Of course we did. You didn't gloat over the bodies of the dead and dying at all. You didn't try to slag them off for what they were driven to. You didn't try to gloss over it with a nonapology which restates the supposed parody in serious points.

God I hate Rum and Monkey's guest writers.

If you'd like to wriggle more you could claim this second post was a parody of Pat Robertson.

Schmitt...

Given that I've tried to engage you on a number of occasions to discuss this privately (to no avail) I guess we'll have to play this out publicly... which is a bit of a shame...

You clearly have no idea what the original intent of the first letter was...

in fact, only a handful of people knew that it was satire when it went live - even Ben, god bless his soul, didn't know until I told him... I was partly experimenting with the readers of the site (perfectly within my rights as a writer) and partly trying to make a point - the overwhelmingly positive responses to the first article serve to prove my point - and when the third part of the story is published, you'll see even more of my point...

you, like everyone else, reacted in exactly the way I was expecting - moral outrage and an excuse to throw rocks at the writer... fair call. the content of the letter, on the surface, was harsh as fuck. but - given that I gave you as many hints as I could as to the intent, yet you still choose to believe that I'm 'wriggling', I can only assume one thing...

...that this is more about me than it is about what I've written.

if that's the case, then a public discussion of your now extremely transparent dislike for me and my writing may be on the cards...

I'm more than happy to get into a discussion about this with you... and, like I've said, I've been more than happy to engage in that discussion in private, but to no avail...

so if you're prepared to out yourself as someone that takes umbrage with the writer's words in order to attack the writer himself, be my guest...

...this should be interesting.

Gregor,

Telling me it was a surprise that it was satire doesn't work when I already said that would be your excuse. It doesn't work when <a href="http://www.rumandmonkey.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=16510">Chem</a> noted their severe disappointment with your article while acknowledging that this is a satire site. It doesn't work when Nukelavee said that would be your explanation.

I've repeated myself four or five times now but let's see if I can make it a bit clearer:

The people slagging you off are doing so under the full knowledge of what you were doing and several predicted your reaction. Saying it was a shocking, surprising parody (or 'hinting' at it by stating it repeatedly and bluntly,) no one expected over and over again doesn't make it true.

And yes Gregor, myself, unlike everyone else who posted on your journal, who e-mailed you, posted here or otherwise tore away at your dramatic ignorance, have deigned to attack your article because I had a personal axe to grind. Hence why all of your other articles attracted as much ire from me personally (not to say they're any good, but I rarely bother saying anything about it,) and hence the thunderous acclaim you're receiving for this one, with only several dozen people reaching the same conclusion about it. Because there's nothing deeply and dramatically wrong with the last two articles you've posted which could possibly explain my reaction, a reaction you're supposed to have been expecting, and which is the same as 'many' others according to you.

Ironically I wouldn't have cared nearly as much had you actually just been trying to piss people off instead of the 'I didn't mean it except yeah it's all true' stance you're taking now.

Well until you started bitching that people were pissed off with you.

and you've given yourself away right there... claiming I need an 'excuse' for this? pfft. there's no need for an excuse when what I was doing has been explained, quite clearly (bluntly even, as you've put it...)

I've stated that it was close to the line as far as satire is concerned... I've acknowledged that the line, in this case, has been pretty badly blurred...

but I know that I set out to do something, which I've done (and explained) and to have people's reactions to it extend this far has been great...

(by the way, the gentle - and not-so-gentle - "I don't like your work" jabs are only making your arguments seem, as I said, more about me and less about the piece... if you could clear up whether we're debating me or my writing, that'd be great... thanks )



ahhh. ok. I see. you're saying that you knew it was satire, and that you hated it... because I was being ignorant.

never mind the fact that the piece was written for a specific purpose, and therefor written in a particular 'voice' or 'tone'... and that tone was necessary for the piece to have enough of an impact to achieve what I wanted it to achieve.

in a sense, I was trying to piss people off. I was trying to get people to think. and I knew that the explanation was going to be forthcoming, and that people would read them both (hopefully) and then make their own calls on whether they're prepared to have the media they rely on for information sensationalise, editorialise and otherwise fuck with the story at hand...



I've read this paragraph about ten times, and don't understand it.

...not trying to be pissy, but I just don't get it... sorry Jason... what are you trying to say?



so what is it, exactly, that you're pissed about?

sorry again, Jason - I'm not trying to be an arsehole about it, but your point's getting buried in there somewhere and I'm at a loss to drag it out.

meh.

he's still taking cheap shots.

jesus, jason. if your issues with gregor's talents were too trivial to bother posting when you were force to read those literary turd-nuggets, what gives them any import now? pulling the "your writing always sucks, even if i'm not usually crass enough to point it out, but this peice really is shit" tactic is sad.

The fact that your writing/articles are horrifically poor and unfunny hardly constitutes a personal attack, and I have no idea how my criticising your writing makes you question whether I'm attacking you or your writing. Speaking of which:


It's not a question of crassness (this isn't SD, so there's no excuse for straw man fallacies,) I just usually can't be bothered to point out how phenomenally poor the guest writers, Gregor included, are. I'm pointing it out now because honestly repeating myself a thousand times when Gregor was blatantly going to hedge and bullshit his way around anything was going to get boring. what's sadder than the fact that I'm using exasperated rhetoric is the fact that I'm still responding.

I seriously thought this was a sarcastic 'tell me what you really think' comment.

Gregor if my response is supposed to be the result of a grudge with you, why have I only done it in response to this article, and why have so many other people reacted the same way? Further if you were trolling and trying to piss people off, what the Hell are you whinging about?

Gregor here is my point:



Okay now apply sarcasm.

Your second article seriously defends the arguments in your first after claiming the article was satire. Rather akin to the <a href="http://www.cbn.com/about/pressrelease_hugochavez.asp">Pat Robertson</a>, 'L.OL I WAS JOKING but seriously what I said was right' and 'How Jon got banned' defences. Similarly when people questioned your more incredibly ignorant/assholish arguments in your livejournal, after it was pointed out they knew you were trolling (Cass and Stephen also clicked,) you defended or conceded those points seriously.

Ultimately you believe in a lot of what you were saying and have supported a lot of what you said. And a lot of what you said was ridiculously ignorant and twattish, and it's that which people were attacking, even as you tried wriggling (there's that word again!) and brushing it all aside with the wringing call of 'don't worry - it's satire!'

Also, you don't appear to know what editorialising is, unless you're deliberately kneecapping your own claim that this was satire.

You guys are such drama queens.

Hey uh







Don't you have to uhm, not agree with what you're writing if you're writing satire?

Better than being a queen

*edit*

Aw Hell Jenny just ruined some shit right in here

Remember when we sat around calling each other stupid for, alternatively, not being able to understand simple satire or failing at writing it?

That was sweet.

schmitt the critic wrote:



there.

the only thing schmitt has posted that matters.

and he still tries to act like that bias doesn't discredit anything else he says here.

jason, sweetheart, what you ignore in favour of your usual pompous rantings, is that gregor IS on the side of the victims, and his article was a result of watching the incompetent bungling of the american government, and of the shits using the opportunity offered by the disaster to excercise thier more brutal antisocial urges.

as i've said before, i don't think it was a successfull piece, outside of it's trolling function.

on the other hand...your constant whiny repeating of "all your work sucks, all the guest writers suck, suck suck suck" combined with "i was too clever to be taken in by it, or stand for it, so i'm entitled to be a prick" is more of your usual superiority complex kicking in.

here's a point for you: if gregor's writing is such shit, how on earth does he manage to make a living at it?

god. everything you've posted on this subject sounds like you've had mike coaching you.

Does everyone in here need to take a "grow up" pill or what? Calm down, for crying out loud. Take a deep breath, count to ten.

Remember the tired old Rum and Monkey debate rules: don't start laying into each other. And the tired old rules of criticism: if you have something to say, say it constructively. Thanks.

You use different styles when dealing with different subject matter, you know that Nuke.

You guys are all stupid ;P

Yeah, if good writing were a description of professional writers then we wouldn't have so many shitty writers out there... would we?

Hehe... I kid, I kid...

But not really. =P

but does a professional writer stoop to pushing second rate work on his readers when dealing with a topic he feels strongly about?

and, does the number of postive comments on gregor's body of work get wiped out because shcmitt says he thinks it's schitt?

because, really, schmitt has gone far beyond critiqueing the "open letter", and is now just seeing how much shit he can throw about.

and it's the smear campaign i object to, not the critique.

No, I'm saying you write differently depending on subject matter, attitude, and what have you. Saying he's a pro writers so all his writing must be good is false logic.

I don't really care beyond that, I've already told Gregor how I thought and it was no biggie *shrugs*

That 'the only thing schmitt has posted that matters' is completely unrelated to the dozens of other criticisms Gregor's received on this article, not just from me, is instructive. That I've spent paragraphs upon paragraphs talking about the problems with this article and Gregor's reaction to criticism and spent three clauses or so on Gregor's writing in general should also be instructive.

It's not satire if Gregor agrees with what he wrote. It's not satire if it's serious. His 'point' is the one I tore the bloody heart out of in the first post and no amount of apologetics, hiding, or whinging is going to cover up the fact that he wrote a severely shitheaded and wrong article. He was more interesting in slagging everyone remotely related to the incident off and laughing over dead bodies than he was about the people there. Nuke it's not sarcasm, it's not satire, when he was still arguing in favour of what he wrote after the big surprise revelation.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahAHH.

This thread is awesome. I'll explain for everyone what is going on. This is after having just been away and not having spoken to any of the parties involved.

There was this hurricane, right. It sort of hit N.O fairly hard and filled it up with water and shit. Reports seep from various media (official and otherwise) of people eventually doing terrible things. Gregor says "fuck this isn't right, what the fuck are you people thinking?"

Hey some of those people were acting like animals.

Gregor's first article I believe would have stemmed from a reasonable level of conviction but like most writing, the points would have been exaggerated for effect. You can argue about whether or not this is satire until the cows come home. I don't really think it is, but that doesn't make it any less effective.

Jason has come along and said "I pretty much despise everyone and your writing is utter rubbish even though I don't write myself but being a critic is far easier and now Gregor is trying to justify his vitriol by calling it satire when it clearly isn't. Also I hate you"

Then there was a whole bunch of grumpy arguing with people modifying their initial standpoints to make them more secure and soem other people said some stuff.

Now a second explanatory article has been published which is also reasonably critical. I don't really believe this was necessary.

Now people are still saying the things they were saying at the start except they are getting grumpier and using more big words.




So, where does this get us?

The first post of this thread, which remains conspicuously empty of vitriol, is chock full of constructive criticism, and which you just agreed was correct.

The rest of this thread is essentially my and others personal outrage or amusement with how cowardly Gregor was going to handle the fallout he was going to get.
Cass you just don't get it. I'm laughing my ass off here. It was a parody of editorialising.
Yeah I do
Maybe it looks easy, not being a critic yourself.

For frame of reference, <a href="http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/09/07/night-of-the-living-cornholes/">satire</a>.

I was laughing my ass off first.

It's not a question of whether it's satire or not. That issue is remarkably trivial. In fact, I don't think there's anything to discuss here at all.

teehee.

being a critic is as easy as taking a shit.

cass has you pegged.

I dunno. about the article, if Gregor said the same thing in a bar in America, he'd probably get his ass beat.

Whether it's satire or trolling, eh, who cares. From a marketing stand point, shocking sells. He could go on to debate with Coulter.

Maybe Gregor wanted to see how many pages of hate mail he could get.

Insulting corpses, lying about trolling, writing ridiculously incorrect articles and making non sequiturs while pretending they're in any way substantive criticism are all easy. what have you done so far in this thread Nuke other than ignore the legitimate criticisms I've made of Gregor's article, contradict yourself, and attack my personality?

I'm pegged as someone who corrects substantial mistakes. I'm afraid I won't hang my head in shame for that just yet.

teehee

Yes I know most of this forum hates it when people are right. I just refuse to be ashamed about it.

Boy it's funny how much of my writing seems to be in your pope article.