Update on the Scary Swarm of Attacking Fangirls

When the writer who inspired this was informed that his post had been linked to by WFA(and I do mean nothing more than informed, "Here from WFA" was the title of someone's post - which, ya know, is generally considered the polite way to give the blogger a heads up) His response was to start out his post with:

Oh God, I got linked to. This will probably not end well.

The commenter addresses this (and other misconceptions) at the end of her response by saying:

Meanwhile, since I think I was perfectly polite, or so I would hope (and if you feel otherwise please do say so and indicate what you felt was insulting), I have to say I'm mildly irritated to be lumped in with a bunch of other people whose comments I haven't even read and who I probably don't know. I've also never Bingo'ed anyone. So ... thanks for dumping your persecution complex on me?

Our blogger's response is:

No, you didn't say I was the bad guy, but your initial drive-by was solely to point out I was wrong and to pose a leading hypothetical proposition. Surely not the best foot forward ;)

Setting aside for the moment the highly debatable merit of calling anything the commenter said in her first comment "a....hypothetical proposition" and noting that "drive-by" was first uttered by the commenter so we'll let than one slide for now.....

.....am I the only one who sees the irony of characterizing this:

Just a drive-by comment on one point: sorry, but you're wrong about the "comics were created for twelve year old boys" thing. Read the vintage Golden Age stuff and you'll see how many ads were aimed at women - I'm talking make-up and brassieres, not just gender-neutral stuff which happens to use women and girls.

Mind you, if anything, I'd think "comics are geared at 12-year-old boys" would make the issue more problematic, not less. Surely 12-year-olds need to be set good examples?

as "not the best foot forward?" Especially when the characterization is being made by a made by a guy who's complaining about other people complaining (through satire! no less). And does so with statements like

Yes, there's probably too much sexism in comics, but I find myself not caring too much one way or the other. Does this make me a mysoginist? I don't think so, but I'm sure that someone out there would lump me in with the Cult of the Oppressive Penis because am now blowing off an issue of grave social import. Whatever. As a white male I'm already constantly informed that I'm personally responsible for all the world's evils, have no culture of my own, and am in general a giant oppressive leeching privileged poopiehead. Now I'm sexist too....

Tip to those who would like to lecture others on how they debate with others - if you are going to routinely call for civility and extreme politeness, it's best to demonstrate such qualities yourself. Otherwise people tend to think you are just being an ass. And for good reason. You know, at least when Hugo talks about civility, he does a good job of demonstrating what it means.

But fear not, there's more.

Our first commenter continues the conversation in question by adding

At the very least, saying....."Oh, and people are going to crucify me for saying that because I'm a white guy!" and then waiting around to get yelled at is a tad on the disingenuous side.

The blogger's reaction:

Disingenuous, perhaps... but I didn't have to wait long, yes?

WTF?

There are exactly four people who comment on the post in addition to the blogger (on the blogger's own site - there may be more, such as myself - who responded elsewhere). One agrees wholeheartedly with our intrepid blogger. Another is one of the people he is responding to, so the WFA connection is invalid, and the actual comment in question contains no disagreement. Then we have the commenter already discussed. The fourth makes a total of two very short comments disagreeing with the blogger. And, please note, the anonymous commenter who disagrees with him did not show up until several hours after he made that comment. Which in WFA time, (esp. lately) is practically a news cycle later.

So, again, WTF?

Is this like that thing where people perceive a 50/50 gender split to be unbalanced in favor of women? 'Cause I fail to see any yelling, much less anything that would justify the first and last remarks made by the blogger in responding to rabican.

I kind of feared this would turn into namecalling, etc., but it didn't. Thanks for keeping it on the up. I have to admit that I'm kinda done with it at this point; it appears we've both made our case and I do feel enlightened a little more about the issues. Thanks.

I'm glad he's all enlightened now and shit. Let me know when he's enlightened enough to tell the difference between yelling, getting reamed, and people debating a topic that he brought up himself. I suppose I ought to add "waiting until he understands the idiocy of complaining about satire by using hyperbole as a rhetorical device" but my I think that may be expecting too much.