Television Without Pity, Pitilessly
When I first discovered the glorious website Television Without Pity (TWOP, as it shall be known hereafter), I was thrilled and delighted and just tickled pink. Wow, I thought as I perused its recaps of shows I liked and disliked and its many forums commenting on them, loads of funny, smart, literate, well-informed people taking no prisoners with regard to even well-thought-of TV shows! How amazing! How utterly enjoyable! The snarkdom! The cleverness! The wonderful insights!
I promptly became addicted. And then I began to post. Many times. Receiving many nice responses to my posts by other posters, and leaving them the same. Huge fun.
Then I came afoul, as loads of people apparently do, of the draconian posting rules put forward by the smug TV Nazis who run the place.
My first heinous offense got me banned outright under the name I had been using at the time. I had emailed one of the mods (and also protested in the forum of the offending show, I forget which one) about why is pejoratively using “witch” allowed when equally offensive terms are not. I pointed out, not unreasonably, that this is a bona-fide religious slur and I was both surprised and offended to see it on such a board as TWOP. One of the fascisti took offense at my offense and I was bounced.
(This despite the fact that at an Amazing Race convention here in NYC I had gifted the Race recapper on TWOP—a Buddha-shaped individual who goes by the name Miss Alli and is both amusing and a good writer—with an autographed copy of “Strange Days,” as it had been privately indicated to me by a TWOPper of rank that she was a fan and would really appreciate it. Yeah, right. Not even a thank-you.)
Not one to let a mere unreasonable banning stop me, I immediately reupped under another name, and all was well for quite a while. I achieved a high ranking in posts submitted, continued to enjoy myself prodigiously, and then once more I fell from grace.
My next sin against the TWOPmods was going on once too often about liking a prop that appeared in one of my shows. Again, despite the fact that others were going on for PAGES AND PAGES about some equally insignificant item on the same show. One can only hope that they were lashed with the same wet noodle by the mod in question.
But I wouldn’t count on it. It’s a cliquey little world, the TWOPverse, and there are court favorites and spaniels all over the place. Anyway, I got a warning this time, which was later removed after a couple hundred more posts, presumably for my having shown such good reformed behavior and toeing the TWOP line, humbly redeeming myself to the satisfaction of the fascisti.
But now it’s three strikes: I asked a question on another show’s forum, having duly read all the pages of posts (as commanded to by another of their rules, and as was my pleasure to, since the posters are magnificent), and was promptly given a warning and a bitchy chiding that I would know the answer to my question if only I had read all the posts as I was supposed to. Well, I did, and apparently I missed it. Mea culpa.
So that’s it. I’m gone. I’m banishing myself this time. Tiresome, really, since I truly enjoy the site, and I may still look in on occasion—though I won’t be posting anymore, all the fun’s gone out of it for me.
I really do understand that order must be maintained, and the site is quite remarkably flame-free and focused, for which I was duly grateful. But picayune stuff the likes of which I was “guilty” of really doesn’t deserve to be, and shouldn’t be, so harshly punished.
Of course, it’s their playground and their rules. Still, I have no love for bullies and no time for crap like this, and I’m thoroughly sick of the arbitrary, unreasonable, petty tyrannies perpetrated by the self-important power-trippers who run the place—you’re mods, not gods!—people thinking they're oh so cool handing out demerits to grown adults and preening themselves like Slytherins (and pimping their custom T-shirt line all the while), people for whom this is the only bit of real power they are ever likely to enjoy.
TWOP? More like TWERPS.
I promptly became addicted. And then I began to post. Many times. Receiving many nice responses to my posts by other posters, and leaving them the same. Huge fun.
Then I came afoul, as loads of people apparently do, of the draconian posting rules put forward by the smug TV Nazis who run the place.
My first heinous offense got me banned outright under the name I had been using at the time. I had emailed one of the mods (and also protested in the forum of the offending show, I forget which one) about why is pejoratively using “witch” allowed when equally offensive terms are not. I pointed out, not unreasonably, that this is a bona-fide religious slur and I was both surprised and offended to see it on such a board as TWOP. One of the fascisti took offense at my offense and I was bounced.
(This despite the fact that at an Amazing Race convention here in NYC I had gifted the Race recapper on TWOP—a Buddha-shaped individual who goes by the name Miss Alli and is both amusing and a good writer—with an autographed copy of “Strange Days,” as it had been privately indicated to me by a TWOPper of rank that she was a fan and would really appreciate it. Yeah, right. Not even a thank-you.)
Not one to let a mere unreasonable banning stop me, I immediately reupped under another name, and all was well for quite a while. I achieved a high ranking in posts submitted, continued to enjoy myself prodigiously, and then once more I fell from grace.
My next sin against the TWOPmods was going on once too often about liking a prop that appeared in one of my shows. Again, despite the fact that others were going on for PAGES AND PAGES about some equally insignificant item on the same show. One can only hope that they were lashed with the same wet noodle by the mod in question.
But I wouldn’t count on it. It’s a cliquey little world, the TWOPverse, and there are court favorites and spaniels all over the place. Anyway, I got a warning this time, which was later removed after a couple hundred more posts, presumably for my having shown such good reformed behavior and toeing the TWOP line, humbly redeeming myself to the satisfaction of the fascisti.
But now it’s three strikes: I asked a question on another show’s forum, having duly read all the pages of posts (as commanded to by another of their rules, and as was my pleasure to, since the posters are magnificent), and was promptly given a warning and a bitchy chiding that I would know the answer to my question if only I had read all the posts as I was supposed to. Well, I did, and apparently I missed it. Mea culpa.
So that’s it. I’m gone. I’m banishing myself this time. Tiresome, really, since I truly enjoy the site, and I may still look in on occasion—though I won’t be posting anymore, all the fun’s gone out of it for me.
I really do understand that order must be maintained, and the site is quite remarkably flame-free and focused, for which I was duly grateful. But picayune stuff the likes of which I was “guilty” of really doesn’t deserve to be, and shouldn’t be, so harshly punished.
Of course, it’s their playground and their rules. Still, I have no love for bullies and no time for crap like this, and I’m thoroughly sick of the arbitrary, unreasonable, petty tyrannies perpetrated by the self-important power-trippers who run the place—you’re mods, not gods!—people thinking they're oh so cool handing out demerits to grown adults and preening themselves like Slytherins (and pimping their custom T-shirt line all the while), people for whom this is the only bit of real power they are ever likely to enjoy.
TWOP? More like TWERPS.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 12:09 PM
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