Rev Roger, Sermon #75: Lurking Bastards and Ranting to an Empty Room

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I see you lurking.  I see you waiting for The Next Big Thing.  I see you hitting F5, wondering why nothing is showing up each time.  I see you wondering what happened to Sparkle Motion and the commitment we all had for it, once upon a time when the world was a little brighter.

Well, the truth is, we're all in The Basement.  We're all down here nursing our sore butts and waiting for someone – anyone – to write something, so we can TL;DR it or mittens it or explain that it's cock & repost and we've seen it before.  Patiently we wait, refreshing our screens every so often, and wondering – as you wonder – what happened to the PD of old.

Fact is, PD only ever had about a dozen people posting content at a time, with some disappearing and some taking their place.  Then one day, it seems, nobody stepped up as people disappeared.  We're down to about 4-6 people posting content, and a bunch of people who rarely – if ever – actually post anything, let alone something new.  These are the Gimme-Bobs, the people with their faces pressed to the window, looking for the freak show.  Every board has 'em, and nobody can quite figure out why they're there.

I can't say I blame people for wandering off.  We haven't done anything NEW in quite some time, and there's nothing quite like sweating blood over a post only to get responses that range from mittens to "I need to get my shit together before I respond to this", and then never actually respond (We're all guilty of that one, from time to time).  Shit, when you get right down to it, we haven't done anything since the Nessie thread, and that's been finished for damn near a year.

So the question is, what new things can we do, to try to get content chugging along again, to feed the remorseless lurkers that demand that we perform our monkey dance for their amusement?  I'd like to say FUCK THEM, but I also like to read new content and new ideas, and I am willing to put up with the gawkers, if that's the price of seeing new ideas.

A possibility which distresses me is this:  We may have actually lost most of our best contributors, to the various ins & outs of regular life, or because they decided that PD wasn't tailor-made for them.  This happens to most people eventually, but it seems to have happened to a whole lot of them at once.  It will be a long time, if ever, before we get a group of posters together as we had from 2007-2010.  2009-2010 was the best period this board ever had, and we've come to expect that sort of quality.  When things go back to 2006, we all feel let down or even betrayed.

And why is that?  Why, it's for the same reason that the economy is in the shitter.  Nothing is actually wrong, but we've decided that it's all fucked up.  In the economy, that means nobody is buying or lending.  At PD, it means that only a few people are posting content and nobody is grabbing it and running with it.

This is the Century of Dumb as foretold by yours truly, way the fuck back in 2003.  There's nothing wrong with The System, but still we complain and beat on it with hammers and pipe wrenches, smashing gauges off in fury, demanding the very same results that are printing out at our feet.    It in fact got so bad that I considered finding a new board (and I wasn't alone), and finally walking away.

But then I decided that I'd just find things to bitch about at the new board, because the problems aren't with PD, the problems aren't with the economy, the problems are in my own fucking head.  So I shall stay, and continue to rant, even if it means I'm screaming into the void, into an empty room strewn with the party hats and vodka vomit of happier days, which itself is in an empty building with a big sign out front that reads "The Lorax". 

The fun never stopped.  We did.

Or Kill Me

[EK WAFFLR]

As far as taking something and running off with it, this Sermon gave me an idea, which I'm sure has been aired before, but still.

I'd love to have TGRR Sermons&Rants in audio format.

[LMNO]

You know what's awful?


I sat, at my desk, with at least ten minutes of free time, staring at Wallified's Airplane post, knowing I should grab it and run with it, expanding it, drilling down into it, stretching it out, throwing it at a wall to see what sticks.


And I had nothing.  I couldn't think of a way to say "yes, and..." even as I knew this was one of those moments where we could light a fuse.  

It's like creative impotence.  It's embarassing, and shameful, and mentally debilitating.

So I clicked the "back" button, and hoped someone else could do something.

We're worse than lazy slackers, waiting for something to entertain us.  We're uninspired.



And that, my friends, is death.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

As far as taking something and running off with it, this Sermon gave me an idea, which I'm sure has been aired before, but still.

I'd love to have TGRR Sermons&Rants in audio format.

Some folks have done that.

Talk to LMNO about the Spider Project, and also there's some podcasts down in multimedia menace, stickied.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You know what's awful?


I sat, at my desk, with at least ten minutes of free time, staring at Wallified's Airplane post, knowing I should grab it and run with it, expanding it, drilling down into it, stretching it out, throwing it at a wall to see what sticks.


And I had nothing.  I couldn't think of a way to say "yes, and..." even as I knew this was one of those moments where we could light a fuse.  

It's like creative impotence.  It's embarassing, and shameful, and mentally debilitating.

So I clicked the "back" button, and hoped someone else could do something.

We're worse than lazy slackers, waiting for something to entertain us.  We're uninspired.



And that, my friends, is death.

No, I've been in the afterlife since 2005.  That ain't it.

We've become fucking LAZY.

[Kai]

It's really sad when people get lost, Roger. Because it's never a one time thing. Sure, some of them get back on a regiment, but so many just end up lost and either stay lost forever or pay a visit to WONDERNEW^TM. You're either like 'Bob' or No-pants, or you're one step away from taking WOW^TM. And they claim you'll never miss a day once you start down that path.

Keeping with Slack^TM is hard. It requires attention, lest you forget you're a nearly hairless ape just like the rest of humanity, or that the universe is designed to kill you, and that life is a short term offer. I'm guilty of this. No-pants would make his own, home brewed Slack^TM, as would 'Bob' (though he'd grow it and stick it in his pipe). Fresh Slack is probably better for you anyway; your Slack is not his Slack is not her Slack is not Curly's Slack (remember the important lesson from Where's My Slack?). And if you don't take the good stuff every day, your mind starts to grind on the cogs. Sure, you can bounce back from that, but it's hard to build that rhythm.

[EK WAFFLR]

Some folks have done that.

Talk to LMNO about the Spider Project, and also there's some podcasts down in multimedia menace, stickied.

Will do.
I have some other Ideas too, but I need to let them crystallize in my mind a bit, as they are adjusted to my trains of thought, and near impossible to follow for others. Or so I'm told.

[LMNO]

http://www.reverbnation.com/thespiderproject

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's really sad when people get lost, Roger. Because it's never a one time thing. Sure, some of them get back on a regiment, but so many just end up lost and either stay lost forever or pay a visit to WONDERNEW^TM. You're either like 'Bob' or No-pants, or you're one step away from taking WOW^TM. And they claim you'll never miss a day once you start down that path.

Keeping with Slack^TM is hard. It requires attention, lest you forget you're a nearly hairless ape just like the rest of humanity, or that the universe is designed to kill you, and that life is a short term offer. I'm guilty of this. No-pants would make his own, home brewed Slack^TM, as would 'Bob' (though he'd grow it and stick it in his pipe). Fresh Slack is probably better for you anyway; your Slack is not his Slack is not her Slack is not Curly's Slack (remember the important lesson from Where's My Slack?). And if you don't take the good stuff every day, your mind starts to grind on the cogs. Sure, you can bounce back from that, but it's hard to build that rhythm.

Too chase the Slack™ is to lose the Slack™.

Which is why this will be the last rant in which I berate people for not posting.

If they haven't listened by now, they aren't going to.

[EK WAFFLR]

http://www.reverbnation.com/thespiderproject

Typical. I have one good idea, and it's been done. perfectly. Fantastic stuff!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.reverbnation.com/thespiderproject

Typical. I have one good idea, and it's been done. perfectly. Fantastic stuff!

It was done based on a rant here.

Do it anyfuckingway.

[EK WAFFLR]

http://www.reverbnation.com/thespiderproject

Typical. I have one good idea, and it's been done. perfectly. Fantastic stuff!

It was done based on a rant here.

Do it anyfuckingway.

I'll probably come up with something.

[Phox]

You know, Roger, screaming into the void is looking like the preferable option these days. Threads that make it past a couple pages now seem to fall squarely into one of three categories: Troll, In-Fighting, or vapid mittens. I'd rather see one of your rants at a single page than see any more of those threads.

I'm sitting here, staring at the screen, hoping something more will occur to me write, because I'd rather not be guilty of that very thing. But it simply isn't working that way. And that's my personal failing, and I am unsure how to fix it. I'd like to post much more in the way of content, but the simple fact is I am not capable of producing content on demand. Hell, Roger, I've been writing you a letter for the past 7 months and It's barely a page yet. And again, that is all on me.

i decided a little while ago that I wouldn't post as often unless I could actually contribute to a discussion or post content or something, but so far it is not working out in my favor. My ratio hasn't improved at all, I simply post less. And then I start to wonder if that is for the best. What little content I have contributed doesn't really seem to jive with y'all's (not that I plan on stopping posting content, mind you).  

Eh. Either way, I'm still here, and I'll post when the mood strikes me. I'm all rambly and incoherent right now, and that means that I'm doing good. (I think). But I s'pose that's enough for now, and I completely refuse to reread what I just wrote, because it probably doesn't make any sense and I'd want to just scrap the whole thing without posting anything at all. Again. Well, fuck that. You're getting my half-formed ideas, fuckers.

[Sita]

As a lurker I just thought I'd say that I do read what's posted, but honestly most of the time it all goes right over my head.

The times I do get it I would have nothing to add other than a mittens or an I like it, so don't post anything because I know how annoyed people here get about that.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

i decided a little while ago that I wouldn't post as often unless I could actually contribute to a discussion or post content or something, but so far it is not working out in my favor. My ratio hasn't improved at all, I simply post less. And then I start to wonder if that is for the best. What little content I have contributed doesn't really seem to jive with y'all's (not that I plan on stopping posting content, mind you).  

LMNO says the same thing.

I say, just pretend your ass has vocal chords, and tell us all what you're thinking about us.