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Friday, January 23, 2009

HEIDI CONFUSES ME

"Okay, you people have me plum tuckered out. If we haven’t been “debating” men vs. women, we’ve been “debating” liberals vs conservatives, and now racial stereotyping? Except that the debate quickly devolves into the same 10 people arguing the same tired stuff over and over."

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/01/23/soooooo-tired/

So I get that she's tired, but-- what else do people do on any messageboard but proclaim their opinions over and over?

There's no real meeting of minds on a messboard; the format mitigates against it. All one can get, however rarely, is an occasional insight that refines one's own views in a new light. As for views contrary to one's own, I doubt anyone's had any "road to Damascus" experiences on a messboard, so the likelihood of conversion is always pretty damn low.

I always frankly assumed Heidi started the kind of controversies she describes to help hype her board, which I regard as a quite legitimate marketing strategy. I even wrote a little song about it a few days before reading her "So Tired" post.

Maybe I'll post it tomorrow anyway. No time now.

2 comments:

Charles R. said...

What's confusing? Another internet poster who can't handle people who disagree. She's a definite, prominent type one runs into on messboards. Most comic book professionals I've encountered belong to this category.

Gene Phillips said...

The confusing thing is that if she wanted vanilla topics that excited no debate, she and her co-workers could certainly avoid starting any controversies, even if they continued to report on them. For instance, she could report on Dave Sim doing an Internet tour but not trouble to voice her own opinion on things Simian.