TW is sterile and boring.
It’s the same repetitive threads over and over again.
I decided to create a couple of jocular threads to have fun and make people laugh.
I don’t really use forums so it never dawned on me that people might be so boring over there because of the Code of Conduct. In fact, it never dawned on me that there is a Code of Conduct. It also never dawned on me that I might get into trouble because my intentions seemed fine to me.
I started one thread. A lot of people were having fun. We were roasting each other’s trucks, talking smack. One guy said the thread made him laugh all night, which made me glad.
I wanted to come up with some over the top, absurd insult to a third gen owner. I saw a few people use the words “turd gen” so I coupled that with “untermensch”. I thought it was perfect because it was so weird and absurd that no one would take it seriously. In my mind, that phrase simply translated to “third gen loser”.
According to Google, that word is 10000X more serious than I remembered. I last read it in high school when I read Nietzsche. I thought about it more philosophically in the context of his idea about the death of god and what sort of human being is left afterwards; not in terms of how it was later appropriated. These days, though, people don’t have patience for that sort of thing, mistake or not.
Anyway, I obviously got banned permanently, and all of my so-called friends talked about me in a thread, saying I am racist and backwards. Maybe I am just a loser but that really hurt my feelings. I reached out to one of them personally to explain myself. No response. All of this happened just two days before Thanksgiving, by the way, which I am spending alone because my family is on the other side of the country. The person putting me down is also someone who I defended against a malicious user who came after them for their identity. Didn’t matter.
I spent a few days feeling awful, like an idiot. I have been wondering what this could mean for me IRL since my truck is easily identifiable.
In hindsight, I see those people were never my friends, and I see that I need to forgive myself. Despite everything seeming to suggest the opposite, I made a genuine mistake. I find it really odd how “folks” who screech the loudest about acceptance are the least accepting or understanding when it actually matters. If y’all are dubious about my story then I understand. Obviously, I can’t blame you. But people make really stupid mistakes sometimes. And I’m not going to quit trying to make people laugh and have fun. I lurked and a lot of people expressed that they enjoyed those threads a lot. That’s all that should matter to me.
Anyway, glad to be here. You guys seem way more cool over here.
P.S. To the mods, I’m sorry if using that word here is a no-no. I just used it to fully communicate story. Happy to take it down if it’s a problem.
