Since I've started frequenting this forum, a general unspoken "rule" I've observed is to treat each thread separately in your mind and do not bring previous judgements/assumptions/whatevers into other threads. (Unless they are closely related or duplicated).
When I first came to the forum, I was shocked to see violent flame wars going on in some threads, then in others the same people were getting along like best friends on other topics. This is a very weird/unique group of people. :-P I think a lot of it is because many of us have met in real life. Its hard to stay angry at someone you can put a face to and may see again.
So I do my best to block out whatever happened in one and clear my mind for new topics. It may be hard to do, but just try, and don't think everyone hates you because you disagreed with everyone in one particular thread. I think almost everyone here has had their moment in the spotlight and said something disagreeable as the "bad guy" of a thread. But if we all held grudges there would be no more cool nerdy discussions going on. Now if you troll all of the threads, can't say you will be safe... :-P
There was a time when they did (RWAG at RIT). and those guys got verbally Buzz Aldrinned so badly they avoided/hated us (the FRC) to a wonderful degree.
Oh my god, I'm imagining this now and it's fantastic. Yeah, RWAG is still among the worst groups for girls getting creeped on. Sadly, the Anime Club is next.
Anime club creepers were a relatively recent phenomenon. We worked hard when I was on the E-board to minimize their impact to pretty good success. For example, we'd place certain non-creep trusted people by the doors of meetings to engage and be friendly with people who came in, edging out known creepers who would otherwise descend in a pack upon any new female.
We also set up the social structure in such a way that the creepers were more vested in attempting to engage with the E-board itself than with other members of the club. (They'd spend their time trying to hang out with me, rather than bothering girls). It was HIGHLY effective.
For example, if a girl was clearly being targeted by the creepers (or such targeting was imminent), I would personally invite the girl into the club library, rather than making them wait in creeper zone below. This was done while simultaneously doing so for my own personal friends (men and women) and people I was currently feeling favorable toward.
This was done openly. The library sat a floor above the club space, and had a sort of balcony, the stairs being open with a "guard" posted at their base. The entire club would see me personally bringing my "favored friends" up early, where they could hang out. They didn't notice that I was also inviting up people who were being targeted for creeping.
This made the fanboys jealous. They'd drop their pursuit of the ladies and spent their time trying to "get in good with Rym" so they could too be invited into the champagne room. It led to resentment, but resentment equally balanced by envy. To them, I was abusing my power, which they resented. But simultaneously, they were desperate to enter that "inner circle."
By assuming both their envy and their resentment, I thus distracted them from their other pursuits. Scott can attest to my finely balanced walk of encouraging them while simultaneously rejecting them. I thus got all the expected personal benefits of my position of power, while simultaneously channeling this authority into a constructive end. Scott played his part by being fairly verbally abusive and intolerant toward the fanboys and their bullshit (bad cop), making them even more favorably inclined to myself (good cop). Scott could see that I was laughing hollowly with them, false smiles and automatic responses, but they overlooked such things (either willfully or simply in comparison to Scott).
It's almost funny, because my understanding of the current Anime Club administration is that the head e-board members are the ones who invite the girls in the club to the library and special events. Not out of an, ultimately, benevolent social manipulation trick to protect them from sketchy individuals, but because they themselves are the sketchy individuals.
That, coupled in with some power-hungry, Tora-con administrative drama bullshit, and you've pretty much got the current picture painted right there.
The missing component in this pretty impressive feat of social engineering is reflecting their ill behavior and poor social grasp back on them in a way that causes them to recognize it and internalize the need to cut it the fuck out without being distracted by shinies, although if that's out of scope, it's out of scope.
The missing component in this pretty impressive feat of social engineering is reflecting their ill behavior and poor social grasp back on them in a way that causes them to recognize it and internalize the need to cut it the fuck out without being distracted by shinies...
Ahhh, we had several attempts on this front, all in vain. Scott openly and directly explained in great detail to these guys what was wrong with them, and all it resulted in is them hating Scott.
Some of them were beyond our help. At one point we acquired something like 80lbs of bars of soap....
Actually, this anecdote is too good. I might just tell it verbally and upload a quick thing to the Youtubes.
Oh, we have done the mentoring of the unintentional creeper. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But that can be done in parallel to offering a safe space for the objects of creepfection.
So has Rym always been like that? Like since day 0? Did anyone here know Rym before RIT?
Rym himself (biased source), his parents (biased source), rest of his family (also biased). In descending order of completeness of knowledge, which in turn is subject to memories that are also not flawlessly reliable.
The missing component in this pretty impressive feat of social engineering is reflecting their ill behavior and poor social grasp back on them in a way that causes them to recognize it and internalize the need to cut it the fuck out without being distracted by shinies...
Ahhh, we had several attempts on this front, all in vain. Scott openly and directly explained in great detail to these guys what was wrong with them, and all it resulted in is them hating Scott.
Some of them were beyond our help. At one point we acquired something like 80lbs of bars of soap....
Actually, this anecdote is too good. I might just tell it verbally and upload a quick thing to the Youtubes.
I think I know this one. You've said it on the show. It is indeed hilarious, and deserves to be told, rather than written.
The sad fact is, I have a completely clear picture of someone doing that without a second of "Oh my god, what?".
Comments
... Can we move on now?
When I first came to the forum, I was shocked to see violent flame wars going on in some threads, then in others the same people were getting along like best friends on other topics. This is a very weird/unique group of people. :-P I think a lot of it is because many of us have met in real life. Its hard to stay angry at someone you can put a face to and may see again.
So I do my best to block out whatever happened in one and clear my mind for new topics. It may be hard to do, but just try, and don't think everyone hates you because you disagreed with everyone in one particular thread. I think almost everyone here has had their moment in the spotlight and said something disagreeable as the "bad guy" of a thread. But if we all held grudges there would be no more cool nerdy discussions going on. Now if you troll all of the threads, can't say you will be safe... :-P
We also set up the social structure in such a way that the creepers were more vested in attempting to engage with the E-board itself than with other members of the club. (They'd spend their time trying to hang out with me, rather than bothering girls). It was HIGHLY effective.
For example, if a girl was clearly being targeted by the creepers (or such targeting was imminent), I would personally invite the girl into the club library, rather than making them wait in creeper zone below. This was done while simultaneously doing so for my own personal friends (men and women) and people I was currently feeling favorable toward.
This was done openly. The library sat a floor above the club space, and had a sort of balcony, the stairs being open with a "guard" posted at their base. The entire club would see me personally bringing my "favored friends" up early, where they could hang out. They didn't notice that I was also inviting up people who were being targeted for creeping.
This made the fanboys jealous. They'd drop their pursuit of the ladies and spent their time trying to "get in good with Rym" so they could too be invited into the champagne room. It led to resentment, but resentment equally balanced by envy. To them, I was abusing my power, which they resented. But simultaneously, they were desperate to enter that "inner circle."
By assuming both their envy and their resentment, I thus distracted them from their other pursuits. Scott can attest to my finely balanced walk of encouraging them while simultaneously rejecting them. I thus got all the expected personal benefits of my position of power, while simultaneously channeling this authority into a constructive end. Scott played his part by being fairly verbally abusive and intolerant toward the fanboys and their bullshit (bad cop), making them even more favorably inclined to myself (good cop). Scott could see that I was laughing hollowly with them, false smiles and automatic responses, but they overlooked such things (either willfully or simply in comparison to Scott).
It worked exceedingly well.
That, coupled in with some power-hungry, Tora-con administrative drama bullshit, and you've pretty much got the current picture painted right there.
Still pretty interesting.
Some of them were beyond our help. At one point we acquired something like 80lbs of bars of soap....
Actually, this anecdote is too good. I might just tell it verbally and upload a quick thing to the Youtubes.
There is a picture of Rym from high school, wherein he is posing with a sword.
Draw whatever conclusion you wish.
The sad fact is, I have a completely clear picture of someone doing that without a second of "Oh my god, what?".