I just watched someone implode · 9:39pm Aug 28th, 2014

To start off with, I know I share at least one follower with the person I'm writing about. Feel free to correct anything I got wrong in this post, but please don't name anyone involved. This is not meant to be a name-and-shame post--I'm just trying to put together my thoughts.

I've been a casual fan of this author for quite a while. She's very concerned with a lot of issues of the day--racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.--but she used to deal with them in a careful, thoughtful way. Her writing's gotten a bit more heavy-handed of late, but that's no concern in and of itself.

Her blog posts have been pretty angry for quite a while, and they've gotten steadily more so. If you're in her sights for some act of offense, you're scum, human trash, the lowest of the low . . . There's no point of possible compromise, and she just gets more and more worked up.

Two days ago, I sent her a PM. I told her I'd been direct about it when her writing had helped me, so I felt like I owed it to her to be direct when I was worried about her, even if there wasn't a polite way to say it. I'll quote just a bit of it:

I've seen other writers get wrapped up in rage as a means of attention--look at how horrible this is, and look at how justified I am at being angry in it! Don't do anything to solve the problem or deal with bad users, just praise my keen social justice awareness!
Your rage has been getting stronger since I made that post, and it's also gotten more vague and nondirectional . . . I'm worried about where this is going.

I haven't gotten a reply.

I'm not entirely clear on what happened last night, but apparently she was in a forum thread, and someone said something homophobic. She blew up at them, and the forum mods ejected her because she wouldn't calm down. Then she made a blog post calling the mods all manner of names for not taking her side. One of them commented on her blog, still trying to be reasonable, but she kept raging at them, and when the FIMfiction mods showed up to deal with the "personal attacks," she raged at them, too.

I assume folks remember that writer who blogged about how much he hated gay people, and the mods had to make a new rules post about it, and shortskirtsandexplosions wrote a story that was a thinly veiled retelling of the whole mess. Last night, I felt like I was reading that blog post again. From the exact opposite direction, a writer I admire found the same point of rage without reason, self-righteous certainty that their cause is the right cause and anyone who doesn't instantly side with them is the enemy.

Last night's blog post is gone now, and the poster was let off with a warning. She's not banned yet, but I think she will be--she'll blow up at someone else, and she'll still think she's absolutely justified.

I guess all I'm saying is that if someone on the Internet is pissing you the hell off . . . back away. Make a snack. Listen to some music. When you come back, they'll still be there, and they'll still be dumb--but maybe you can reason with them, get them to be a little less stupid, or maybe they're beyond help and they're not even worth your time. Rage has power, but if you can't let go of it, it will eat you alive.

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