Thursday, August 6, 2009

Parting Words

I simply cannot keep up, and I think there are more important things I can be doing in this fight, so I’ve decided to close the blog. It’s been great getting to know all of you Traditional Marriage Bloggers™ (TMBs) over the months, and your welcome was so gracious (if ephemeral) that I just want to share with you a few of the things I have learned, before I go:

1) If you want people to take your writing seriously, please learn the difference between “its” and “it’s.” This is third grade grammar, people. (Even if it were college-level writing, I’d expect someone with a Master’s Degree in English to know the difference, Ms. D.) There were plenty of other spelling and grammar mistakes in your writings, but this was the most egregious example. Details matter, even small ones.
2) Using Facebook as an activist community was amazing. Everyone was so friendly, too, until you got wary because Facebook was shutting down profiles with fake names. I wondered how long it would take for you to catch on. Still, it was fun while it lasted.
3) Facebook isn't just fun, it's a powerful tool. And like all powerful tools, you can get hurt if you’re not careful when you use it. It's good to know what you're signing up for when you create your account. Read the rules and user agreement instead of just clicking "I Agree." Understand how all of the parts work, especially the security settings. It was ridiculously easy to find out your real names because you didn't bother to change the default settings. (Oh, and taking the first letter off of your real last name to create a less-fake-looking Facebook profile might fool more people if you also go to the trouble of changing your profile picture.)
4) Once I had real names , Google was my best friend. And once Google was my best friend, it became obvious that you TMBs weren’t so much an “army” as a sleight of hand, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain endeavor. It was sort of impressive how many of you created aliases for your aliases so that you could comment on your own blog posts and make your audience seem larger. Whose idea was that? He or she should get a bonus. You should have created different backstories for your aliases, though, because thanks to text string searching, it was simple to match different dead-end profiles to detailed comments made across the world wide web. W00t indeed.
5) Some of you have personal histories that have led to a combination of the psychological processes known as displacement and projection. Essentially, you have experienced tremendous loss and pain, but you cannot accept your own culpability in these events. You also cannot attack the person you feel is actually responsible for your pain, so you have projected your blame and displaced your anger upon a group that is easy to abuse: the GLBT community. Therapy might be a more productive path to take.
6) Studying the culture of confirmation bias (you really ought to look that up) you TMBs have managed to create and sustain would be the next logical step, if only there were as many of you as you’ve tried so hard to pretend there are; your actual group size isn’t a large enough sample. I suppose an ethnographic approach would work, but to be honest, I just don’t have the energy for it.

I really do want to thank you all for the work you’ve done; you’ve shown me the true nature of the fight and eased my mind considerably about the caliber of the opponents. See you around the web.

~Dominique
Une des Comtesses

P.S. The "favorite book" part of my profile? Not The Fountainhead, nor the Bible. The Count of Monte Cristo.