They say that the first step is admitting that you have a problem.
Hi. My name's Mike, and I'm a YABS addict.
See, I started reading this forum, You'll All Be Sorry on ComicBookResources.com because the moderator is one of my favorite current writers, Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, The New Atom, and others), and lots of other interesting people stop in and post.
Then she started a thread here
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=156451
regarding her dealings with a convention promoter who invited her as a guest at his convention and resisted reimbursing her out-of-pocket expenses (She fronted her own money to attend, which most convention planners would not THINK of asking of a prospective guest - thy're invited, after all, to ATTRACT the paying customers, not to BE one!), all the while, apparently, alternately swearing that the check was, indeed, in the mail, or that his his entire team of accountants had sloped off to Brazil with his bank books and his dog (Okay - I'm making up that last part... But after reading the thread for a while, one begins to feel that I'm not exaggerating by much!). This brought more people out of the mist who had done work in just about all jobs imaginable for the guy's would-be publishing company and, similarly, not been paid.
The whole thing snowballed from there, with the (alleged) deadbeat in question entering the fray, throwing racial, sexual, and every other readily-available type of insult around at the posters, as well as veiled (and not so veiled) threats - legal and otherwise.
This started on Dec. 15 of last year, and has now well-passed 1,000 pages of... I'm not sure, exacty, *WHAT* to call it...
...Did/do either of my readers ever have that friend who couldn't miss "her shows"? I knew people in college who scheduled their classes so that they could be back in the TV lounge at the dorm to catch their afternoon soaps.
That's what this is - it's *MY* soaps, and I'm absolutely addicted. Watchig what I see as the self-destructive behavior of the individual in question is fascinating - in a clinical (and, yes, slightly morbid), watching-a-cancer-choke-off-its-own-blood-supply, sort of way. Sometimes its like watching slow-motion footage of a train wreck, with that inevitability about it.
I sat up until about 3:00 AM last night/this morning trying to get caught up, and fell further behind as I did! It's insidious and addictive!
My name's Mike, and I'm a YABS addict.
posted by MikeMoyle @ 11:40 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Hi Mike!! (I'm tickled at what this post has done to your ad bar!)
Seek help, Mr. Moyle. Wikipedia defines a hate group as: A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates hate, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender or other designated sector of society, or that supports and publishes assertions and argumentation characteristic of hate groups without necessarily explicitly advocating such hate or violence that otherwise characterize hate groups. The term "hate group" is not used by these groups themselves, but rather by those who oppose them, and sometimes by sociologists or historians who study them. Many groups described this way disagree with the term as misconstruing their motives or goals.
Hate groups usually assert that the targets of their attacks are harmful to society, malicious, less fit to be members of society, or are operating some hidden cabal. The evidence hate groups present for these assertions is usually poorly corroborated, and is often based explicitly on the hate group's negative beliefs about the social groups to which the target is or is imagined to belong (e.g. groups based on race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.).
Although their evidence is usually inaccurate, sub-standard and widely rejected by society, the hate group continues to propagate assertions, myths, narratives and rumours, playing upon fear, xenophobia, blame or jealousy, with the aim of harming the individuals and groups they target, and inciting others to distrust or hate them also. The ultimate aim of a hate group is commonly the delegitimization, elimination, and exclusion of groups, or the harm, deportation, or death of individuals. Hate groups often use their victims as scapegoats to blame for discontent in society.
Last time I checked civil and Federal laws, such activities were not only immoral but illegal. 'Course, reading is one thing ... joining in and making lies appear to be fact -- when they're not -- places you laid out on the tracks of the train you're so thrilled with. Now, blowing off the definition of a "hate" group is impossible if you can read my post slow enough to think about every sentence. You poor sick man...
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