The Magazine Thread

[Cain]

Yeah, they all come as part of the package.  I'll see what can be done with the image.

[Cain]

Not perfect, but I had to go only by pixel size, not manual resizing.

[LMNO]

Hawk, an audience doesn't really want to be attacked.  The reason that rant works well with us is because we agree with you.  You're preaching to the choir.

As a thought experiment, imagine you're a devout [fill in the blank of something you can actually convice yourself of being for a few minutes].  Now read your rant again.  You'll probably find that you recoil from the words, and make the assumption that the guy is an asshat, and reject the arguments.

If we want to lure in the people who don't know what we're about, we have to choose the object of our rage carefully.  Make the reader, any reader, agree with you, and then turn up the heat, and make them question themselves.

[Cain]

Precisely.  Preaching to the choir is easy.  Making your viewpoint even stand critical viewpoints, on the other hand, is very difficult.  With every group you have a particular vocabulary.  The problem with Discordian vocabulary is that its very similar, superficially, to the normal one, but not in meaning.  So essentially you have to split your mind in two, one half allowing you to think like a Discordian and the other translating it for normal people to grasp.

Its not easy, since language frames how we think.

[Adios]

Thanks for the input. Give me a couple of days to allow my dual personality to wake up and I'll do a rewrite.

[AFK]

Plus, we can always leave a trail to here.  So they can join the choir and then bathe in our hate AND our humour. 

[Adios]

Hawk, an audience doesn't really want to be attacked.  The reason that rant works well with us is because we agree with you.  You're preaching to the choir.

As a thought experiment, imagine you're a devout [fill in the blank of something you can actually convice yourself of being for a few minutes].  Now read your rant again.  You'll probably find that you recoil from the words, and make the assumption that the guy is an asshat, and reject the arguments.

If we want to lure in the people who don't know what we're about, we have to choose the object of our rage carefully.  Make the reader, any reader, agree with you, and then turn up the heat, and make them question themselves.

Lesson learned. I posted the gentler repost on MA and it seem to be much better accepted. From now on I will try to write for the pinks.

[LMNO]

I still think it's a good thing to vent and fume, and rail on the heath, mind you.  I like it when a person gets on a roll, and preaches to the choir.  Especially when done well.

But when you wanna take it elsewhere, yeah.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Preaching to the choir beats the living shit out of preaching to the fuckheads. Fuckheads are for one purpose and one purpose only - laughing at (possibly eating, in event of emergency)

Nothing better than sharing the laughter with someone who's in on the joke. That's ranting for me. Fuck the pinks. I'd be much more likely to devote my time to loading a couple of hundred in a giant catapult than try to explain anything to them. One route leads to lulz the other frustration and disappointment.

[LMNO]

Difference:

With a possible dissemination of the magazine, the intent would seem to be to get as many people as possible to read it: initiates, fuckheads, would-be fuckheads, and initiates who don't know it yet.


Otherwise, its just another bout of mental masturbation.

[P3nT4gR4m]

and initiates who don't know it yet.

get thee out of my mind, evildoer!

I left those out of my post cos I wasn't going to get sidetracked but these are the ones I really want to make laugh. If they get the joke it means there's suddenly one more cool person in the world.

[LMNO]

Sometimes, you have to make the would-be's comfortable before sending them the lail.
Berating them isn't the way to do this, usually.



Also remember that, except for TGRR, everyone is a Discordian, whether they know it or not.  So, theoretically everyone (except for TGRR) is a would-be.

[That One Guy]

In the spirit of getting things rolling again, and following up on my suggestion of shooting for a cohesive "theme" for each issue/edition/whatever, I'd like to propose that the first volume's "theme" is Revolution. Anyone that's interested in contributing, let's get something going with specifics so that we won't duplicate things others are working on - Cain could do something on the history end or current/modern revolutions, TGRR could whip everyone into one of his rant-frenzies, Prof could 'shop up a few "How To" pamphlet-style things, etc.

Since an overall focus seems to be something people were interested in pursuing, I figured I'd start the ball rolling. I'm in the process of getting something together regarding what to do AFTER a Revolution, rather than how to get there or what to do during it. It's been bubbling beneath the surface for a day or two, and I'll hopefully have something solid later this weekend or next week at the latest. Since that's what's been bouncing around in my head, I thought I'd get things going in that general vein - hopefully we can get this thing moving again 

[Cramulus]

 

Vive la Revolution!

[Shit]

My 2 cents:  Name a mag "Chaos".  It provides a broader palette and more intrigued audience than just a mag about some ancient Greek Goddess or whining about how we're all in prison.