Being Amber Rhea

Has RSS caused blog comments to dramatically decline? Is it an effect of one’s blog getting more popular? Is it random?

None of those answers make much sense to me, but I and several of my friends (Dacia, Rusty, Jen, Duane… just to name a few) have noticed that we don’t get nearly as many comments as we used to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Quality is way more important than quantity. The “great post!” comments are certainly nice, but if those are the only comments, well, something is lacking. And I certainly don’t want assholish or outright trollish comments. I mean why do you think I banned valeko, Andisheh, and a few other repeat offenders?

Interesting conversation is what we all want, right? And shit, people, that’s not unique to blogs. That’s life.

And yeah, unfortunately, sometimes when there’s been a lot of conversation on a post I’ve written, it happened to coincide with a very busy time in my off-blog life, so that I simply wasn’t able to sit down and write in-depth replies. Other times, I admit, the flurry of conversation has been a little over-stimulating, and I’ve been content to sit back and enjoy it vicariously - and I don’t mean that in a negative way; what I mean is, I like listening to smart, interesting people talk!

So I hope you all will comment more. I know that lots of smart, interesting people read my blog (flattery will get me everywhere!), and we have lots of good conversations elsewhere (even if they’re getting kind of fragmented, with things like Twitter and Tumblr) - so yeah I guess I’m being selfish and saying, I want some good conversation here!

I don’t want flaming, or stupidity, or trolling… but good conversation. Like hanging out at a (non-smokey, not too loud) bar, except you don’t have to leave your house or spend money. (Unless you want to!)

(I am resisting the urge to create a “navel-gazing” tag to use with this post. Frankly I’m sick of my own self-deprecation. As Fred Stoeker would say, “It stops here!”)

Talk about your Bingo card of arguments! Seriously, if I see “selling their bodies” one more time - and from a feminist, at that! - I am going to lose my damn mind.

Other Bingo-worthy words and phrases in this comment:

• empowering
• collection of holes and body parts Ed. note: ick! Bonus point for use of unnecessarily porny language.
• cash in on it
• post-feminist
• sex-as-a-commodity
• Sorry, but…
• early sexualization

As I said on the Feministe thread from whence this comment came:

And I guess I’m one of those old-fashioned feminists that doesn’t think a woman’s entire self-worth is wrapped up in what she does sexually. The phrase “selling her body” is *extremely* patriarchal and reduces sex workers to one aspect of their being: their sexual behavior. Sex workers are *not* selling their bodies - they are offering a service. Sorry but I thought that feminism didn’t subscribe to the belief that a woman engaging in sex with a man constitutes a transfer of ownership.

I do, however, need a “Stamp of Approval” or “OK!” stamp, because the last three sentences of that comment do not fail. I have no Photoshop skills to speak of, though (aside from putting one layer on top of another to make the above image, and the like) so that’ll have to wait until Rusty feels motivated to create more graphics for my amusement.

Here’s an IM conversation I had with the lovely SakursSarashi mere minutes ago:

[11:18] sakurasarashi: just got an interesting comment on my blog
[11:20] AmberATL30309: interesting how?
[11:20] sakurasarashi: its SUPER long
[11:20] sakurasarashi: and its from an ex creepy guy
[11:20] sakurasarashi: on the entry i made after being harassed that night
[11:21] AmberATL30309: oh wonderful, one of THOSE
[11:21] AmberATL30309: one word… DELETE
[11:21] sakurasarashi: i approved it… he took a lot of time writing it
[11:21] AmberATL30309: fuck him
[11:21] sakurasarashi: and made some interesting points
[11:21] AmberATL30309: you don’t owe him shit
[11:21] sakurasarashi: and was very respectful
[11:22] AmberATL30309: well, it’s your call. but i used to be all concerned about the delicate fee-fees of assholes on blogs, and then i realized, why? they have no right to my space. they got somethign to say, they can say it on their own blog.
[11:22] sakurasarashi: oh yeah, i have deleted disrespectful comments
[11:22] sakurasarashi: but i dont mind this one… just thought it was interesting
[11:23] AmberATL30309: i’m reading it. he sounds like an asshole.
[11:23] AmberATL30309: classic “Nice Guy”
[11:23] sakurasarashi: haha
[11:23] AmberATL30309: he should read the Don’t Be That Guy post i linked to last night
[11:23] sakurasarashi: i am SO going to link that
[11:23] AmberATL30309: seriously, anyone who makes a statemetn like “Guys are assholes” and leaves it at that? FUCK THEM
[11:23] sakurasarashi: in reply to him
[11:24] sakurasarashi: he has some hella WMP too
[11:24] AmberATL30309: WMP?
[11:24] AmberATL30309: “It’s taken me years of hard work to reduce my creepiness.” - bwahahaha!! oh really, dear, do tell!
[11:24] sakurasarashi: white male privilege
[11:24] AmberATL30309: uh, yeah, he’s kind of drowning in it
[11:25] AmberATL30309: clue phone is ringing… guess what dude… you are STILL CREEPY
[11:25] sakurasarashi: haha
[11:25] AmberATL30309: i’m sorry (actually, i’m not) but guys like this make me sick
[11:25] AmberATL30309: all tiny violin and male privilege
[11:25] sakurasarashi: i can tell
[11:26] sakurasarashi: lol
[11:26] AmberATL30309: i’ve just seen it so many times that it’s SO not funny anymore
[11:26] sakurasarashi: yeah
[11:27] AmberATL30309: anyway, like i said, your call. if it were me, i’d either delete the comment, or repost the comment with the FAIL stamp on top of it
[11:27] sakurasarashi: i was ALREADY in the process of the fail stamp thing
[11:27] sakurasarashi: hahahaha
[11:27] AmberATL30309: lol!!!
[11:27] AmberATL30309: GMTA
[11:27] sakurasarashi: I KNOW!
[11:27] sakurasarashi: can i quote you on the “clue phone ringing thing?
[11:28] AmberATL30309: indeed
[11:28] AmberATL30309: and now to get super meta, can i blog this whole damn IM convo?
[11:28] sakurasarashi: yes
[11:28] AmberATL30309: awesome

Here is the comment in question. It is an EPIC FAIL, as you will see from the number of stamps it required. (It actually could’ve used a few more, but my stamp pad ran out of ink.)

[Click for larger image version, if you’re so inclined.]

As posted on my Tumblr (yes, I have one of those, although I don’t use it very often)…

That’s a comment on Tiffany Brown’s post about Violet Blue’s recent SFGate column, which I keep meaning to blog about myself.

Rusty made a fail stamp image with a transparent background that I can put on top of screenshots of stupid/ignorant/obnoxious/pathetic comments, or anything else, really. Fun!