It’s strange how people imagine manners on the internet should be completely different from manners in real life. In the physical world, few people would be such social imbeciles that they would rudely insert themselves into a conversation between two people merely because that conversation took place in a public place, such as a cafe, where others could easily overhear. But in the virtual world, clueless clods feel absolutely no hesitation about barging in on such a conversation, even if they have absolutely no sense of context; they imagine it’s completely normal behavior to vomit nonsense onto complete strangers based entirely on one overheard sentence, then angrily demand the targeted person entertain them with a “debate” based upon their flawed, decontextualized understanding of that utterance. I’ve written on several occasions about these nomadic narcissists who wander about cyberspace demanding that strangers engage with them for free, and since I’m not really interested in writing about it again I’ll just quote myself instead:
I am not your dancing monkey; I am a professional entertainer, so even though I don’t charge people to read my blog or Twitter, if you want me to entertain you in some way that I am not interested in freely giving (such as by engaging in stupid arguments with you), you’re going to have to pay me for that just as you would have to pay me to play the part of your mother, daughter, sister, teacher, secretary, or whoever else you’d like to fantasize about fucking or being chastised by or whatever. And it won’t even cost you my full rate; for internet argumentation not involving sexy talk, I only charge $100/hour (minimum 30 minutes).
In the online world, as in the real one, you don’t get something for nothing. Naturally, I don’t really expect the sea lions to grasp this, but at least now I have a more concise column to link to when these pernicious weeds inevitably appear.
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