM on August 16, 2010

I have a double rainbow in my pants.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:45 PM on August 16, 2010

I saw Tila Tequila perform live in Oakland back in 2003. I can't find a way to make this fact work for me.
posted by eddydamascene at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2010

MetaFilter: ow, the users!
posted by loquacious at 10:17 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

It must have been the TLC remake I saw. The "Connections approach to history" section of the Wikipedia page sounds really interesting to me, and I don't remember picking up on any of that when I saw the show. (Or maybe I needed to be hit over the head with it a bit more to notice back then.) Not that it wasn't pretty interesting the way it was; it was the pre-internet version of exactly why I can't browse wikipedia if I don't have all day.

Another vote for a good sequel.
posted by ctmf at 10:47 PM on August 16, 2010

Starring jessamyn ... the bad actor!
posted by Back to you, Jim. at 11:16 PM on August 16, 2010

I love How It's Made for just this reason.

I love that fucking show and the many related types of shows and documentaries so much it makes me giddy. So much that despite my pinko-socialist-anarchist-antimaterialist leanings I think I'd very much enjoy being a manufacturing engineer.

How fucking cool would it be to design and build a mucking great rattling blown-glass bottle molder with fire and steam and gobs of molten glass shooting all over the place? Or a continuously casting steel blast furnace or electric arc furnace? Grar, I sound like an exploitative union-busting industrialist.
posted by loquacious at 12:40 AM on August 17, 2010

I don't know what "juggalos" are, and please no one explain them to me.
posted by serazin at 1:11 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mitheral: You hear me Hollywood, Connections is the sequel you should be making.

BBC, please. They've already had a go at it, kind of. Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections

OT, I'm with serazin.
posted by Duke999R at 2:30 AM on August 17, 2010

I love that fucking show and the many related types of shows and documentaries so much it makes me giddy.

How It's Made is one of the best things on TV right now. And to sort of nudge this diversion back in a slightly on-topic direction, here's Fucking Magnets: How They Are Made.

How fucking cool would it be to design and build a mucking great rattling blown-glass bottle molder with fire and steam and gobs of molten glass shooting all over the place? Or a continuously casting steel blast furnace or electric arc furnace?

I've heard that job satisfaction is highest in the demolition industry, and it's not hard for me to believe that. I just have to imagine a conversation along these lines:

Me: "So, what do I do?"

Boss: "You operate this enormous yellow machine we are standing beside."

Me: "Oh, that's so awesome. And, uh, what do I do with this machine?"

Boss: "You smash that old steel mill with it until it's just a pile of rubble."

Me: "::evil laughter::"
posted by FishBike at 5:48 AM on August 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Another big fan of the original Connections series here. Netflix has all 3 series; if you haven't seen them, I recommend them highly.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:55 AM on August 17, 2010

With respect to posts that are not good and deletion reasons, I think that it's easy to take personally what the mods don't intend personally. I think also that it's part of the job (kind of like in Pratchett's and Anthony's separate takes on the offices of immortality) that you get read as being brutally honest when you're just being honest and you get read as meaning criticisms personally when you really don't.

But as posters (or empathic posters), some of us have really easily bruised egos. (This is part of the reason that since "This Broom, it Vibrates?" (yes, that was my first attempt at posting - I think it may have been the third time that day/week) I have never posted a single post to the blue - but I know this is a problem I need to manage.) I think of it as a kind of dynamic like the Asking/Guessing dynamic. It seems like some of the posters or readers who empathize with posters feel that criticism about a post is something to interpret with a bias toward it being meant personally or as a violation of a strongly held belief in freedom of expression and some of the posters or readers who empathize with the posters feel like you just post something and if it doesn't make the mod cut, no big deal.

But I think unfortunately both kinds of people especially in the extreme (the ones who feel one way or the other to an extreme) need to get averaged out (and not accounted for) by the mods who are only able to serve the average sort of MeFi poster/reader.

In that way I can see why the mods through long and hard and still do about publishing reasons for deleting posts. They don't need us second-guessing and they also don't need us cheering them on. They still need to moderate the site content. Flags or no flags, other mechanisms or no, for quickly IDing bad posts, they still need to do the site moderation, no matter how we feel about it, no matter whether we take it personally or not, no matter whether we feel that free speech overrides good taste or legal prudence.
posted by kalessin at 6:00 AM on August 17, 2010

How It's Made is one of the best things on TV right now.

If you love How It's Made, you should also check out Factory Made and How Do They Do It, also on the Science Channel, and Unwrapped on the Food Network (hosted by Marc Summers!), which does the same thing for processed foods.
posted by clerestory at 6:56 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've heard that job satisfaction is highest in the demolition industry, and it's not hard for me to believe that.

I have done a little bit of manual demolition. There is nothing quite so satisfying as completely wrecking a house or concrete slab with a sledgehammer or maddox pick and a prybar. Or your boots. Or just getting in there and ripping up drywall or plaster with your bare hands. Doing it with a giant mechanized robot has to be even better.

The cleanup part sucks, though, and is often a large fraction of the actual work.

If you love How It's Made, you should also check out...

...and Modern Marvels, Superstructures of the World, Big Stuff, Ultimate Factories and more.

The factory tour shows tend to use old stock footage that they edit into shows with voiceover narration. I've stumbled on a few of the videos, and some come from industry groups and some come from things like Pennsylvania's Cable Network PCN Tours, of which google video and youtube have a lot of the episodes.

Archive.org and the Prelinger archive has a lot of older stuff as well, including the Jam Handy Organization films.
posted by loquacious at 7:46 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

> The cleanup part sucks, though, and is often a large fraction of the actual work.

Long ago in another life I also did some demo work. It was usually three hours of knocking down stuff, then several more standing around while the supervisor cleared all of the debris into a big pile with the Bobcat. Man, that dude was some kind of athlete with that thing. It's not just sitting in a chair pulling a lever, it's a full body engagement with man and machine, moving backwards and forwards, raising and lowering the scoop, and being aware of his surroundings. I'll always have respect for (good) construction equipment operators after watching that guy.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:51 AM on August 17, 2010

Is this just a "tits or GTFO" situation that would befall just about any attractive woman who appeared on that stage?

IIRC (I'm not about to go and re-read TMZ), the projectiles increased in frequency when Ms. Tequila bared her bosom.

So, II do indeed RC, that would seem to negate the "tits or GTFO" hypothesis, excepting of course the (unlikely...right?) possibility of a shared interest amongst Juggalos for pummel-porn.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:44 AM on August 17, 2010

Hey!

It just occurred to me that the rain in Dylan's "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35" (aka "Everybody Must Get Stoned") is a hard one. It's a hard rain! Like in that other song!

P.S. That halibut was good enough for Jehovah.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:49 AM on August 17, 2010

I'll always have respect for (good) construction equipment operators after watching that guy.

I once saw the most talented Bobcat operator in the world working on what looked like a gas station fuel tank remediation job. Frankly, he looked a lot like Otto, the schoolbus driving stoner from the Simpsons - hat, headphones and dopey face and all. I actually got off the bus I was on when I first saw him and walked back just to watch the insanity.

He was wearing that Bobcat like a Lycra suit and dancing. He was just moving dirt from a pile and filling up a big hole, but goddamn. He'd scoop up a pile of dirt, pop a wheelie on the back wheels, spin a 360 while still up in the air in a wheelie, scoot over to the hole on the back wheels, slam into a nose wheelie on the front wheels right on the edge of the hole, dump the dirt with a precise spin throwing the dirt out in an even spread in the hole, scoot back to the dirt pile backwards still just on the front wheels, slam back on to four wheels punctuated by a precise 180 bunnyhop masquerading as a skid steer, scoop up more dirt, and repeat with infinite variations, sometimes pulling off multiple 360 spins on one set of wheels or another between runs, grinning wildly the whole time. It was ridiculous.

The only way I can figure why he still had the job is that even with all his fancy moves he was faster and more accurate than any Bobcat operator I've ever seen. I still wonder (in awe and terror) what he'd do with a great big bucket loader, a backhoe or one of those giant electric-diesel mining dump trucks.

Note that I didn't say safest Bobcat operator.
posted by loquacious at 8:51 AM on August 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

There's a dumb logician joke here about the distinction between inclusive and exclusive or.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:51 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

200!
posted by item at 12:13 PM on August 17, 2010

∞
posted by Babblesort at 12:53 PM on August 17, 2010

ℵ_ω
posted by FishBike at 1:16 PM on August 17, 2010

יהוה‎
posted by griphus at 1:27 PM on August 17, 2010

I'm surprised no one has made a joke about this using this yet, given the vague resemblance...
posted by Burhanistan at 1:28 PM on August 17, 2010

*makes joke about this and this*
posted by nomadicink at 2:35 PM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Tripping Balls. (2 minutes in)
posted by gman at 2:48 PM on August 17, 2010

Same thing but queued at the right spot. The ability to append "#t=x" where x = number of seconds in to start is basically my favorite youtube feature.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:56 PM on August 17, 2010

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO RELATE THIS VIDEO TO THE MONSTER THREAD SO HERE IT IS
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:37 PM on August 17, 2010

IIRC (I'm not about to go and re-read TMZ), the projectiles increased in frequency when Ms. Tequila bared her bosom.

This bit from the AV Club does a pretty good job of capturing the dynamic I'm guessing was at work:

... She became the proxy for every hot girl who ever accepted Jager shots at a crappy bar from them but went home with a slick douchebag in a tight Ed Hardy shirt. She was every girl they ever masturbated about in high school but couldn’t muster up the courage to ask out, every hot chick who ever frazzled their brain by making out with one of their drunk, hot friends at a party...

... In a desperate bid to win over the crowd, Tequila responded to angry cries of “Show us your tits” by removing her top. It somehow made a sad, surreal spectacle even more horrifying. Tequila was giving the crowd what she thought they wanted, but it still didn’t work. I was reminded of the moment in Nashville where Gwen Welles performs a similarly unexpected, impromptu striptease in a tragic attempt to overcome a similar lack of talent...

Not that I condone it, but I remember the weird, heady mix of empowerment/resentment that would bubble up in me when someone who was my social and aesthetic better would blatantly try to ingratiate themselves and manipulate me using the advantages I either coveted or lusted after. Multiply that feeling by the hundreds with a healthy pinch of booze and dope, and it's almost surprising that this didn't end even worse.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:57 PM on August 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

I don't blame the mods for nipping this in the bud. I've tried discussing this on other forums, and specifically suggested the following:

1) Yes, throwing potentially dangerous stuff at stage performers is dickish, regardless of the excuse or precedent, but
2) Using the incident as an excuse to vent your own blatantly classist bullshit is also dickish;
3) Any discussion of the injuries that Tila is alleged to have suffered during the incident should be done in the context that she has repeatedly cried wolf over things that are either completely fabricated, grossly exaggerated, or wholly unverifiable (probably the most extreme example is when she claimed that one of her alternate personalities tried to kill her--no, really);
4) One of the ICP claims that they paid Tila ahead of time, warned her about the rumors, and told her that she should leave if it got out of hand, but, quote, "Tila informed the group that she wouldn't back out of the performance because she's 'not a bitch like that.'" (Caveat: this is from TMZ.)

I was subsequently accused of "blaming the victim" and trying to claim that "she was asking for it", both of which are pretty loaded phrases, to put it mildly. Lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and all that after spending a lot more time thinking about Tila Tequila than I've ever wanted to, which is to say just about any amount of time at all.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:19 PM on August 18, 2010