Don't be jerks to folks with lupus

October 20, 2002 5:48 PM

"I've got Lupus." You're a werewolf!? No wonder you don't go outside. I'm no model MeFite, but this struck me as particularly offensive, inappropriate, and sophmoric, especially in the context of the thread. Sharing too much personal information is discouraged, but I don't think anybody deserves this amount of disrespect.
posted by eddydamascene to Etiquette/Policy at 5:48 PM (51 comments total)

spell check, sophomoric.
posted by eddydamascene at 5:52 PM on October 20, 2002

Dude, no offense, but lighten up.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:04 PM on October 20, 2002

I think the idiocity and unfunnyness of the comment is reflection enough of the poster, and this Metatalk thread is unnecessary.
posted by Stan Chin at 6:09 PM on October 20, 2002

[Singing]

"Everybody's offended by something,
but nobody has to take it seriously."

[/Singing]

Now I have a serious craving for reheated cake.

posted by mischief at 6:26 PM on October 20, 2002

I debated whether or not to just ignore the comment, but in the end I decided that maybe son_of_minya deserved a more of a response. He specifically called out a previous poster with this... that was personal.

Son_of_minya, I'm not trying to be a prick, I just thought you were out of line on this one, and that maybe an apology was in order (not to me, even though I'm the one getting all sanctimonious about this).
posted by eddydamascene at 7:23 PM on October 20, 2002

Normally I would have maybe chuckled over a comment like this. But two things made me wince when I saw it:

1. It was directed at someone personally, not a comment born out of misunderstanding or about someone not present or a general discussion of the condition.

2. The overwhelming bulk of the discussion was very open and very personal.

It was just bad, bad timing for a 1/5 star joke.
posted by holycola at 7:34 PM on October 20, 2002

Anything that stomps on moronic, insulting humor - in a thread that had already featured some amazing and relevant personal disclosure, is fine by me. Thanks for calling this out, eddydamascene.
posted by mediareport at 7:53 PM on October 20, 2002

I think we shouldn't get too personal on this site, period. I signed up for a Mefi account about the same time this thread debuted, which I thought was going to drive someone to suicide. Nothing online has ever made me feel less comfortable, period. This particular thread came a month after the bunnyfire farewell thread, where we had a discussion about someone's bipolar disorder. Then came this one where Matt had to strip out half the comments because someone said too much.

It creeps me out, guys, and I don't think some of what gets posted on the net is safe to discuss with the entire world.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:20 PM on October 20, 2002

I don't see what's wrong with "getting personal" here, so long as you're willing to deal with the snarks -- which you should expect. This is not the Democratic Underground, and there is no point looking for a general holding of hands and singing of Kum-ba-ya if you share your sorrows; there is likely to be some of that, and there is also likely to be someone going "so what?" or babbling about werewolves. I winced when I saw the comment (but also chuckled a little), but I wasn't the least bit surprised, and it would never have occurred to me to take it to MeTa. Me, I'm glad people share their experiences with agoraphobia and other things I don't know about firsthand; I've learned a lot from those threads. But everyone should know what they're getting into.
posted by languagehat at 8:59 PM on October 20, 2002

(Or: what Dark Messiah said.)
posted by languagehat at 9:01 PM on October 20, 2002

>I think we shouldn't get too personal on this site, period.

But I love Cara, and I want to tell her here, and on passing-by walls with spraypaint. Oh I'm a selfish wretch, I can't bare to be away.

I'M COMING HOME BABY!
posted by holloway at 9:08 PM on October 20, 2002

prince, it was some of the threads you mention that made me love this place. I like the fact that some people don't mind giving up information on themselves--not only do I like them better for it but it might make somebody else better too. Of course, if everybody shared so much personal stuff all of the time, MeFi wouldn't be MeFi, so I'm also glad that most people don't share to such an extreme all that often.

MetaFilter is a filter of the Net, and the net is filled with all kinds of sites, all kinds of personalities, be they "normal" or "abnormal". I don't think MetaFilter would be a very good filter without some degree of sharing of these very personal items from its members. IMHO.
posted by ashbury at 9:31 PM on October 20, 2002

Wow, I remember when we yelling about Larry Flint jokes (wheelchair ones, but tame by comparison). I'm really trying to decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing.
posted by geoff. at 9:36 PM on October 20, 2002

I like the fact that some people don't mind giving up information on themselves--not only do I like them better for it but it might make somebody else better too.

This all came at the expense of people who tried to confide in the Mefi membership, and got laughed at as a result.

Obviously nobody should have expected this to be a support group, but their comments remain. It's in the humanitarian interest that we discourage people from divulging too much about their personal lives on Mefi. Precisely because it won't do any good to the person posting the information. It may have some benefit to the lurker who needed to learn about what it is like to have disease X (and I learned a lot of useful stuff from the mefi thread in question), but this can just as easily be achieved by reading case studies where the patient is anonymous or was willing to be interviewed on the record.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:10 PM on October 20, 2002

Thanks for bringing it to metafilter. I was a little put off by it when I saw it, but decided not to draw attention to it in hopes I was just being uptight.

If someone has a potentially life-threatening disease you can maybe fuck around with them if you know them really well in real life, know that they're cool with it, and they can tell its good-natured, but if you're talking to a stranger online, and the tone of your voice can't be transmitted via text, you always err on the side of not being a jackass.

I want metafilter to be a forum where people can open up and not get made fun of at all. I don't think son_of_minya did anything terrible, but it was definitely in poor taste. Should he be banned for it? Obviously not, but he should be made to know that a certain level of decorum is expected, which is what metatalk threads like this are for.
posted by Hildago at 10:11 PM on October 20, 2002

It creeps me out, guys, and I don't think some of what gets posted on the net is safe to discuss with the entire world.

Mentioning that you have lupus and have had two small strokes is hardly "creepy." I think one of the reasons personal statements like that stick out so much is that they're relatively rare here. But that doesn't mean they're always bad; I loved the honesty in that thread. When personal experiences are concise and relevant to the topic at hand, as Oriole Adams' statement was, they usually get a supportive response, which is as it should be.

It's fine to post them - and therefore fine to metaphorically smack someone upside the head if s/he makes fun of them, like son_of_minya did.
posted by mediareport at 10:31 PM on October 20, 2002

"this struck me as particularly offensive, inappropriate, and sophmoric,"

um... that's why it was funny!


look, if you don't want to be mocked, stay silent. otherwise, take it. and take it like you mean it.

and, being as i haven't beaten a dead horse recently...

"words have power granted by the listener, and only by the listener."
posted by jcterminal at 10:56 PM on October 20, 2002

My oldest friend, an infrequent poster here at the 'filter - known him for almost 30 years now - was diagnosed with lupus last year.

My biggest problem with s_o_m's comment was not that it was mean-spirited, but that it just wasn't funny. Each to his own, though, I guess, as jcterminal thought it was.

As I've said before, people (myself included) are rarely as amusing as they think they are. Nowhere is that more evident than MeFi, sometimes.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:05 PM on October 20, 2002

'cause like my black actor friend, Sheldon Turnipseed, he calls bad things good, and good things bad. That's Sheldon Turnipseed for you, crazy!
posted by holloway at 11:07 PM on October 20, 2002

I actually thought the comment was funny (but then, I have been called a sick bastard before today). I can also see that some would not like it, either through personal association or general community-mindedness.

As a borderline comment, it should not have been allowed to make it past preview, where at least 50% of my comments die a timely and well-deserved death. That way, I get to chuckle at my own witty jokes without letting everyone else know that I am a dickhead who wouldn't know a good joke if it bit me.
posted by dg at 11:45 PM on October 20, 2002

"words have power granted by the listener, and only by the listener."

What's the difference between that and having no responsibility for your statements? If your thesis is true, then why does Matt ban people solely for things they've said? And if that's your belief, then why reply to this thread at all?

The two controls of a functional benign anarchy are responsibility for one's actions and responsibility to the group. That's why interactions and behavior are the number one topic in Metafilter. Members have a right to question or hold up to scrutiny the behavior of others, hopefully with some care, because words mean things, and because not everything is appropriate in this forum. Laughing and having your own reaction to someone's statement is one thing: telling people to shut up for fear of mockery is profoundly antisocial.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 12:28 AM on October 21, 2002

It may have some benefit to the lurker who needed to learn about what it is like to have disease X (and I learned a lot of useful stuff from the mefi thread in question), but this can just as easily be achieved by reading case studies where the patient is anonymous or was willing to be interviewed on the record.

Does that mean people shouldn't put in their expert--or quasi expert, at least--opinions they've learned through whatever field they're employed into a discussion? It seems like the same thing to me, and I certainly don't see a problem with hearing informed, personal opinions from the MeFi collective.

-----

The joke may or may not have been funny, but I didn't find it that offensive. Come on, it didn't seem particularly mean-spirited. Perhaps not well thought out, but that's it.
posted by The God Complex at 1:31 AM on October 21, 2002

New tagline:

MetaFilter -- Share personal info at your own risk

Also: what Prince Valium said

posted by matteo at 4:21 AM on October 21, 2002

I prefer Metafilter: What, you thought we fucking cared?

or

Metafilter: Expound on to us whatever crazy opinions you want, just don't talk about yourself because we get a little creeped out when we have to put faces and feelings to the previously autonomous masses of digital output we originally saw you as.
posted by The God Complex at 4:59 AM on October 21, 2002

Regardless of whether you find the original comments offensive, isn't that the sort of thing that could have been discussed much more directly in the thread, rather than here? If this represented a pattern of behavior, I could understand the need for expanded discussion, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Addressing son_of_minya's comments directly probably would have been enough.

Has MetaTalk become a dumping ground where we complain about each and every comment that (rightly or wrongly) offends us?
posted by UnReality at 5:56 AM on October 21, 2002

I definitely see what PrinceValium and Matteo are getting at, I just don't completely agree. We all bring our own experiences to the MeFi table and much of what we say is coloured by those experiences. As I mentioned earlier, MeFi is a community that shares information about pretty much everything, as opposed to a certain topic (ie medicine, technology, engineering, etc). Because of this we get a wide range of people with an even wider range of experiences. So it's okay if PrinceValium or anybody else doesn't like to share their personal experiences--nobody is asking them to. Nor is anybody demanding anybody else to read those personal experiences.

On the other side of the coin, I don't agree with somebody mentioning that they are manic-depressive in every thread. There is a time and a place to mention these personal things and we must all have the maturity and responsibility to know when and where it's okay to do so.

Unfortunately, we must expect a certain amount of badly-timed jocularity and/or insensitivity around the personal revelations that we've seen. FWIW, the bad joke was certainly inappropriate but that is the chance you take when you display portions of yourself in a public forum. I would hope that the people in that thread knew what they were doing when they posted their comments and expected some sort of lack of empathy. Considering the subject of the thread, I'm pleasantly surprised that there was only the one off-colour comment.
posted by ashbury at 6:08 AM on October 21, 2002

An interesting thread, indeed. As someone who also has a chronic illness--gasp!--I feel that s_o_m's comment was inappropriate. Undeniably stupid. Yet it's nothing new. Anyone who is anything less than "normal" (and by that I mean, "healthy") is bound to hear insensitive, asinine comments. I get them all the time. After awhile, you tend to just dismiss them and chalk them up to ignorance. My guess is the majority of the people who shared personal experiences in their comments have heard plenty of asinine comments. But it doesn't excuse s_o_m's comment. And frankly, I don't think it excuses all the people who came in here to say, "This doesn't warrant a MeTa thread!" If you don't feel it was offensive, good for you. Other people might be more sensitive, specifically those directly affected. I think it does warrant a MeTa thread, and I don't think there's anything wrong with getting a little personal on MeFi. I don't want a support group atmosphere either, mind you, but I think knowing members a little more intimately establishes a stronger sense of community spirit, as opposed to knowing faceless strangers hiding behind screen names. I think it's human nature to want to connect with other people, and that's what was happening in that thread. I also think it's human nature to show concern for others, and that's what's happening in this thread. It's okay.
And for the record, the fourth post was prefaced with, "This post will contain some personal details, so please skip it if that upsets you." The comment in question was not prefaced with, "This post will contain some stupidity, so please skip it if you don't want to be insulted." (I can already see it coming, so spare me, please.)
posted by Zulujines at 7:57 AM on October 21, 2002

also: what ashbury said
posted by Zulujines at 8:06 AM on October 21, 2002

...this can just as easily be achieved by reading case studies where the patient is anonymous or was willing to be interviewed on the record.

Erm...unless the poster is somehow forced to write their personal experiences, surely anything they choose to write here is equivalent to being "willing to be interviewed on the record", no? They're volunteering this information, such things often add a lot to the thread, and you don't have to read it if it makes you uncomfortable (especially when the person is kind enough to state that their comment contains personal information up front). I understand that you're concerned on others' behalf, but perhaps it should be left up to the individual poster to decide what's too much information and what's not when it comes to divulging their personal information. Most people here are well aware of what risks they run when commenting, and have the option to remain pretty anonymous should they want to.

As to the comment in question: it was juvenile but I don't think it was intended to be offensive, and it merely served to underline the fact that humour is always subjective. I didn't find it funny, but I think it's a bit thin-skinned to find something that sophomoric all-out offensive.
posted by biscotti at 9:04 AM on October 21, 2002

it's a bit thin-skinned to find something that sophomoric all-out offensive.

It depends on where you're coming from. I too have a chronic autoimmune disease, and I revealed that fact here some time ago. If someone had then done to me what son_of_minya did here, I would have probably been on Metatalk within seconds, if not at the front door of the poster's house ready to kick the crap out of him.

If you've got a chronic autoimmune disease, you're pretty much in pain all the time. (That, and bone tired.) Mocking the pain of someone who is suffering -- to her face -- is objectionable enough in polite society that I'm surprised we're even debating whether it's funny.
posted by mcwetboy at 9:45 AM on October 21, 2002

If you've got a chronic autoimmune disease, you're pretty much in pain all the time.

So then why add further stress to your system, getting bent out of shape over a silly, ignorant comment?
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:07 AM on October 21, 2002

to her face

That's the crux of it right there.

Some people treat online communication as a real, human-to-human conversation. Some treat it as anonymous, impersonal words on a page. And much of what I find interesting about the internet is how the consensus on which of those is "correct" behavior is so ambiguous... Some places on the net, dumb comments like that one would be perfectly appropriate. Hell, in certain threads right here at MeFi, they'd be at least par for the course. But in this thread, given the tenor and openness of the conversation so far, it was jarring and very much out of place.

You can get away with saying things online that you'd never say to someone's face, and that's just fine. Just choose your moment, is all I'm saying.
posted by ook at 11:12 AM on October 21, 2002

Mocking the pain of someone who is suffering -- to her face -- is objectionable enough in polite society that I'm surprised we're even debating whether it's funny.

I don't disagree, of course, and I have close relatives with autoimmune diseases so I'm not unaware of their effects, but I question whether the "joke" in question was truly about mocking someone's pain or if it was merely a poorly-chosen play on words. Making a joke about "lupus" being similar to "lupine" is not the same as making fun of someone's chronic illness. I think it's a bit extreme to get so offended by a silly, juvenile pun that you'd mention employing violence against someone. I certainly don't think the joke was funny or in good taste, mind you, but there are degrees of such things. IMHO it's a good idea to pick your battles and this just didn't have the malevolence or degree of seriousness that would warrant this level of response, a simple "not funny" in the thread probably would have sufficed.
posted by biscotti at 11:20 AM on October 21, 2002

UnReality: isn't that the sort of thing that could have been discussed much more directly in the thread, rather than here?

Perhaps, but more people have weighed in here than would have been appropriate for discussion within the thread. Fewer people may have commented if it remained in the thread, true, but as I said I thought this was sufficiently out of line to warrant more of a response, and a pretty unambiguous example of what you can't do under the cover of snarkness. I would agree that son_on_minya probably did not intend to be hurtful, but even if you're guilty of posting without thinking, you should take some responsibility for it, which I haven't seen in this case. At least here, people have a chance to read the range of arguments on the matter. As for the criterion of a pattern of behavior, there is a precedent for how to deal with that: those people get banned. I would argue that a better way to deal with the problem is to set people straight before it gets to that point. Hopefully prevents a few stains like this one, and it doesn't require mathowie intervention.
posted by eddydamascene at 11:44 AM on October 21, 2002

So then why add further stress to your system, getting bent out of shape over a silly, ignorant comment?
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:07 AM PST on October 21

By that rationale, why leave the house?
posted by Zulujines at 12:08 PM on October 21, 2002

By that rationale, why leave the house?

I didn't mean what I said that literally.

Leaving the house and getting pissed off over someone's poor attempt at humour are fairly different things.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2002

"I thought it was very funny. People like to bitch, don't let it get to you."

posted by Perigee at 1:23 PM on October 21, 2002

Perigee, that refers to a different situation. Or, what holycola said.
posted by eddydamascene at 2:23 PM on October 21, 2002

I know, Dark Messiah. I was just fucking with you. ;-)
posted by Zulujines at 2:43 PM on October 21, 2002

eddydamascene, have you tried e-mailing s_o_m? I remember back in the old days of MeTa we used to do that when finding something objectionable. Sometimes it helps to get a feel of the person's knowledge of how offensive he/she meant to be before bringing the discussion over here. In many cases you can get a private apology and the person will strive to be a better meta-zin. Judging from the tone of his previous posts, I'm not sure if that would be the case however...but it's always worth a shot. Of course, I can't remember the last time it was decreed that was the way to go.
posted by samsara at 2:50 PM on October 21, 2002

samsara, that would have been best. I sent s_o_m a message.
posted by eddydamascene at 6:05 PM on October 21, 2002

I can't say that it was appropriate, but I have to say that I thought it was funny. I thought that it was a clever play on words. I'm guessing the only reason s_o_m quoted by name was because in a big thread like that it's hard to keep track of context. I don't think s_o_m was trying to be nasty, just clever.

It was a joke, and if I had to guess, not a mean *spirited* one.

One the other hand:
Tyler D: Very clever. How's that workin out for ya? Being clever...
Jack: good, good.
Tyler D: alright, keep it up then.
posted by jaded at 12:17 AM on October 22, 2002

Some of you are completely missing why this is funny. It's funny because son_of_minya has intentionally made himself look like an insensitive dolt by acting like he doesn't know what lupus is. Since nobody could really be that insensitive, obviously he is playing the fool here -- inviting us to laugh at him, or really at the role he's playing -- not at Oriole Adams. It's a more subtle variation of self-deprecating humor, one I have engaged in from time to time.

On the other hand, this style of humor is so frequently misunderstood that I've basically abandoned it myself. Sad but necessary when you live in a world of people whose trains of thought don't run along those tracks. Also, even people who know me seem all too willing to believe at the drop of the hat that I've really suddenly become an idiot, rather than just acting the part.
posted by kindall at 11:35 AM on October 22, 2002

Received an e-mail today. Normally don't check MetaTalk. Some people seem to have really gotten the wrong idea about my comments. I do realize that lupus is a serious disease and all, but the comment was so obviously ridiculous that I couldn't imagine anyone putting a frowny-face kinda slant on it. Just lighthearted.

Had I realized at the time that Lupus is not in fact the same thing as Lycanthropy, I would obviously have never posted that stupid comment. I feel pretty horrible.

I just thought it was kind of ironic that she spent a lot of time in the house, and she was also a werewolf. So, I guess it's a good thing she doesn't go out much for us! I don't mean to sound self-centered, I mean she would be chased, by people with torches, and they would probably try to do some harm to her. I really should have thought about those kinds of consequences, but I figure Metafilter is a pretty civilized place and civilized people don't believe in cutting a werewolf's heart out and then burying it's head a long distance from the body anymore.

Really, I would feel perfectly comfortable making that comment in public. We're all gonna die in a nuclear holocaust soon anyway, so enjoy life while you can. I'm not a very empathic person, I admit, but I just think people should be able to laugh about their ancient blood curse which damns them with cloven feet and wolf's fangs during each full moon. This really was just a silly comment, much as thankfully at least a few posters in this thread have realized. It was not intended to be laughing about a chronic disease.
posted by son_of_minya at 1:57 PM on October 22, 2002 [1 favorite]

Cara, remind me to add son_of_minya to our christmas card list.

Also, could you remind me to not use online forums as post-it notes. I keep doing that.

♥
posted by holloway at 2:07 PM on October 22, 2002

...I mean she would be chased, by people with torches, and they would probably try to do some harm to her.

Don't laugh. It has happened to me and they even had pitchforks and other farming implements as well. Have you ever gone toe-to-toe with an angry villager wielding a scythe with the intent of slicing your abdomen open? I barely escaped with my hide intact.
posted by euphorb at 2:09 PM on October 22, 2002

this thread is a keeper...
posted by machaus at 2:13 PM on October 22, 2002

It was not intended to be laughing about a chronic disease.

Aside from Lycanthropy, that is. Don't you think lycanthropes have feelings too?
posted by timeistight at 2:54 PM on October 22, 2002

kindall: Since nobody could really be that insensitive...
crackheadmatt?

Has anybody seen my straw man? I was whacking on it just a little while ago...

UnReality: isn't that the sort of thing that could have been discussed much more directly in the thread, rather than here?

Yes.
posted by eddydamascene at 6:25 PM on October 22, 2002

Actually, on second thought, not even crackheadmatt.
*sigh*
posted by eddydamascene at 6:27 PM on October 22, 2002

Don't you think lycanthropes have feelings too?

Yeah but "He'll rip your lungs out, Jim". You still want to meet his tailor?
posted by Wulfgar! at 9:48 PM on October 22, 2002