Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Goose Hips Jink Chips


I've gone and made a tit of myself over at Dan's blog. Or rather, I haven't, because frankly I'm in the right on this one, but I've been mean-spirited and offensive about it. It's a problem I sometimes have online. I've lost count of the times where I've been unreasonably harsh with someone in an online argument, and I've not always had the luxury of being right. In fact, I very rarely am.
Every time this spins out into a big bust-up, I wonder whether I've gone too far, and then a period of meekness follows, as I do my best not to offend anyone. I'll either not post, or my posts will be dull and conventional. I'm torn, as my parents programmed me to be polite and to always stand up for myself.
But now that I have the blog, I find myself reassessing that. These are my thoughts, and is there any good reason to censor them? For example, I'm profoundly disappointed, and sometimes disgusted by elements of American culture, but a great number of the people who come here are American, and jolly nice members of the species too. So do I tone down the anti-Americanism for their benefit? Or should I not care? I mean, I'm not writing this for them, but nor do I want to lose half of my readers.
(Which is in itself stupid, as what does it matter if people come here? It's nice to know that people are halfway interested in what I have to say, but no one depends on this blog, except for me, as I sometimes need to get these things out of my head or they'll keep me awake. This post being an excellent example of that. I'm a dweller, it must be said.)
In a way, I'm writing for an audience, but should that matter? I'm the first one to complain when a film, comic, book or whatever takes the easy route and compromises in order to not offend. That's the cancer at the heart of children's books today, for example. But when it's personal, when I could conceivably offend people who come here to specifically read my thoughts, just by being myself, I find myself pausing. But I suppose if you do come here specifically to find out what's going on in my head today (as opposed to what I've done today, which isn't a lot, as I'm a boring bastard), then you're somewhat prepared for my particular blend of offensive idiocy. Or idiosyncratic offence.

So, until further, Brainsplurge will be as uncensored as possible. I'm still not going to swear unless it's absolutely necessary (sorry Rad!), but otherwise it's no holds barred as far as content goes. 100% (or at least 95%) truthful, all the time. Not necessarily 100% accurate, though, so if I do get it wrong, then let me know. All I ask is you give me some evidence of my failings, so I can educate myself.

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