(1) NO NEED TO SAY MORE. Michael Swanwick recounts what he labels the shortest and most succinct discussion about the horror genre in the history of the speculative fiction community:
MICHAEL SWANWICK: “I don’t like horror because it scares me.”
ELLEN DATLOW: “That’s why I love it.”
(2) A FINE ROMANCE. Welcome to 21st-century dating. “This Man Is Suing His Date For Texting During ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy'”.
Texting during a movie is rude.
Brandon Vezmar from Texas is taking a stance on the issue by suing his Bumble date after she used her phone during a movie. The Austin American-Statesman reported that Vezmar filed a small court claim for $17.31, the price of a 3D showing of “Guardians of the Galaxy 2.”
“It was kind of a first date from hell,” he told the local newspaper.
The 36-year-old said that his date was on her phone “at least 10-20 times in 15 minutes to read and send text messages.” According to Vezmar, he told her she should text outside, so she left and took the car in which they both arrived.
Ouch.
Vezmar claimed he tried to text and call his date before taking the matter to court. He tweeted a screenshot once his date sent a statement to KVUE anonymously to say that, while she felt bad that his feelings were hurt, she chose to leave because he made her feel unsafe.
“His behavior made me extremely uncomfortable, and I felt I needed to remove myself from the situation for my own safety,” the statement read. “He has escalated the situation far past what any mentally healthy person would.”
Director James Gunn, who might have stayed safely out of this, unfortunately decided to show his ass, as if texting in the theater was the entire issue.
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/864605865701146624
(3) TRAILER PARK. Aziz H. Poonawalla goes into deep analysis about the Star Trek: Discovery trailer.
But really, hairless Klingons? With a H.R. Geiger armor aesthetic?
It’s not like we haven’t seen the 60’s aesthetic embraced by modern television. Deep Space Nine went there and did it brilliantly — they arguably made the TOS USS Enterprise look even more gorgeous than any of her successors, and they didn’t change anything about her at all — just lighting and texture. Enterprise itself managed to authentically portray a pre-Kirk technology chic that had a more industrial feel, which was utterly believable as the ancestor to the softened look of the Kirk era. I do not accept that the Kelvinization of the Prime timeline was necessary to modernize the production. After all, the aesthetic of The Expanse and Dark Matter is thoroughly modern but doesn’t have the same Kelvin fascination with chrome and glass. Not that I want any Trek to go the grunge-fi look, but I do at least want Trek to honor it’s own identity. This feels like a rejection — purely a Han shot first decision.
(4) MESSAGE TO THE PAST. If the term “calendrical rot” hadn’t been invented for a different purpose, and we had a way to send it into the past, it would find the perfect Petri dish in this incredibly technical discussion of alternate timelines in Star Trek held on Reddit in 2015.
(5) SASQUATCH APPROPRIATED. In the Walrus, Robert Jago introduces his op-ed about Canada’s latest cultural appropriation controversy with an sff illustration: “On Cultural Appropriation, Canadians Are Hypocrites”.
Harry and the Hendersons is a 1987 fantasy movie about a Seattle family’s encounter with a friendly bigfoot (Harry) and their efforts to protect him from harm before releasing him in the mountains of the Pacific northwest. It’s a forgettable film, but it has undoubtedly been seen and heard in more Indigenous homes than has the story of Sasq’ets–the original sasquatch.
Sasq’ets, whose name was one of the few Halkomelem words to make their way into English, was one of a host of other legendary “wild people” living in the forests on the Pacific coast. For hundreds of generations, Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw children were raised on the stories of the wild people and taught to listen for their characteristic hu-hu-hu calls. Sasq’ets, along with Dzunuka, were said to capture wayward children, take them away from their families, and eat them. With their supernatural healing powers, the wild ones were thought to be invincible; only once was a wild person taken by angry villagers and burned alive. But to the mortals’ horror, the ashes began buzzing in a tiny chorus of little hu-hu-hu’s, and each particle sought out human flesh. This was the origin myth of mosquitos.
Sasq’ets taught our children to stay out of the forests at night. It connected us to our part of the world, in the same way that Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood connected Europeans to their ancient forests–and possibly for the same purposes. Our stories are works of genius and beauty, and vital to our relationship with the land. By no means do I want to restrict our legends to Indigenous people. I want you to know about Sasq’ets, and the psychedelically odd stories of the spirit of the South Winds, and all of the legends of our country.
But when the story is taken from us and told by outsiders without our involvement, its identity can be lost, and Sasq’ets becomes Bigfoot. The cultural dominance of non-Natives means that a B-movie like Harry and the Hendersons can have more influence over Salish children than the legend that inspired it.
(6) WESTLAKE’S BOND. Daniel Dern says be on the lookout for copies of Donald Westlake’s James Bond novel(ization) released last fall. “I’ve already just put a reserve-request in to my library.”
In the mid-1990s, prolific mystery and crime thriller author Donald E. Westlake submitted two treatments for the 18th Bond film (which would ultimately become ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’)….Never one to waste a good story, Westlake turned his treatments into a novel.
Dern adds:
Fewer Filers than normally expected might be familiar with Westlake, since he wrote near-zero scifi, by choice. OTOH, he wrote lots of great mystery/thriller/crime and other novels and stories, ranging from humorous, e.g. his John Dortmunder stories, and his tabloid-reporter ones, to serious, notably the ones written as Richard Stark.
See the Donald Westlake site.
My favorite Westlake book: Up Your Banners
(7) MACE WINDU GETS HIS OWN BOOK. The Jedi have always been the galaxy’s peacekeepers — but with the Clone Wars on the horizon, all that is about to change.
This August, writer Matt Owens (Elektra) will team with artist Denys Cowan (Nighthawk, Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers) to unveil the exciting story of one of the Jedi’s greatest warriors in STAR WARS: JEDI OF THE REPUBLIC — MACE WINDU #1!
One of the most accomplished and storied members of the Jedi High Council, his wisdom and combat prowess are legendary. Now, in this new story, readers will get to see Mace Windu lead his Jedi into battle, and face the ultimate test of leadership!
(8) PETER OLSON OBIT. SF Site News reports that Boston area fan Peter Olson (1949-2017) died April 28. He was active in NESFA and participated in the Ig Nobel Awards.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRLS
- Born May 18 — R. Laurraine Tutihasi
- Born May 18 — Diane Duane
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born May 18, 1897 — Frank Capra
(11) COMIC SECTION. John King Tarpinian says Ziggy has a point.
(12) WHIP OUT YOUR ROLL OF HUNDREDS. Nicole Pelletier on Good Morning America has a piece called “Classic Disney animation art featuring Snow White, Pinocchio headed to auction” about how a tranche of Disney cels from the 1940s is headed for auction in an event sponsored by Bonhams and Turner Classic Movies.
Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will present the movie memorabilia auction, “An Important Animation Art Collection, The Property of a Gentleman” in New York City on June 5.
The sale will feature more than 290 original Disney animation drawings, storyboards, posters, concept art and celluloids, according to Bonhams’ press release.
(13) WARNING LABEL. While I was browsing Bertie MacAvoy’s Amazon page, I especially enjoyed this self-introduction:
Robert A.MacAvoy
If you are young to the S.F. field and don’t know who I am, I will prep you by warning that I often kill off my heroes, sometimes at the most unexpected times. But never in a depressing manner. I’ve never wanted to depress my readers. My outlook is essentially comic.
(14) DRYING OFF. This may be the first good news I’ve ever heard about a convention associated with the Ozarks. Nerd & Tie’s Trae Dorn reports how some fans are overcoming a natural disaster: “West Plains, MO Based Oz-Con Plans Game Day Event to Make Up For Canceled Day of Con”.
I think any reasonable person would forgive the con, considering this was an extreme, unpredictable situation where homes and lives were literally lost. What’s the Sunday of a con compared to that? To the extreme credit of the Oz-Con organizers though, they still want to try to make it right.
Yesterday Oz-Con organizers announced an event they’re calling “Flood Con.” It’s a free game day the con is hosting from 9:00am until 10:00pm on June 17th at the Missouri State University-West Plains Student Rec Center. Admission is free, but they’ll also be accepting cash donations and canned food items to help with ongoing flood relief in the area. There will be video games, tabletop games, and fellow geeks to have a grand old time with.
Admittedly, I haven’t heard much about sff in the Ozarks — just that famous story about the time Larry Niven arrived expecting to be GoH of Ozarkon only to find out the con had been cancelled. (Fans involve swear they tried to get a message to him, but in those pre-internet days it failed to reach him on the road.)
(15) FAME IN PIXELS. Who needs a monument when you can be an answer on Jeopardy!
I am now functionally immortal. It's the tv show but still >FUNCTIONAL IMMORTALITY< pic.twitter.com/hsLgrOg2VG
— Lev Grossman (@leverus) May 17, 2017
(16) LOVECRAFT COUNTRY TO TV. Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot and Warner Bros Television are teaming on Lovecraft Country, a one-hour drama that has been given a straight-to-series order by HBO.
There is connective tissue to Peele’s breakout genre feature Get Out, which brought a Black Lives Matter theme to the horror genre. Lovecraft Country, the 2016 novel from Matt Ruff, focuses on 25-year-old Atticus Black. After his father goes missing, Black joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America to find him. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the malevolent spirits that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback. The goal is an anthological horror series that reclaims genre storytelling from the African-American perspective.
[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, JJ, Dawn Incognito, Daniel Dern, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ky.]
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We have no idea whether that’s true. He seems creepy with the small-claims suit, but she voluntarily met him again at the theater at the urging of Inside Edition. A person who has safety concerns isn’t likely to do that.
I know I’m making inferences, but we’re doing the same about his behavior. Seems like fair game to evaluate the claims of both sides in this ridiculous dispute.
@rcade: I’d say that any safety concerns would be mitigated by knowing there was going to be a full camera crew there filming your entire interaction. 🙂
Honestly, the more I learned about this, the more I was of the opinion that I would be frantically texting people even if I was at a live performance of goddamn Hamilton, given everything this guy displayed about himself afterwards. His entire public persona screams, “It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again.” I would be very surprised if getting the $17.31 is enough to get him to stop stalking her.
(And personally, I took Gunn’s comment not as a sarcastic “People who text in movies really are the worst, aren’t they?” but as a “Wow, asshole, way to hold a grudge.”)
Both of them are spinning the truth to cast themselves in a more favorable light, which most people would do under the glare of a global viral spectacle.
He’s spinning like crazy on his Twitter account. She told Inside Edition she texted when a girlfriend contacted her to see if she was OK on the date but told an Austin newspaper she was texting a friend who was having a fight with her boyfriend.
The most self-damning quote is one the guy gave Inside Edition: “She was behaving as though her behavior was perfectly normal. So much so that I actually thought to myself, who does this?” I think that’s the main question people are asking about him.
On my worst first date, her recommendation led us to a legendary blues club in Fort Worth. We were completely not feeling any connection, which pairs nicely with the blues. I did not file suit.
[godstalk]
@rcade: I think that you hit the truth pretty exactly–the scariest thing about this guy is that he thinks this is a way to make himself look like the victim in this situation.
Still not getting comment notifications, he complained tiresomely.
Something Westlake did that was amusing to read and even funnier on a meta level was that he wrote a short Dortmunder story about a different person who’s just almost him, but not quite. Alternate fiction! Funniest to those who have read the original, though the story is amusing by itself.
THIS MACHINE SCROLLS PIXELS
Which almost sounds like a super-power!
My dad told me about a Dortmunder novel that sounded hilarious. Westlake wrote hard-boiled noir under the name Richard Stark, so he had Dortmunder pick up an actual Stark book and try to use it as a template for Dortmunder’s own plans. Of course everything that can go wrong does!
Pixelscroll (second) Five
2) Well, I would say that Brandon Vezmar from Dallas will have a much harder time finding dates in the future. There’s such a thing as overreaction. Also, the idea that she owes him… what?… because he paid for the movie is creepy as hell.
We Hunted the Mammoth has covered this in more detail, with some updates and no auto-playing video.
@ Soon Lee: But dinner-and-a-movie is the traditional first date!
@ JJ, Oneiros: Agreed, texting during the movie is extremely rude and disruptive to other people’s experience. But as I said above, there’s such a thing as overreaction.
That’s JIMMY THE KID, and it’s very funny.
And since the Dortmunder books began as a Parker novel that wouldn’t stay serious, it’s very fitting.
Texting during a film is the visual equivalent of talking over it. It’s a dark room, intentionally. Any screen bright enough for you to read text off it will be distracting to those behind you. It doesn’t require “massively bright.” Just the contrast between “dark” and “glowing” is enough.
The Doomsday Vault may be build to survive the doomsday, but it cant deal with global warming.
@MSB @ Peer
Oh, Haha. Ahem. Its always enlightening when you find out that a word means the exact opposite of what you thought it means. 🙁
Re: Texting: Im not really in favour of texting during a movie, but suing is even worse.
I can’t wait to tell my mom that there’s a new Westlake book coming out! I started reading his books, I think, because she was getting these Readers Digest 3 in one mystery novels, and there was one called “Humans” about an angel. Snap! Instant fan.
Brandon Vezmar of Austin. He runs a communications consultancy that helps business and political clients “execute elegant and powerful strategies that translate communication into persuasion” (!).
@ Peer
It happens; don’t worry about it. Once the trainer of the national football team in the country where I live was asked what the team was going to have for dinner. He was a foreigner. He meant to reply, “Chicken and chips”, but he made a mistake with one (1) letter of one word and actually said, “Kittens and chips”. People still laugh about it, poor guy.
Amazon.de has just cancelled my pre-order for “Provenance” (Kindle edition).
There is enough other stuff to read, but… Ann Leckie!
🙁
ETA: Paper versions seem to be available.
Y’know, given Vezmar’s litigious, stalkerish, entitled, and MRAish behavior and statements after the bad date, I’m inclined to believe that there was plenty for her to pick up on in his behavior that would have made her feel unsafe/uncomfortable and ready to nope the hell out of this date NOW. Assuming that the “unsafe” comment refers only to his asking her to take her texting to the lobby isn’t where the smart money is.
Basically, I’d like to congratulate her on having a functioning creep-dar.
And I’d like to “congratulate” Vezmar on reminding us why women tend to approach dating with a lot more caution then men seem to think we need; we never know which men are the ones who’ll go ballistic when the date doesn’t go well.
(All the “yeah, but SHE texted during a movie” comments remind me of COLOSSAL again, which advocated that no matter how messed up you are as a person, no matter how unlikeable a character, you still don’t deserve to be gaslighted, stalked, and abused.)
rcade on May 19, 2017 at 8:27 am said:
The fact that she was willing to meet him in public with the press watching doesn’t mean she thinks he’s safe to be around in general. Just that she thinks he’s sane enough to not attack her while the cameras are rolling!
(2) The texting was very rude and certainly a reason not to see her again, but going to court for less than $20 because a first date went bad? Asking her family for her home address so he could file the suit? Beyond the pale. Overbearing, controlling, entitled, and yes, creepy. Could be his reactions in the theater to her texting gave her the creepy feeling. And insisting she leave the theater instead of just sitting somewhere else? Ordering around someone you’ve just met? MRA stuff.
Read the AV Club article and follow their links, and that’s 100% MRA who probably hangs out on Red Pill. He flounced on the entire city of Chicago for not catering to his sense of SWM entitlement. And if he hates progressives so much, why the hell did he move to AUSTIN? The first comment in the Chicagoist article is great.
And he’s a media consultant! What does he do, provide examples of what to do to get bad PR?
I mean, I wouldn’t wanna be around either of them, but I wouldn’t be afraid of her.
James Gunn forgot about the failure mode of clever and should have kept his mouth shut. Or at least added a smiley to the end.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if she was paid an appearance fee.
I would love it if she made some money out of this, particularly since she’s now liable to attacks from other MRA’s, doxxing, threats, all the usual as Mrs. Wu and Ms. Sarkeesian and Tingle’s BFF Ms. Quinn have shown.
Wow, this texting-thing makes waves! Seems to be some primal thing at works…
We dont know if he was harrassing her or tried to or she felt he was/would and used the texting to back him off (not wanting to go the lobby, because that might make things worse) OR if she was bored and eanted to help her friend and thought it would be rude to leave to the lobby, whith her date besider her OR if she is a compulsive texter who really cant get off her phone OR whatever other explanation comes to mind.
We dont know these things and thats why I dont Judge.
What I do know is that he date SUED her over not even 20€, because he didnt like how the date ended. THAT i judge. Because there was s no way that is teasonable behavior (and thats how I interpret James Gunn comment – In dubio pro reo – but agree that he probably should not have send this tweet)
Many years later, as he faced the scrolling squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember the distant afternoon when his father took him to discover pixels.
I think my concern with the Discovery trailer is just some missing sense of… Trek.
It feels like one could swap in most any other SF franchise and it’d fit. Could of course just be the trailer’s problem, in trying to be exciting and flashy.
He thinks he is being a hero for movie etiquette, date etiquette and “structural gender relations.” His Parting Note on Medium tries to make the case for this (though doubt is creeping in).
It’s a nice example of how much damage you can do to people when you fool yourself into thinking you are fighting for a larger cause.
@Charon D: “when a blackout sent me to my physical bookshelf”
I find it amusing that the same event (blackout) sent you to physical books and me to my e-reader when I had been planning to start a physical book. Granted, my blackout was in the evening and lasted all night long, and there’s only one window in the whole apartment. (I like to describe the view as “a panoramic view of a brick alcove” – I’m pretty sure it only exists due to building codes.) Without the e-reader’s light, my room was as close to pitch-dark as I’ve ever seen.
@lurkertype: “And insisting she leave the theater instead of just sitting somewhere else? Ordering around someone you’ve just met? MRA stuff.”
I consider “please do your texting outside the auditorium” less rude than “please find a different place to sit.” The former is expected etiquette, reinforced by the theater management; the latter is being deliberately rude. That’s not to pick a side in the specific example, as I wasn’t there and don’t know the truth of the matter (which is obscured by spin all around), just as a general rule.
I’m also pretty firmly in the no-screens-in-a-theater camp. If one is disinterested enough in the movie to text during it, seeing it in a theater is a mistake, a waste of someone’s money, and large-scale rudeness that affects not only one’s date, but whoever else is unlucky enough to be sitting nearby. One might as well bring a glow-in-the-dark top hat to the theater; it is no less distracting. About the only times I consider it okay to use a lit screen at a theater are (1) when you see a friend arrive, as a way to catch their attention so they can find you, (2) before the lights go down, if you get there early enough, and (3) checking the time on your wristwatch, which should only last for a couple of seconds.
I even go so far as to leave my phone in the car when I go to a theater. If I have my iPad mini on hand, I’ll bring it in with me, but that’s more to protect it from thermal damage than anything else.
Do note that ticket-stalker created his twitter account only to spam news about himself and his failed date. Check out the date of creation.
The account’s date of creation is March 2013. This story claims his account was dormant and he revived it for this foolishness.
I’m curious: How could anyone figure out an account was dormant?
A Tweet at him: “Like, your behavior is making me side with a movie texter. I would’ve thought that was impossible.”
I would have too. But cray-cray and threatening tops rude and breaking etiquette.
Meredith Moment: Foz Meadows’ “An Accident of Stars” is $1.99 at Amz and B&N.
Also “iWoz” for the techies.
Well, I copied all of the Hugo stuff (that was in .mobi and that I didn’t already own) over to my Kindle. That’s … kind of a lot of reading material, isn’t it?
I’m curious: How could anyone figure out an account was dormant?
Well, he didn’t tweet anything on it prior to May 16, when he tweeted “Well, it looks like I’m back on Twitter.”, so that seems like a fairly good indicator.
He’s tweeted 156 times since May 16, and hasn’t tweeted much about anything other than his lawsuit against his former date, which is stalkerish and creepy.
@ Nicole: I’ll go a bit further, and submit that “but SHE was texting during the movie” is a version of “but she should have known better than to wear that dress / go to that club / dance with that guy, so it’s her own fault she was raped.” And one of the early steps along the path that culminates in, “BUT HER EMAILS!”
It isn’t.
Some Twitter users delete all their tweets while continuing to use the service. Matt Drudge keeps doing it. He currently has one tweet.
People were sending @brandonvezmar tweets 10 days before his “I’m back on Twitter” message and going back to January 2017 and earlier. Instead of being dormant and picked up again, his account looks like he deleted all his old tweets when he began talking about the small-claims suit so they couldn’t be examined.
He might have deleted them earlier when he was catching flak over the publicity about his public kiss-off letter to Chicago.
Yeah, that isn’t helping. It’s hard to believe he works in communications.
The next phase of this story will be when somebody in the media digs up an ex who has bad things to say about him.
2. Considering the court/filing fees are likely going to exceed the $17 he paid for the ticket, and he probably won’t be able to recover those…well lets just say that combined with his other behavior is enough for me to decide the dude is gross stalker/harasser.
Lee: I’ll go a bit further, and submit that “but SHE was texting during the movie” is a version of “but she should have known better than to wear that dress / go to that club / dance with that guy, so it’s her own fault she was raped.”
There is a HUGE difference between pointing out that her behavior was incredibly rude, and saying that because of it she deserved to have herself and her family stalked and harassed by someone who clearly has major issues (and probably a history of well-justified restraining orders).
So far, I haven’t seen anyone say the latter. But I haven’t really sought any additional articles on the internet apart from the two I read.
John Fiala: “she was getting these Readers Digest 3 in one mystery novels”
Was this actually from Readers Digest? I ask because out in our library/former-garage we have (I think) about a hundred 3-in-1-mystery volumes from the Detective Book Club. Most of ours date from the 50’s and 60’s, with authors like Craig Rice, Leonard Holton, Manning Coles, and bunches of other good-to-great mystery writers who are mostly forgotten today. (Westlake had some in the DBC 3-in-1s too, as I recall without going out to check.)
rcade: “Brandon Vezmar of Austin. He runs a communications consultancy that helps business and political clients ‘execute elegant and powerful strategies that translate communication into persuasion’ (!).”
‘execute elegant and powerful strategies that translate communication into persuasion’ is the fanciest way of claimng “I’m a Pick Up Artist” I think I’ve ever seen.
Yep, you see that a lot on the TV Judge shows (the ones like The People’s Court and Judge Judy that aren’t scripted fiction.) People suing for a very small amount out of principal.
I think the movie ticket issue is a red herring here. Any time anyone is sued, there is the need to know the person’s location so that they can be served with notice of the suit, and nobody has the right to refuse to give it just because they don’t think what they are being sued for is valid. Whether or not you think the lawsuit is merited, this is America where it is happening, and people can file lawsuits for whatever silly reason they want (as long as it doesn’t fit under SLAP rules) and the person being sued doesn’t get to say “sorry, I don’t want to be bothered about this.”
Darren Garrison: I think the movie ticket issue is a red herring here. Any time anyone is sued, there is the need to know the person’s location so that they can be served with notice of the suit, and nobody has the right to refuse to give it just because they don’t think what they are being sued for is valid. Whether or not you think the lawsuit is merited, this is America where it is happening, and people can file lawsuits for whatever silly reason they want (as long as it doesn’t fit under SLAP rules) and the person being sued doesn’t get to say “sorry, I don’t want to be bothered about this.”
This may be your point. It is not my point.
My point is that no matter how disproportionate or irrational the guy’s response was (and it definitely was, I’d have been slapping a restraining order on that guy in a heartbeat), her incredibly rude behavior of texting repeatedly during the movie was not acceptable or excusable, and claiming that asking her to either stop or take it out to the lobby was “controlling behavior” is just bullshit.
I was once in a professional training session, and one of the attendees’ cellphones rang. It was bad enough that the guy did not have the courtesy to have turned his ringer off at the start of the session, but he actually answered his phone and started talking on it. Everyone else in the room was sitting there, with their jaws on the floor, and this guy was utterly oblivious to all of the incredulous and disgusted looks he was getting. The trainer attempted to continue, but this guy’s conversation was so loud and disruptive, that I finally said, “We’re in a training session here. Can you please take it outside?” And he looked at me, apparently puzzled that this was an issue, and sputtered, “B-b-b-but I have to take this call!” “Fine,” I said. “Take it outside.” And he got up and left, with an expression on his face that was essentially, “I can’t believe that this person is making such an unreasonable demand of me!”
I think that a lot of people who have grown up in the cellphone age have no concept whatsoever of what is, or is not, discourteous behavior. And they don’t get a pass, just because someone who is an MRA with obvious obsessive impulses and anger control issues, goes ballistic over their rude behavior.
The last time I saw a movie in a theater, I had one of these for a cell phone. No, I’m not kidding.
@JJ
Thanks for your thoughts. Your responses essentially eliminate any need for me to engage.
👍
+1
Me, too.
And similar such things.
Regards,
Dann
Lee
I don’t see any ‘but SHE texted’ going on as a way to make it seem like she deserved it. It’s possible to point out that texting during a movie is rude, and also not believe that it deserves the completely unhinged response from they guy. Her actions might have been inconsiderate but his were irrational, and I’d worry that about the next person who commits a social faux pas around him that might set him off into Judge Dredd mode. You can dislike texting in a movie theater without also believing someone should act like a complete psychopath about it.
Edit: Or what JJ said, I should’ve scrolled a bit further.
One person in a theater did something rude, and the other kept doing things that were downright creepy. But, somehow, people have decided that they really need to spend their time criticizing the rude person with the cell phone and only occasionally throwing out “I guess stalking is bad, too” to make things seem Fair and Balanced.
This is not okay.
It is not okay when people say “But she sent e-mail! That’s just as bad!”
It is not okay when people say “But some people who oppose GamerGate are mean! That’s just as bad!”
It is not okay when people say “But she was wearing that dress! That’s just as bad!”
It is not okay when people say “But he was resisting arrest! That’s just as bad!”
It is not okay when people say “But calling out racism is rude, too! That’s just as bad!”
It is not okay. It is not just as bad. It is not even as bad as acting like the two are about the same level of badness. I know people get irrational when cell phones are involved, but even then, it is not okay. If cell phones really upset you that much, go ahead and say so, but focus on the thing that is actually bad.
When editing I should’ve put a not in there. I mean I’d hate to be the next person to fart in an elevator with him in it, or play music loudly on public transportation, cut him off in traffic or not pick up dog poop around him. Dude might make it a crusade or something.
@Clint
Well obviously, who is saying that being a creepy stalker who initiates frivolous lawsuits is the same as texting in a theater?
@Matt Y
Nobody has actually come out and said it. My point was that saying “Oh, of course it’s worse, but let’s spend 90% of our time focusing on the thing that is not by any stretch of the imagination worse or even remotely as bad!” seems to happen an awful lot, and it shouldn’t.
Specifically, when people spend most of their time criticizing the least problematic party, they do a shockingly good job of making it look like both parties are equally wrong, whether that is what they meant to do or not.
Sheesh, that’s just one generation newer than a telegraph key for sending Morse!