Sock Puppet Giveaway

[Django Style]

This is the hand that holds the sock puppets Django Style, tenalady and Bozo Bingtrousers writing.

I have been a member of the Sound of the World forum since its early days. I have seen many people come and go, strange characters coalesce and dissolve, discussions, arguments, agreements, friendships, spats, and make-up sessions, even a make-out session or two. Yes, I’ve participated in many of those activities too. I’m far from guilt free, except that I don’t believe in feeling guilt. I’ve enjoyed those things as a part of life, good, bad, and indifferent as they may be at different times or in different moods. And, also yes, I’ve learnt a lot about music from many, many other members of this forum and found much of the non-musical chit-chat and improvisations entertaining.

I think that Sound of the World has benefitted from having even less rules than the game of Mornington Crescent, whether that be Trumpington’s Variations or Tudor Court Rules — or should that be the same rules as Mornington Crescent? As always with rules or lack of, the question of control of behaviour simmers beneath the surface. Self-control. In-group control. Benign-dictator control. Plain old good manners control. Anything for a laugh lack of control. Control is a fascinating subject. William Burroughs, Genesis P-Orridge, and Mark Stewart have all been seen to comment upon it within this forum lately — or at least they’ve all been quoted with regard to the subject.

This writer became an anarchist when he was 14 or 15. I can’t remember exactly how old I was but I remember the circumstances vividly. It was in the baggage car of an overcrowded train, on a hot Friday afternoon, leaving Liverpool Street with a full complement of stockbrokers. But there in the baggage car was a long-hair a few years older than me, who expounded upon anarchism for an hour — and that was it for me. I’ve never seen a reason to change my mind about the only political philosophy that continues to matter to me. My thinking about it has changed and expanded over the years and there are obviously very many practical difficulties about running a complex society upon its principles, but stated at its simplest, in my interpretation, it comes down to everyone cleaning the toilet when it’s their turn. That is being responsible and not expecting everyone else to put up with your shit.

Yeah, I admitted already that it has very many practical difficulties. The prime one in this instance is that one of expecting everyone else to put up with your shit. And that is where, for me, the Sound of the World forum has run into an internal collision between principle and practice.

Over the past month and a half or so, we’ve seen a massive upset caused, I believe, by an ungainly attempt to control others in a discussion, followed by name-calling and mud-slinging, accompanied by various attempts to enforce various unspoken rules — the whole ugly thing a ghastly mashup of Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies. I won’t mention names or go into further detail but, yes once again, I took part in it and was responsible (not guilty!) for some of it under my own original username, a name that is not entirely the one I was born with, but that I have used for years and was quite happy with, even proud of in minor ways. By this stage those of you who read closely and can connect the dots will know very well what that name is. To which I will only say, “You might very well think so, but I couldn’t possibly comment.â€

[c hristian]

oh my goodness.

[Dayna]

It could be fun if you aren't going to stir up anything bad again.

[Django Style]

I'm giving them away, Dayna. What the winners do with them is up to them.

[Des]

Anarchist my arse.

[Gordon Neill]

Oh dear. That was a lot of typing. It would be nice to think that this sock puppeteering would come to an end. But I don't think it will. It's an addiction.

Not that I object to it in principle. As whoever suggests, there can be a wide range of styles in humour. Although I would say that this is all 'funny peculiar' rather than 'funny ha ha'. I toyed with the idea of a sockpuppet ages ago, but it seemed like a lot of effort and it needed a bit of wit and style to carry it off properly. I wasn't sure that I had either.

No, my problem with the recent spate has been its almost consistent negative tone, its hostility, and its lack of anything positive to actually say. It can be dressed up as something vagually impressive sounding. Look at me I'm an anarchist, or whatever. But, to me, it's just been fairly juvenile rudeness. On the other hand, maybe I'm just a 'pretentious twat'. Moi? On the other hand (note to editor: that's three hands) maybe I'm just one of these rule-maker-uppers. Possibly, I'm entering the cantankerous years. Well actually I definitely am. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wrong.

Actually, I have had another problem with it, and it seems to have entirely escaped the rather self-obsessed whoever. It creates a climate of distrust for just about any newcomer. Which is a great shame, because I certainly don't want the Forum to become some exclusive refuge for a few regulars.

And, paradoxically, it's all a bit self-obsessed, isn't it? I mean, it's essentially just leaping about with a range of masks on saying 'look at me, look at me, can you guess who I am?'

Anyway, gotta go. There's a big footie match on the telly at the moment. At least here is on this side of the Atlantic. And I've ended up doing a lot of typing as well.

[Dayna]

I like this place & have enjoyed thinking I have some freinds here. It hasn't been just imaginary for me. It's been kind of special too me, but all this negativity that comes with these sock puppets, lately makes it very hard not to have a knee jerk reaction, & to just accept anyone who might come in here & try to say things & do things that will tear it apart like it almost was a few weeks ago. It's not just about rules.

[Hugh Weldon]

Dayna wrote:

all this negativity that comes with these sock puppets

Yes, or just plain irritation. As a bit of an anarchist myself I'm not averse to a bit of fun and mischief from time to time. But I have little interest in all this flaming sockpuppetry etc - the very terms themselves irritate me. as does the clever clever superior attitude involved, which seems to think it's ok to have a laugh following some parallel track of your own, amusing yourself with your sideways take on everything.

It just spoils any discussion for me - please please continue to deflate pomposity, add some levity when things get too solemn. But do it in your own name and not some assumed silly pseudonym. As for the intellectual justifications for role-playing, well I would politely ask you take it elsewhere. It's introduced something that this forum was pleasantly free of for a long time, and now it's here I don't like it much.

[Adam Blake]

As for the intellectual justifications for role-playing, well I would politely ask you take it elsewhere. It's introduced something that this forum was pleasantly free of for a long time, and now it's here I don't like it much.

Seconded.

[Adam Blake]

Whoever you are, Django, it seems you have a very high opinion of yourself, and a pretty low opinion of most of us. Would it not make sense for you to leave this forum and go and grace some other group of people with your undoubtedly keen wit and scalpel sharp insights? Perhaps they might prove more worthy of you.

[Con Murphy]

Whoever you are, Django, it seems you have a very high opinion of yourself, and a pretty low opinion of most of us.

I'm not so sure - I think most of us will have worked out who the puppeteer is and the one member who s/he holds the low opinion about; I don't agree with all that anarchy bollocks, I think subconsciously they just wanted to vent their spleen without compromising their established forum persona. Having hopefully got it all out of his/her system, I hope they can return in real person with greater regularity. As for the sockpuppets - well, we know that's what they are, so they are easily ignored.

[Ted]

I don't like it much.

What he said.

[Des]

Yep I'm happy for him to stick around as himself rather than via this rather pathetic role-play stuff.

He loves me really ;-)

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

One question: Since forum admin has known since 10th April who 'Django' was, and that he has acquired or taken on 2 further personas since that time, using at least one of those pseudonyms to harass other members (both in PM's and postings), why has he been allowed to continue doing it?

Was it an experiment? Are we on Candid Webcam?

...... Charlie?

June

[Bozo Bingtrousers]

both in PM's and postings

Liar! No PMs — bending the truth doesn't work too well even for Lady Macbeth. Read the play.

Later . . .

My post, immediately previous to this one, was deleted at the demand of Lady Macbeth. It had a more serious point to make about identities and the use of pseudonyms than merely to be offensive by linking to a so-called porn site.

Besides the above lie about my harassing other members with PMs, Lady Macbeth gleefully yelps in an authoritarian little way further on in this forum:

Thanks to Charlie, the post with the link to the porn website has been removed.

Now all that remains is for me to delete it from my 12 year old son's Favourites ....!

and so some of you in later years (or mere days) may wonder what happened. What was this outrageous website I linked to? What was the context in which I could do such a dastardly thing?

Here is what I wrote:

CantSleepClownsWillGetMe is Lady Macbeth's real name?

Or is this link removed to avoid further censorship the real you?

Anyone who is sufficiently interested can find the link by simply googling on "CSCWGM" or you can see the entire cache of this page prior to censorship at http://tinyurl.com/4d9k8q.

If it's not too obvious to bear stating, my point was that identities are fluid and multiple and that one may do many things online and that one's username is absolutely no guarantee of anything in particular. In this case, it was interesting to see what else goes on online under the pseudonym CantSleepClownsWillGetMe or CSCWGM — and, make no mistake, that is a pseudonym. So, who is Lady Macbeth to give poor old Bozo Bingtrousers a hard time for using a pseudonym? And, for the curious, Lady Macbeth is also a pseudonym, the one I choose to use to describe the character who calls herself CantSleepClownsWillGetMe — they're all characters as are we all. Lady Macbeth couldn't sleep either.

For the record: the site I linked to barely qualifies as a porn site. It's a discussion site, different in focus from SotW, but pretty damn innocuous. I'd guess it was for people who want to hook-up with each other. Lots of conversations that don't mean much to the outsider. There are some pictures of half-naked women in somewhat provocative poses. It's so far from hard-core that one has to wonder how such outrage was generated (later in this forum). Doesn't even look as explicit to me as the Page 3 pictures in The Sun — at least as presented on the web. Like Des, it's years since I've actually seen a copy of The Sun. But then, as always, there are those who can read and make intelligent analysis and then there are those who can only look at the pictures and get indignant.

And, come on, boys, let he who is without sin cast the first stone! We've all looked at one time or another.

If Lady Macbeth is so worried about her reputation being sullied by association with the supposedly so-offensive website Bozo linked to, she should change her username. After all, it's just another pseudonym, not real — and we can't have those around, can we? Why doesn't she use her "real" name as in the phone book or on her drivers licence? What a lot of stupid brainless hypocrisy!