I got a couple of notes from him and I feel it's in the best interests of helping him protect his identity to do this. I apologize if this is inconvenient.
The comments that were posted on the earlier thread are below.
[+]
And another martyr born.
Has he scuttled off with Katie and Jim?
Has he scuttled off with Katie and Jim?
Well, having read it early this AM, I'd say it was a sound decision on his part.
I didn't do a search on the author originally, but when someone else posted a comment about how easy it was to see Texpat's discipline, it took me all of 30 seconds to find his city and university.
Perhaps he took the post down because he realized that he had outed himself in a really breath-takingly, cock-sucking way.
This taking down of posts seems ugly, though. If he doesn't like what we say about his ideas, this may be the wrong forum. Surely others have been here and disappeared.
Perhaps he took the post down because he realized that he had outed himself in a really breath-takingly, cock-sucking way.
This taking down of posts seems ugly, though. If he doesn't like what we say about his ideas, this may be the wrong forum. Surely others have been here and disappeared.
I stand by everything I wrote....people in academia need therapy, I was not against his rage, and the comments of "Wisconsin Will" and "Tim (not Jim)" were a bad thing. I'm guessing those comments killed the post.
Boy, I feel like I really missed something. I had just read the post and clicked on the comments link and "bing" - the whole post was gone.
Strelnikov, i see the point of not trying to out people here, but the degree of ease there was to find all sorts of details just base on his post alone was a problem. We each have to be responsible for keeping our own online identies seperate.
I'll admit, I was discomforted by the cock worship in the post. It didn't feel like the usual vulger humor that I read and laugh at all the time. It was about domination and it left me with a very discomfortable feeling.
I'll admit, I was discomforted by the cock worship in the post. It didn't feel like the usual vulger humor that I read and laugh at all the time. It was about domination and it left me with a very discomfortable feeling.
I can see why people would be unhappy with the schlong-centeredness and the whole "FUCK YOU ALL - I'M A GOLDEN GODDDD!!!" element, but my point was that if it doesn't come out here it will come out somewhere else....and we don't need more guys like the stripper prof, the crazy "V for Vendetta" gun nut who just shot at a school board and missed all of them, and the GA Tech student who attacked the other with a katana (samurai sword.)
This has all taken a fairly ugly turn. Is there no way to make this blog work?
Brava! Thank you for trying to protect the OPs identity. As a place to bitch and wine (I mean whine), I'd be horified to be outed. Perhaps this is a lesson that we should all be a little more careful.
ReplyDelete@ELS: I saw only the original post (not any interim one(s) that may have appeared and disappeared mid-day), and probably didn't see all the comments on that (though I did see the ones suggesting that he had "outed" himself, or close to it), so I may have missed something. However, based on what I saw, it strikes me that the blog community might actually be working reasonably well in terms of policing its own content -- and that Leslie K is going above and beyond to help somebody who did something pretty stupid (as Natalie says, protecting our identities is our job, not the hers). Whether the expungement efforts will work, I'm not sure; I think I've seen comments in relation to other "disappeared" posts that suggest they sometimes survive elsewhere on the internet.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the most polite, community-spirited way to suggest that the poster re-think his degree of (actual, as opposed to metaphorical) self-revelation would have been a private email rather than a public comment. I'm pretty sure I've seen indications that others have done that in the past (and/or have worded warnings in public comments in a more circumspect way). But it would be hard to imagine a tone or approach less calculated to elicit polite and/or protective responses in either male or female readers than the ones the poster chose. Swinging it around does make one vulnerable -- and arouses some people's attack instincts.
I hope that, in the end, nobody in his department sees the post. I also hope that this experience will lead him to be more cautious in the future (and/or to consume fewer mind-altering substances, or seek counseling, or otherwise deal with whatever -- besides some justified frustration and triumph -- may have been behind the post).
If he was that easily identifiable, then writing the post in the way he wrote it was colossally stupid, and any repercussions that result from people at his institution reading it are his fault alone.
ReplyDeleteAs with Katie's meltdown, nothing you post on the internet can be deleted in a definitive way. So his cocksucking rant will be there forever for anyone energetic enough to run it down (although I still haven't figured out how to recover comments).
At any rate, I stand by my own comment that he simply did not understand that his department had to criticize something in order not to appear like a bunch of rubber-stampers in front of the dean. They chose his teaching. But his ego apparently could not take the hit--although his chair might have done a better job explaining the process--so he lashed out in a really foolish way given the ease with which he could be identified.
We went through this with Katie's meltdown, but everyone here who is afraid of being outed should make sure that they have taken the appropriate precautions.
Looks like this site has succeeded in pushing away another reader who's ideas do not confirm with the majority. All of you make a mockery of the core idea of academics to include all voices. If you don't like someone's opinion, then don't read it. Instead, you all want a little clubhouse with only your limited point of view. This site is worst than Fox News.
ReplyDelete@anonymous
ReplyDeleteI hear you. But I don't think that's a fair assessment of what happened. That this place has a limited point of view is patently absurd. Or you haven't been paying attention.
ELS,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry about the opinion of anyone with the moniker "anonymous".
Leslie, I thought genuinely anonymous comments were not permitted on this blog, so I'm assuming that "anonymous" is the commenters chosen nom de plume?
@anonymous
ReplyDeleteNot what happened in this instance. It wasn't his point of view that was the problem. The problem was that he wrote a post in which he invited his colleagues to fellate him, and talked about fucking his dean until his dick had blisters under a pseudonym that was easily tracked to his real identity. Under the circumstances, taking the post down was a rational choice on his part--although he can't ever erase it from all the aggregators that stored it during its nine hours of glory.
Anyway, you can't hold us responsible for him being a total fucktard.
First: I check this site every day, usually twice. I cannot express my sincere thanks to all of you here, and at the late RYS who have made me such a better student, less snowflakey (I certainly didn't think I was one until I read many of the posts - usually the smackdowns and realized that I might have needed a smackdown once or twice until I learned better from all of you). I am probably an all round better person from my attendance here. I am, as I have said before, a mature student and it goes to show that one can always learn something new, even about oneself no matter the age. All of you and the wonderful Professors who spend their time sharing their knowledge with me, are my heroes. Your comments whether funny, profane, or thoughtful make my day.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I read that post very early this morning. Although I was completely oblivious to the fact that the person outed themselves, I was very disturbed at their tone and even thought about it later today. That anger seemed so over the top...so much different than the usual discussions as a result of legitimate frustration from your students, colleagues, etc. I sincerely hope the person gets help.
sorry, anonymous is what popped up when I type in the window.
ReplyDeleteThe pattern here is fairly consistent, someone says something that offends some fraction of the readers. That person is ridiculed, insulted, shouted down. That voice leaves, everyone says "yea, we have normality again".
If you truly wish an open discourse then you must not censor, even if the comments offend your sensibilities. Give up the notion that this site is your comfort zone.
Or perhaps not, restrict the posts, keep the flavor as you want. But please don't pretend to be academic in your goals.
I always find it interesting that whenever there is drama on this site we hear from people who have never spoken up before....
ReplyDeleteYes, his post was glorious, almost a "Death on the Installment Plan" of Celinean rage.
I think it's startling that a blog like this can get 100 contributors and tens of thousands of weekly views, but 3 people reveal their identities in emotional meltdowns over the course of 8 months and suddenly it's the defining experience of the blog.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, though, it was a fascinating afternoon. Hope cock-worshipper bounces back without any flack from his very own department.
Or blister burns.
Nicely put Strel. And don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against rage per se. In fact, I endorse it as an excellent cathartic act if used sparingly and judiciously. It can even be fun on occasion.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I thought he was trying to be funny, but fell flat. I could smell the flop sweat on the post. That happens. He just should have protected his identity better if he wanted to go that route.
@anonymous: I think it's worth noting that there were two unrelated strains of response to the original post, only one of which led to its deletion:
ReplyDelete1)some people (including me) expressed dislike for the language, tone, and/or underlying philosophy of the post, but, at least that I saw, no one suggested that he shouldn't have posted it, or asked him or anyone else to take it down. In short, the post generated discussion and debate, but no attempts that I know of to silence the poster (or anyone else, including several commenters who liked the post). There's a big difference between disagreeing with someone and telling him to shut up, and I didn't see anyone cross that line.
2)The post was removed (I assume by the original poster, or by LeslieK at his request) because several commenters, unrelated as far as I can remember to the ones above, noted that, between his username (which appeared in other venues on the internet) and the details in the post, he had pretty much outed his real-life identity, and so made himself vulnerable to the people he'd just lambasted in language that could easily ruin his chances for tenure. While the commenters who pointed this out may not have had the poster's best interests at heart, they did not appear to be trying to silence him on the basis of this particular post, and/or its content. Instead, they seem to have seen him vulnerable and gone in for the kill. They may have hounded him, but my general impression is that that's their posting style: they're equal-opportunity, content-neutral, hounders.
I'd be happy to see the poster come back and post under another name. If he does, I may eventually decide that I want to skip his posts and/or comments, but I can do that easily enough. It's more likely that I'd treat them, and the comments they generate, as an interesting anthropological expedition into the cyber-equivalent of the men's locker room -- not somewhere I'd ever visit in person, but it's sort of interesting, and probably useful, given the fact that academic rituals are still pretty strongly influenced by modes of interaction common among men, to know what goes on in there.
@ anonymous
ReplyDeleteIf you truly wish an open discourse then you must not censor, even if the comments offend your sensibilities. Give up the notion that this site is your comfort zone.
That is not what happened in this case at all. There have been very few comments deleted by the moderators of the page, and none since I started on December 1st.
The post from earlier in the day was taken down by its author, who subsequently asked me to remove him from the list of contributors. He in fact has also deleted his email account which was linked to his login. In his last email to me he told me it was in his best interests to "cover [his] tracks," and I helped him do that by removing his moniker from a few spots where I found it.
He certainly did get shouted down by some commenters, but others (Strelnikov and Beaker Ben at the very least...two very active members of the CM community) supported him.
Leslie K.
Anonymous has this situation all wrong. I've been online most of the day - sue me, I'll grade those final exams tomorrow! - and sort of watched the whole show unfold.
ReplyDeleteThe writer of the original post made an error by being too candid, especially when his screen name so easily linked to other identifying info about his career AND the colleagues he spent his time eviscerating.
To take this in a different direction (one about broader academe rather than this water cooler alone):
ReplyDeletean interesting anthropological expedition into the cyber-equivalent of the men's locker room -- not somewhere I'd ever visit in person, but it's sort of interesting, and probably useful, given the fact that academic rituals are still pretty strongly influenced by modes of interaction common among men, to know what goes on in there.
I think this is really interesting, because I was honestly surprised that folks were so bothered by his rhetoric (although the arrogance was certainly loud and clear). And I realize, in light of this comment, why I had that moment of disconnect. My discipline is approaching gender-parity, but I went through grad school in a nearly totally masclune-homosocial cadre, and then hired into a department that hadn't gone though its generation turnover yet. All told, I worked in an almost exclusively masculine environment for my first decade in the academy. Between that, and reading the Rude Pundit for catharsis through much of the Bush era, the cock-talk just rolled right off of me as eloquent, if ugly, venting. Is my experience of academe so unusual for a younger faculty member? (I should note I'm not in the hard sciences, which I had hitherto understood to be the most hypermasculine environment in the academy.)
Maybe I should save that for a Thirsty?
No one pressured the poster to leave. He displayed hubris in posting something very smug and very damaging that could in fact be traced to him, and this was in its own way pointed out to him. Believe me, anyone calling attention to this was doing him a favor.
ReplyDeleteNow, I personally don't want to hear about anyone sucking anyone's cock until it has blisters, because I found that metaphor really arrogant and annoying. Trust me, no one is sucking your cock (real or metaphorical) until it blisters, no matter how much you crow about it on a website.
But hopefully the poster and everyone else will learn a lesson. It certainly is a reminder to me when I post again not to be too specific and to change details when necessary. When I decided to become a contributor to College Misery, I created an entirely new email account and name completely unassociated with any other name or internet moniker that I am associated with. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
I'm not an internet whiz but with very little effort (because I was curious how little effort it would take) I found the institution at which the poster teaches. With more effort (such as searching through his posts) I likely would have found the department as well. Apparently, others did. Were I a member of that department reading CM, I would have known exactly who he is. Let's hope that the post was taken down and the offending stuff deleted before anything like that happened.
Academics are not particularly forgiving people. And they love to gossip. And they love to pass around salacious material about their colleagues. If someone in his department did view this blog today, and recognized themselves, it would not surprise me if that person copied as much as they could and completely outed the poster to everyone that could conceivably be offended. This might include supporters of the poster who were not named as deadwood, but might not appreciate the poster's cock-focused metaphors, or the arrogance. Can you imagine the committee and the dean's faces at being informed they were sucking this guy's cock? Some colleague with zero publications since promotion would just love to pass that information along.
Goodbye, tenure. Goodbye, rec letters for future "better" job the poster might want to get. Even if tenure is a done deal at this point, everyone will know. And the internet--and grudges--are forever. I don't know how these things work but who knows where this shit is being saved?
Let's be careful out there.
@garrity
ReplyDeleteThere is something of a feminine vibe to this site and that goes back to the Fab Sun era....I'm not complaining, it's just how I see CM. Yes, there was a lot of douchebaggery in the Bush II period; ugly leadership breeds excesses in the ranks.
I have to agree with Strel on one of the earlier comments - the original poster did well with the tomatoes and car repairs material, but went a tad too Hulk with the fellatio material. Nonetheless, better to rage here with words than at a department meeting with a 9mm.
ReplyDeleteI felt like commenting on the “post-that-will-not-be-named” earlier, when it was getting such a negative reaction. Yeah, the guy was arrogant. Mostly, he sounds like a few friends of mine-- very frustrated researchers as schools that value teaching. Fine. Whatever. We bitch here, don’t we? Sometimes when you bitch, you come off as arrogant, whiney, self-absorbed... but at least you got all that vitriol out. The issue of privacy on here is another thing entirely, and others have commented more eloquently than I on that.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the negative feedback on the language used just astounds me. Would we be more comfortable with the language used if the poster had been more careful with his on-line identity? I don’t think so. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it just seems many posters were just upset with the blowjob metaphors and the use of the word “cock,” which completely blows my mind. There isn’t a PG rating on this blog, is there? Aren’t we all adults who can tolerate the use of a dirty word without getting into a tizzy?
Yes, he was angry and arrogant, but we’ve all seen that before. And it was foolish to be so careless with his profile. But I second Garrity—this must be a generational thing. I, myself, have told offending people (usually as a joke) that they can “suck my cock,” and as a woman in my early thirties, I don’t even have one. Not everyone’s writing voice is as adorable as Yaro (and I sincerely want to marry Yaro), but hopefully we are intelligent enough to not get upset over words that should have stopped shocking us in the third grade, and focus on the content of the posts.
Huh. I saw the post and decided not to comment on it -- what I wanted to say was that if I were in his department, I damned sure wouldn't want to see him tenured with that attitude about a) his career and b) his male organ. But then I thought, no, let's not get all feminist and shit and get dumped on.
ReplyDeleteSo, you see, anonymous who got it all wrong and garrity, there is a good deal of self-censorship here already. And Strelnikov, there is hardly a "feminine vibe" here. There are a few men who comment and post who talk like people, and who treat women like people. There are a few who don't, who take up a lot of space -- though not as much as on RYS. And there are some great, acerbic women here who hardly fit the model of soft-n-fuzzy femininity -- Stella, Greta, Anastasia, and WhatLadder come to mind.
Now, dump away. And good luck to our friend.
PS: A woman saying "suck my cock" is being ironic. A man saying it is being douchey. But the issue isn't language, it's attitude.
ReplyDeleteI'm a gal. When I say "suck my cock," I'm not being ironic, I mean "I happen to be packing today, so get down on your knees and thank your lucky stars for your excellent fortune!"
ReplyDeleteWearing a big plastic wang makes faculty meetings infinitely more bearable, I must say. I put it on like I put on earrings, part of a routine, although I have to hide it from Atom Smasher since it creeps him out some...
@Marcia:
ReplyDeleteUntil recently I had no idea Fab Sun was a woman. I mean, she is a woman, right?
I personally think the "they sucked my cock" stuff (focused upon in detail and repeatedly in the original post) to be problematic for a couple of reasons. For the record, I have a deep affection, nay, perhaps even a fixation) on penises (peni?) so it is not a "ew, gross genitals" thing. I love cocks. It's the cock used as a metaphor for dominance (or an actual object of dominance), especially in an academic setting where it's inappropriate, that I have a problem with.
And really, how would CMers feel if it were a woman saying "That committee licked my vag for half the afternoon, and then the dean licked my vag until my clit got blisters". ??? If you would like reading that, I have some sites you could peruse, but though I have these female parts myself, I don't want to necessarily read about other women getting theirs licked.
Keep the vag licking to yourself, really. I don't want to read about it on CM whether it's a literal vag licking, or a symbolic one. Ditto asshole licking, just in case anyone wanted to substitute that.
If that's the way CM wants to go, that's fine. It's not a decision I get to make. I just think using a detailed description of cocksucking as a show of superiority and power over others is dickish behavior.
And yes, it does matter whether or not you have a dick when you do that. Of course it does. Do I have to go into detail why?
I didn't think so.
Marcia, I'm a woman, and as far as I can tell the *majority* of my local male colleagues have that attitude about their male organs, at least some of the time, if not most of the time. Granted, not all of them are willing to say it all up front like that, but it's a near thing, some faculty meetings. This is why I asked my question: am I really so unusual in that I experience such attitudes as par for the course? Is it a result of the geographic location where I've landed, quirks or circumstance, or my specific discipline or sub-field that I am comparatively blase? I am seriously seeking perspective on this, and others' responses are welcome.
ReplyDeleteBut I would also note that I've been an RYSer for years, and so I am aware of the tone of both sites. Sex and violence were not unknown at RYS, at least. The violence continues here at CM. Between the two sites, I've seen images of physical violence against students, and also creepy sexual comments about female (and occasionally about male) students (students who were a few times said to have earned a good ogling by wearing that dress/top/whatever . . . um, hello? Rape apologism, much?) I have also read frank acknowledgments of inappropriate, power-imbalanced sexual relationships between proffies and students. So while the cock-talk was surely rude, was it really more objectionable for the weaker side of the power imbalance -- a junior faculty member -- to talk about his dean blowing him, than for a proffie to submit to RYS a post on the joys and perils of getting it on with young coeds? Was our arrogant poster really more sexist and amoral, or just less respectful of the normative pecking order?
Can we abandon the idea that men have one way of looking at the world and men have another?
ReplyDeleteThe women in my childhood church were very different from the women who attended my arts school, and the men in downtown Chicago were less cock-focused and more political than the truck-driving men of the plains states where my extended relatives are. And among those anecdotal groups, there were more sub-sections.
I think the idea of forcing sexual advantage of a dean or provost who just gave you a positive review shows a person frustrated and feeling powerless. You find it in men's locker rooms because men are performing it.
Btw, Fab Sun is defo a man.
*men have one way and women have another.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea who's a man or woman unless they have a "female" or "male" name or avatar. Even then, who knows? It might not be a bad idea to pretend to be a different gender if you post regularly on this site.
ReplyDeleteWell... an odd thing here is the immediacy of some of the postings. I've had some strange stuff this semester, but will WAIT to post them in a semester or two (or to make a point in a thread about some of the crazy sh*t that happened); otherwise, any faculty members who come on here will recognize me right away OR a student will know who I am.
ReplyDelete[And... I'm very careful in posting anything too snarky on Facebook or Twitter because there are two many eyeballs out there from folks I needed to "friend" or have "follow" me (for various academic/work reasons).]
Stella. The voice of reason.
ReplyDeleteFab Sun is a man. Good gosh. I worked with him in my first job post grad school. But, I must say, he always had a neat apartment, and he dressed impeccably. If that means anything. (And it doesn't.)
ReplyDeleteFab, are you reading any of this? I think he'd get a kick out of Strelnikov's "feminine vibe" line. I know I did.
Leslie K.
@Glabella: Like Stella, I was bothered by the specific images of forced/compelled sex as domination of particular people, not the sexual language itself. If I'm remembering, the post was pretty profane from the beginning, but I didn't start to feel uncomfortable until the poster started describing interactions with particular, actual people in sexual terms. I also suspected from the "riding" imagery (though I'm not sure) that the 2nd person mentioned was a woman, and didn't like the idea of being placed, even in imagination, in a similar position myself. Of course anyone is free to imagine anything they wish (and I've indulged in the occasional fantasy that might not please its object myself), but it's a bit different to put it out there on the internet, on a site not specifically designed for sexual fantasies. At the same time, for reasons I've already mentioned, I found it interesting to read, and certainly wouldn't have advocated its removal on the grounds of language and/or content.
ReplyDelete@Academic: I agree that broad male/female distinctions don't really work. I'm certainly not typically female in some ways, in part because I was raised mostly by a man, in part because of inborn temperament. I think I found myself taking an anthropological interest in the post partly out of self-defense (for reasons mentioned above, I wanted some distance), and partly because most of the men I know (including family members whose more vulgar moments I've at least overheard from time to time, and who have good-size egos) don't generally use metaphors of sexual dominance, or sexual metaphors at all, to describe their experiences (whether they think in such terms from time to time, I can't say, though I wouldn't be shocked to find out that they do; still, the closest I can remember anyone coming verbally is "x sucks" in a sports-fan context, and there is some debate about the origin of that phrase). But I know there is at least a subculture that talks -- and presumably thinks -- this way, and it is, for reasons discussed above, almost exclusively male (I suppose there's some kind of parallel in dominatrixes, but it's not quite the same thing). To the extent that members of the subculture are present in the academy, I'm just as glad to have some idea of their thinking, since it might help me interpret a situation that otherwise would be puzzling to me. At the same time, I don't by any means assume that every male I meet thinks this way, all or even some of the time.
@Marcia Brady
ReplyDeleteIf not feminine, than feminist. It's just how certain topics are approched here and the comments made about them that creates that vibe to me. It is after all, only an impression.
BTW, I knew that Fab Sun was male thanks to an email.
As I have stated previously, the sort of commenters we get here are 1/150th as crazy as the people at the AV Club (www.avclub.com) which is The Onion's media criticism site. Right now there is a Golden Aghouti Gerbil who spouts off rodent related factoids, the Victorian Lady who says something in florid 19th centrury prose then faints dead away, and Zodiac Motherfucker WHO ONLY WRITES IN CAPS and sounds like Jason Mewes. And this is on top of the crazed neckbeards and Poindexters who know pop culture better than their own family.
BlackDog, you are magnificent!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI know when I write here that I take a tiny bit of frustration or anger and express it as much more extreme sarcasm, contempt, rage, etc. It is more fun that way and it is funnier for the reader. I use the anonymity not to "finally say what I really think," but to take a bit of what I think and inflate it into something that is fun to imagine really _saying_.
ReplyDeleteThat is how I read the posts here and that is how I read this particular post. I did not have the impression - or did not consciously think - that the writer was really obsessing over his "cock" or might really have been so extremely contemptuous of his colleagues. Of course, if I thought I was the target of it, I might read it differently. I hope if he is outed that his department can see it as hyperbole and humor. It would be a shame to have a career dead-ended over something like this.