The Official Buzznet Gossip Girl Page

There are plenty of users on Buzznet that I simply don't like. This is something of a truism about any community one belongs to - there will always be someone who does things that really rub you up the wrong way. They are intolerable but you say nothing as disturbing the peace wouldn't be worth the personal satisfaction of bringing one douchebag down.

Then there are people so horrible, that saying nothing would be far far far worse than any possible fall out.

This will probably be the only time I personally name any user that I discuss.

Those of you who have been here a while probably know Kia (Absintheminded, formerly kiastar67). While she has always been something of an oddball, I always took her to be an eccentric, but harmless, fixture to the community. Some of her opinions were strange, but we had generally been friendly towards one another, and I was able to overlook the insanity of her poor grammaticised and often entirely capslocked posts. I don't really care whether people spell well or not, but the tenor of her posts were rambling and illustrated only a vague grasp on reality, so mainly I felt concerned about her mental health.

Recently, in a fight which broke out between Kia and some other users, Kia took to posting insane twitter rants about other well-known members in the buzznet community whom she perceived as ganging up against her, mainly, Mark, Ashly, Kasper, Misery and Nessa. What is particularly odd is that many of these users have had minimal contact with Kia at all. While calling someone a "crazy copyright whiner" or "fat" or a "crack"head is insulting, her comments towards Kasper and Mark really highlighted what kinds of attitudes towards sexuality she harboured.

Referring to Kasper as "she", Kia managed to not only belittle Kasper as being a transgender male, but also told "her to keep on cutting". This seems offensive on so many levels - depression is nothing to make fun of, but combine this with transgender identity and it seems a violent slap in the balls when the trans community face disproportionately high levels of depression because of fucksticks like Kia and their belittling attitudes. While people who are not trans will probably never understand fully what Kasper and other transgender people go through in accepting their gender identity, all one needs is the empathy to understand that gender is more than what genitals you are born with. To call someone "she" when they have made it clear they are a "he" (and vise versa) and to then mock their past depression, seems to deny the suffering felt by the trans community and perpetuate the feelings of alienation trans people often feel.

Her logic with regards to Mark was vaguely along the lines of (paraphrasing) "I am a minority group (half native-American, Sanguinarian, pagan). Mark is gay, which is also a minority group. We are both minority groups. Therefore we should both be friends. Mark is not being my friend. Therefore Mark is not gay." (See http://bznetgossipgrl.buzznet.com/user/journal/5478991/)

Absolutely flawless logic, no?

Firstly, belonging to one minority group doesn't mean you have to be friends with people who belong to other minority groups. While in a perfect world it would be nice if people worked together, there is honestly no obligation for one gay man to be friends with one pagan half native-American woman. Hell, there is no obligation for one gay man to be friends with another gay man. People should try and empathise with minority groups, but that doesn't mean they have to be friends with absolutely every member of such a group - every community has at least one fuckstick not worth talking to, whether that community is Mormon, Muslim, Indian, Chinese, Democrat, Atheist, Vegetarian, etc.

Secondly, Kia's idea that someone is not gay merely because she has decided that they don't fit her characterisation of how a gay person should act is obviously a very silly perspective, because gay people are a very heterogenous group. Saying "I am not homophobic" as some kind of excuse/justification to making such claims is ridiculous. Saying someone is not gay because you have gay friends and they act differently still makes you a homophobe, sorry.

Kia also took a swipe at the buzznet community as flailing and a place where users and moderators are power hungry. The Buzznet Community has changed and lots of older members have left, this is true, but there are also plenty of new members. My position has always been that if I didn't like something about the community here, it was always better to do something about it than pointlessly bitch about how much better things used to be. This position often brings me into conflict with other users and the moderators, and sometimes I am wrong (but not often haha jk). Over my nearly 3 years here, I have insulted various buzznet users, pissed off the staff at various points and gone through periods of being extremely disliked. I say this not to suggest I am some kind of martyr, but more that, people being angry on buzznet is rather fleeting. People are generally friendly and get over things.

The Buzznet staff including Mark have never alienated me from the site or refused to engage with me. So to suggest that Mark or any other person on Buzznet is here entirely to serve their own agenda of hatred is patently absurd, when in my own experience, the opposite is true. They are generally friendly, and are willing to engage with those who disagree, as long as you are also willing to see from their perspective. It's not Mark's job to agree with everyone who uses the site, so if you want him to listen to your opinion, you should listen to his. Yelling insane comments about people persecuting you for being a sanguinarian doesn't achieve this. Being a so-called "ass kisser" is uncessary - I have never "worshipped" Mark, yet we still get on perfectly well, even though we have come into conflict in the past.

While perhaps certain buzznetters seek power, being popular on buzznet is not really a monopoly - anyone who writes articles or takes interesting photos can fairly quickly be featured around the site and make friends. Not every one on Buzznet is a "feminist loser" or "damaged goods" or a "nazi" or whatever (way to go, Godwin's Law). People on buzznet didn't send other users viruses (stop being paranoid, you probably clicked an advert with a malicious code). Also, generally, you cant claim other people are obsessed with you and stalking you when you post 200 tweets about them over the space of 1 day. Just saying.

I'll post my screen caps tomorrow, but in the meantime, here is her twitter - http://twitter.com/AyahuascaDreams