I've been pretty active in Facebook groups and forums over
the last few months. I'm part of a few groups dedicated to music, whether
that's fans or other musicians to network with, a few dedicated to Youtube
gamers, which really is just a place for other "Youtubers" to post
their Let's Plays. The forums that I'm the most active on are Metroid
forums. I was part of a forum in April and May called "Metroid
Lovers of the World," and the reason I had to leave was simply because
they were too dumb. It's easy to spot the more intelligent people in
discussions because they're often the ones with differing views and can
articulate them effectively. That being said, it's even easier to spot
the dumb ones, of which there are many. Here's an example of what I consider
to be a "dumb" post:
1. Here you can see the crater... The Metroid Prime is down
there. ;D lol
Or, in even
simpler instances:
2. There is a cutscene in the beginning of Metroid Prime 3 that really confused and kind of bothered me. Since when do single shots of the Power Beam kill Pirate Militia, or have so much recoil...?
For reference, here's the clip that previous post was talking about.
http://youtu.be/ymr6rzQgJsI
Allow me to
explain my logic for post 1. Let's begin by dissecting the title. There's
a winky face and a "lol" at the end. Putting "lol" in
your posts a lot of the time can be filler. Why does a post of only text
need filler? Who knows. It's also a way to force a comedic reaction
out of the reader. The way I approach the latter is; would you laugh at
your own joke?
If the answer is
"Yes," then I beg the question; was it really that funny?
If the answer is
"No," then you probably shouldn't be posting it to begin with, unless *hint hint* you're trying to begin
a dialogue. A novel concept, I know.
My logic for
post 2 is that the poster was not able to look at that cutscene critically and
say to himself "Y'know what, it's just a cutscene. It's designed to
move the game along."
I take issue
with people asking questions that they know the answers to.
My reasons for
joining these forums are pretty broad. I have different reasons for each
forum I'm a part of, and for the Metroid forums, it began as a place to bounce
ideas for Metroid Month off of other people who were hardcore fans of the
series, as well as promote Metroid Month. Unfortunately, this really
wasn't the kind of audience I expected. Allow me to post an actual
exchange of comments between users on the "Metroid Universe" Facebook
group:
User A: I like
Super Metroid. *1 like*
User B: Super
Metroid is the best Metroid ever. *2 likes*
User B: Yes. *1
like*
Riveting.
This is the
opposite of what this forum should be about. What's the point in talking
with someone about something if you both agree? Sure, it can work most of
the time, but if the posts consists of:
"I like
this."
"Yeah, I
like this too. It's good."
-End of
Exchange-
Then why am I
wasting my time?
So, the reason
for my posting is because (big shocker) I pissed off another ragtag group of
Metroid fans.
Yayyyyy.
For reference,
here's the original post that I responded to and almost initiated a critical
dialogue:
Thardus...A rock
heap that kills me in the fucking corner! Fuck you!
Riveting.
I responded,
naturally, by posting my Top Six Worst Metroid Bosses video, as I felt it was relevant,
seeing that Thardus was on that list. And, wouldn't you know it, I
actually got a response to it! One of the users started talking about how
he was really struggling on Mogenar and Helios, and I started saying why I disliked
those bosses as well. His reason for disliking was the difficulty of the
battles, my reasons for disliking were because Mogenar is tedious, and Helios
is uninspired. We both agreed on our conclusion that the boss battles
were not good, but the discussion didn't end at "Yeah, you're right.
Those bosses sucked."
This was the
kind of discussion I wanted to have with other fans.
At some point,
the gentleman I was exchanging with said that he disliked some parts of Other
M, but said that he's "...not as hard on that game as most people
are." I had no problem with this, and he probably brought it up as he was
watching my video, so, kudos. And then...
The
administrator who's managed to stick his proverbial dick in every single
Metroid forum on Facebook decides to chime in. I call him the
"administrator" because he was the administrator of the "Metroid
Lovers of the World" forum that I eventually had to leave because I got
fed up. On this forum, he's just a regular user, so let's just call him
"Admin."
Admin chimes in
"I liked other m it's hard mode was actually hard"
That's a post
that can be taken and made larger with the addition of other opinions, so I
added my thoughts on it:
"The worst part about Other M was the god awful
soundtrack and dreadfully short play time. I know I've said it before, Admin,
and I'm saying it again! I'm still pissed off about it!"
To sum, Admin said that he thought the soundtrack
was average, I said I thought it was below average, and then the gentleman whom
I'd been talking with earlier chimed back in to say why he had used the guide
on those bosses, and talked about how he didn't like Phaaze, the ending segment
of the game. I replied that I also disliked Phaaze because to me it felt
like a cop-out, but that I still think Corruption is the best. And
then...
Admin chimes back in saying "Na prime 1 was best."
Not "Prime 1 was the best," just "prime 1 was best."
Admin doesn't speak, or spell, English very well.
After posting a clip from Commando (1985) in response, I proceeded to say how I thought that Prime 1 gets dull and tedious after you beat it a few times due to that the Space Pirates are way too strong for their own good. I then went on about how I thought Echoes achieved a more equal balance and continues to age like fine wine, but that Corruption hit the marks with the exception of the forgettable boss battles and ending segment. And then...
Admin chimes in with the logic "Yea but they mad it to easy with the hyper mode and other lame ways to make it easy"
See, now, one thing that really frustrates me is when people just make accusations or claims without any grounds or supporting evidence, so when he said "lame ways," that gave me pause. So, I responded:
"'lame ways' deserves more description and justification. Hyper Mode subtracted an energy tank every time you used it, so I wouldn't call that easy because it's actually counter intuitive to what you're trying to accomplish. Staying alive."
First, I'll begin by saying why this was a sufficient response, please take note of the bolded and italicized sections below:
"'lame ways' deserves more description and justification. Hyper Mode subtracted an energy tank every time you used it, so I wouldn't call that easy because it's actually counter intuitive to what you're trying to accomplish. Staying alive."
Notice, to attack his argument as well as support mine, I bolded what he needed to do to make his argument more justified. My logic being that if you think you're right, show me.
Also take note
that I stated my claim,
and explained why I believe my claim to be valid.
This is not me
being a troll, this is me trying to engage in civil discourse with people who
share similar interests with me.
Admin replied
"Though hyper mode used an energy tank it made enemy's and bosses to easy
and even Nintendo said they dumbed down prime 3"
I replied
"You were forced to be strategic with hyper mode and not rely on it A.
because it's a stupid idea anyway, and B. because it slowly kills you.
Just because they dumbed down a game doesn't make it any worse, they just
cut the fat off"
Granted, this
was not my best retort, but take note that I provided logic to my argument on
why I believed it to be strategic. And then...
Admin replies "U weren't forced to be strategic but ok whatever keeps u happy chip"
Why wasn't I
forced to be strategic? I just wasn't? Did I not provide enough
argument to allow for a more legitimate retort? I just explained where I
thought the strategy lied in the use of the hyper mode system, yet somehow, my
claim is simply invalid without any kind of counter evidence? What's that
about? This is when my fuse got short. I posted:
"My reservations lie with that I make assertions and provide
evidence to support my claim. You say "No. You're wrong" allowing no
meaningful retort or any reason for me to sway my opinion. I'm not asking for
everyone to be experts at argumentation, but me saying "Hyper Mode forced
you to be strategic because you could only use it X amount of times before it
ran out and/or killed you" and you say "It doesn't force you to be
strategic" and provide no backing evidence. Give me the data."
To be fair, I'd gotten frustrated at this point. And then...
Admin chimes in "iv gone through this shit with u befor chip i ain't waisting my time again"
You may notice that Admin's quotes are very, err, sloppy, to say the least. I want you to know, for the record, that I have not doctored the syntax, punctuation, or spelling of any of his quotes. As I stated earlier, English is not his first language, so I'm not going to spend a great deal of time criticizing his wording. That being said, it's clear that he knows how to spell and simply chooses not to, which doesn't help his case any better.
Moving on, I replied:
"No, clearly, because I'm wasting MY time trying to engage in a stimulating dialogue with other Metroid fans and I just get "No, you're wrong, I'm right." That's not dialogue, that's playground justice."
"Playground justice" is what I define as, when you're young on the playground, and someone does something, you ask "Why?" and they say "Because" and leave it at that.
Admin replies:
"Oh ok chip how's ur group going ??"
Notice, please, that this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. It should be telling because I now have to explain to you what he meant by that. After leaving "Metroid Lovers of the World," I decided to make an exclusive Metroid forum called "Metroid Forum for Smart People." Said forum has less than ten members, because I don't care. What I wanted to happen was to have Admin request to join, which of course he did, and me deny him entry, which of course I did. Reason being: he's too dumb.
So, back to the
topic at hand, I'm going to reiterate that Admin's comment had nothing to do with his flawed
argumentation. Therefore, I called him out on it:
"It's a very exclusive club that only smart people are allowed
in, and unfortunately, that's a limited demographic. How dare you bring up
topics that feed into my inner most insecurities. Also, once again not proving
to illustrate your point and instead attacking the speaker is a fallacy of
irrelevancy, specifically ad hominem. It does nothing to sway the audience in
your favor and comes off as a desperate attempt to shift the attention away
from the argument. Party foul."
Notice anything wrong with my claim? Absolutely not; and I didn't even need to provide further evidence because Admin did it for me! How nice of him. He said:
"U shore do like big words don't u does it make u feel smart"
Please take note that he neglected to provide a counterargument to mine, and continued to instead attack the speaker, being me. This served simply to reemphasize my point of his fallacy of irrelevancy, specifically ad hominem. I replied so:
"Not really, it's talking to people like you that helps me KNOW I'm smart. What's that? Is that another fallacy of irrelevancy coming into play? Now, that couldn't be, because I just talked about that!"
At this point, I was getting more and more snarky as he continued to dig his hole even deeper.
That was the bulk of that conversation, but the mediator in this brought up a point that I found interesting, for lack of a better word. His quote, after telling us to stop arguing (and rightfully so!), is as follows:
"I'm also not fond of discussing what makes a game too easy because I find that it begins to wear away at what a game is about: Fun. I know some of you must have a challenge to have fun, which is fine, but when it conflicts with others' opinions and we don't go about it nicely, the thread becomes a place no one wants to be in anymore."
I'm fine with what he said here, but what I think the underlying theme is is that he doesn't want to be contrairian to the love of the series. In my eyes, critically discussing and analyzing the merits, as well as faults, of a piece of culture, makes it more significant. People enjoy art exhibits because of the interpretations they have. Everybody has a different view on the same piece of art, and it's those differing views and opinions which transcend the boundaries of simple paintings, or in this case, games. I would argue that games are an art form, most definitely, but that's a topic best saved for another post, perhaps.
Just because you're able to say that something is flawed doesn't mean that you like it any less, in some aspects, I think it can make you appreciate it as a series more, because it helps to establish contrast. The tedious boss battles in Corruption help you to appreciate the more clever boss battles in Echoes. I guess that these people have a love that's blind and refuse to view it from a critical lens, but am I alone? Are there not others who view media in a similar fashion? Doesn't it somewhat invalidate your fandom if you're not able to recognize the poor aspects of something? I'm familiar with the KISS repertoire, so I'm able to say that I think Crazy Nights is a lackluster album, but that doesn't take away from my love for the band, it just transcends beyond simply that I like their songs.
So, these are just a few things to think about. I hope
you learned a lesson today. The lessons I wanted you to learn were:
-never make a claim without evidence,
-attacking the person using the very method he or she had
called you out only serves to further demote your point
-discussing the flaws of any piece of art or media doesn't
take the magic away, but it actually makes it that much more special
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