Seeing as I signed up for MLB via MSN Premium – I wanted to be able to keep track of live Yankees games during the season – I didn’t realize it until recently that I had access to the MSN chat rooms again. I used to visit them when they were available for free and when they switched to subscriber only, I kept in contact with chat people in a Group-based room, which was much smaller than what MSN used to offer. And since I had access to them again, thanks to the Premium package, I thought I’d take a peak and see if they were still as active as I remembered them to be…
[note: I’ve been cranky lately – house buying pressures – so I’m pulling out a post that I typed up a while ago and never got around to posting, so it might seem dated, but it’s still accurate enough]
They are, but that’s not always for the better. Since the rooms I tend to go to are “local” rooms, there’s usually a good chance that the other chatters have met each other before… that’s understandable. Hell, I even expect that. Just because I aspired to not meet people offline, it doesn’t mean that everyone has the same aspirations. Simply put, I’ve been to so many chat room things over the years that they have long since played themselves out, over a decade ago. Maybe even two decades – I misremember.
No, what sort of threw me for a loop are the people that seem to think that people are willing to read an owner’s manual before talking to them. It’s not quite that literal, but the net effect is the same. I’d say hi to someone. S/he would instantly want to know “who I was”. This has become somewhat typical in chat rooms lately: anyone that is friendly is instantly accused of masquerading as someone else. God forbid that someone new venture into the room. And even though I stated that I was new to the room, I was either called a liar or told that I shouldn’t talk to people I didn’t know. To quote Dr. Evil, “Riiiight.”
After stirring conversations like these, things would usually progress a piece. One day they’re friendly – the next day they’re telling you to piss off. If I rhetorically ask what the problem is of the greater room, I’m told “s/he’s just like that”. Um. Not to be redundant, but “Riiiight.” I mean, it’s your prerogative to be a dick and all, but I’m not supposed to think you’re a dick because “you’re like that”? That being a dick is excusable because you’ve done this to other people they accepted it? And who the hell are you, to demand special treatment from the normal, everyday type conversations that society seems to be based off of?
Imagine you’re at work, and you say “Hi” to a guy walking down the hallway in front of you. Instead of replying, your co-worker stops, drops his pants, and starts to pee on the wall that’s across the hallway. When you exclaim, “Dude, what the fuck?!” someone else pops out of the nearest office and says, “Oh, he’s like that – it’s OK.” The guy taps it dry, zips up his pants, and continues down the hall. Would you be OK with that? I didn’t think so.
I just don’t understand how all these obnoxious and dysfunctional chatters can figure out how to get online… when the technology was a little harder, at least it made for a good screening test for the room.
I guess the moral of the story is that there’s never a shortage of prima donna punks, be they virtual or otherwise.