Insert Smiley

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

Filed under: Personal 63 comments

In regards to yesterday’s post wherein I “defended” those “lazy Americans”. A couple of people jumped in and reacted as though I really was boiling with rage. The post was intended with a light-hearted tone. I thought that came through pretty clearly in the original post, but in case it didn’t: I wasn’t upset in the least, and I’m still not. I wasn’t REALLY offended by anything. I saw a couple of comments along the lines of “lazy Americans” and I had some fun with them.

(Actually, now that I’m re-reading it, I think the second to last sentence – the one in italics – does sound pissed off. My bad. I’m not really upset with anyone, not even the people who DID imply the “Lazy Americans” stuff. Really, it was a fun discussion about socks.)

This is another reason I’d like to get back to a small-audience blog. I’m just not very good at big-audience stuff. I like writing rants. I probably like writing them more than anything else. But sometimes I mess up, or people missunderstand the joke or miss the humor entirely, and with a big audience this causes more angst and hurt feelings. I’m not going to pepper my rants with smileys or add a “I’m just having fun with you” disclaimer at the end. I’d rather just not post them at all.

Although, maybe this will be self-balancing: If I piss off enough people my audience will dwindle down to a size I can handle.

Sigh.

Damn foreigners.

 


From The Archives:
 

63 thoughts on “Insert Smiley

  1. Kajen says:

    Damn dryers!

  2. Browncoat says:

    Dam the river?

  3. Stark says:

    Damn Yankees!

    Wait… I think I am a yankee… ah well…

    Damn Yankees!

  4. -Chipper says:

    damn emptyheadedness! I can’t think of a good rejoinder!

  5. SiliconScout says:

    Damn I hate this campaign

  6. Falafel says:

    Damn! do we get any roleplaying exp for this?

  7. Dave H. says:

    Don’t forget…

    Damn dirty apes!

  8. NeedsToHeal says:

    Damn idiots!

  9. Knastymike says:

    Damn Yankees!

    They WILL take you high enough!

  10. Alan Post says:

    unfortunately, i think instead of shrinking your audience you’d just get more of them that were more angry than they already are. :(

  11. James says:

    I for one welcome our new Alien Overlords.

  12. Poptart-Mini says:

    Shamus, don’t worry about people misunderstanding you. It’s honestly not worth it to try to reconcile most of the time. This applies only to the internet; in real life, with real friends, always try to reconcile.

    damn…… fish?

  13. Telas says:

    Damn you all to Hell!!!

    You’re right, that does feel good…

  14. BobbyBob says:

    Damn…um…

    Damn, all the good ones are taken.

  15. Phlux says:

    Damn these heels!

  16. lplimac says:

    Damn young’n get off my lawn!

  17. DoveArrow says:

    Damn… I got nuthin.

  18. datarat says:

    Dunno. It sounded more like bored exasperation to me, but I could be projecting. I have the same reaction to overgeneralizing opinions whether it’s “lazy Americans” or “French” (hmmm, no modifier there. What does THAT say?) or “Stupid Polacks”.

    I happen to be all three, so such silliness holds pretty much no serious ability to raise my ire at all.

  19. SteveDJ says:

    Damn dice!

  20. Um, if you don’t mind a semi-serious post, I read an article a while ago that indicated people did no better than random when trying to detect tone in emails and forum posts, but that 90% of the people tested believed they could tell what the tone was 90% of the time!

    Is that nuts or what?

    Damn conclusions!

  21. Namfoodle says:

    What the heck is a Damn “hills hoist” (mentioned by the aussies in the other threads)

    Thanks, wikipedia, now I know.

  22. Al Shiney says:

    Damn anti-spam word!

    Shamus, as a wise person once said …

    “Joke them if they can’t take a f***”

  23. clodia says:

    I thought I was pretty good at interpreting tone, but I thought you were ticked as well.

    Also, you can’t get rid of me that way, I’m American.

    Damn the Man!

  24. Katy says:

    >Knastymike

    Damn! You beat me to it!

  25. chiefnewo says:

    It can be very hard to pick up sarcasm from text unless it is extremely obvious. Filing it under “Rants: Frowning and scowling at things” doesn’t help though. Perhaps you should have filed it under “Rants: Wry smiles and the poking of gentle fun”. ;P

  26. mookers says:

    I can’t believe nobody has said this one yet:

    Damn clothesline!!!

    (and really, Shamus, you SHOULD come visit us in Australia. It’d be fun.)

  27. Laithoron says:

    Damn, Ian took my line…

  28. Ian says:

    Damn…I’m sorry, Laithoron.

  29. Dave says:

    Damn you.. the horse you rode in on.. and the calvalry behind him.

    .. that sounds a bit harsh.. howabout..

    Damnity Spam

  30. Avaz says:

    Damn this thread is funny.
    :)

  31. Fieari says:

    You know, pissing people off isn’t the way to drive people away. The more you piss people off, the more they stick around, if only to engage in flame wars. Odd but true.

  32. trigear says:

    I think you’re right to want a smaller blog. If you notice, most e-celebrities learned a long time ago that mixing their personal blogs with their fame-inducing ones can be catastrophic. It looks like you’re learning the same thing.

    I support you fully in dividing the content, and I actually enjoy your blog posts as much (if not better) than your comics. But then I discovered your blog hours before I discovered your comic. You hooked me with your transcribed D&D campaign. I’m attempting a lite version of that right now.

  33. Evan says:

    damn you all to hell!
    do you know the muffin man? of coures noti killed him!
    sorry i had to say that
    damn me

  34. trigear says:

    And honestly, you’ve more than good reason to feel the way you do at least since that incident where you were being mocked you for your religious beliefs, if not even earlier than that.

  35. Ikuturso says:

    Damn the damning!

  36. Germelia says:

    Well, I’m staying anyway. Foreigner or not

  37. Mik says:

    Blast and damn!

    Don’t worry about people taking what you say and getting their dander up, Shamus. Blogging is like being a senior citizen – you say what you like, and other people who don’t like it can go hang.

    Damn readers….

  38. Katherine says:

    Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

  39. Alexis Li says:

    Damn YOU, Shamus! You should get out of here and leave us in peace! Whadda you think you are, the owner or something?

    You owe me $20 for this comment by the way.

  40. Heather says:

    *shakes crystal ball*

    Hmph. Damn crystal ball is broken.

    *shrugs* It’s a problem with conveying information by text only – human communication is mostly interpreted through inflection and body language, but that’s always missing in text. It wasn’t so much your remarks, Shamus, that got me to the point of saying ‘enough already’, but more the comments by others who were happily joining in the growing hate-mongering. Maybe they were supposed to be ‘joking’ too… but some of them sure didn’t come across that way.

    I would have thought that your censure would have been better served against the hate-mongerers rather than against someone saying ‘enough’, but hey, it’s your blog.

  41. Dan says:

    damn a lamma ding dong.

    By dan.

  42. Josh says:

    @Jennifer Snow:

    That’s interesting. I wonder what the equivalent percentages would be for people trying to communicate a clear tone – is there a good success rate, and how successful do people believe they are?

    Do you know whether the emails were a random selection, or specifically selected to have a strongish tone?

    You wouldn’t happen to have a link to the research?

    (Sorry – psychology grad relapse… ;o)

  43. Rain says:

    Damn Pixel humpers!
    he he he, No one thought of that one.. Or
    Damn Chickens! Of off the damn goat!

  44. JimmyJoeJohnJimi says:

    Damn it, Shamus, I’m an anonymous poster, not a doctor!

  45. Dave says:

    Damn Damn.. bo Bamn.. Bananna Fanna Fo Famn.. Me My Mo Mamn….. Damn!

  46. ladylabyrinth says:

    Damn your eyes!

    Too late.

    Thank you, Mel Brooks. :)

    I have nothing meaningful to say. Just wanted to hop on the bandwagon for a sec.

  47. Doug Brown says:

    “Damn these glasses, son!”
    “OK, sir. I damn thee!”

    The Jerk = awesome.

  48. Henry says:

    Damn rotary clotheslines. They take up much less space than the long sort, and are actually quite useful. But hey.

    I have one pair of socks that used to be black but is now brownish-grey due to having been left on the line to dry this summer; it’s been raining on and on. England.

  49. Cadrys says:

    A fish swims into a concrete wall, and says…

    “Dam!”

  50. Kajen says:

    I left my clothes outside and it rained!

    Damn my nonexisting dryer!

  51. Kajen says:

    btw – good one, Cadrys!

  52. I like your blog…with or without DMOTR.

    So I’m gonna keep linking to you…

    …AND KEEP READING YOUR DAMNED POSTS!!

  53. ArchU says:

    Damn botch.

    And damn rants, too!

  54. Author says:

    I am taking a liberty to assume that your bladderless bile delivery system is functioning well. That is, unless you wanted to cheer yourself up from your deathbed with the sock discussion. But I prefer the opposite interpretation.

  55. Lynn says:

    Keep on ranting if you feel like it. It’s not your fault that a lot of people ain’t got on frickin’ sense of humor.

  56. Boingophile says:

    Damn the man, save the Empire!

  57. Varewulf says:

    I can’t help myself, so…

    Darn those socks!

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