The Thread Where ThunderPeel Attacks Everyone™

[ThunderPeel2001]

Things have gotten bad, and this is my attempt at sorting things out.

 

Firstly, I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings. Yes, you. It's never been my intention to hurt anyone in any of the arguments I've engaged in. Really.

 

Secondly, with this in mind, it's probably time I gave this forum a little breather. It's gotten to the point where visiting it can literally ruin my day (like today). A certain double-barreled PM from someone here ruined my Christmas, and now it just seems hit and miss as to whether I'll feel like shit for the rest of the day when I visit. Clearly I've managed to rub a lot of you up the wrong way, and clearly this isn't doing me any favours either.

 

Cards on the table time:

 

Yes, I'm highly opinionated. Yes, I don't see any point in backing down if someone tells me I'm wrong. Yes, lately I've been feeling too sensitive and have taken things too personally. And, yes, unfortunately, that is really not a good mix. It's a pretty terrible mix, in fact.

 

Somebody made a post here a while ago about how they'd hate to be on a forum that reacts to how you say things, rather than what you're saying. Unfortunately for me, that's now the forum I visit each day. I honestly feel I'm making logical, impersonal statements. I never resort to personal attacks or insults, and try to stick to whatever is being discussed, but I'm still apparently managing to stomp over other people's feelings. For that, I'm sorry. It's not intentional, and it's not personal.

 

Of course, assuming that other people aren't taking things personally makes me something of a hypocrite, or at least incredibly ignorant. (The silver-lining of which is that it means I assume that you're all much happier and well-adjusted than me, and so can take criticisms of your arguments better than me.) This is what low self-esteem looks like. When I'm criticized it feels a lot more painful than it should, even if it's just an opinion or belief of mine. Yes, I come with baggage. (Where's Raz when you need him??) And so (for the sake of my own self-worth) I find myself defending my beliefs. Not attacking you, mind. Defending me. That's an important distinction, even if you feel the end result is the same.

 

If I've gotten your back up, just know that it wasn't personal. I wasn't attacking you, I was defending me. And yes, that's my problem, not yours.

 

Anyways, the upshot of all this is that me being here isn't making me happy, and it's not making you happy. So it'd be better for both of us if I kept out of things from now on. At least for a little while.

 

I'm terribly sorry for any pain I may have caused you. And again, it wasn't personal. Life is just difficult sometimes. I'm sorry!

[Nachimir]

I haven't been here for a week or two and just saw this after deciding to stick my head in for five minutes. I've not seen anything else that's gone on and I'm sure I'm missing a lot of context, but whatever's gone down, I just wanted to vouch for Thunderpeel: We've had our run ins with each other here, but we've ended up sorting them out either here or on the phone. In person, Thunderpeel is a gentle, humble and lovely man.

Sorry to hear things have got bad, Thunder.

This is what low self-esteem looks like. When I'm criticized it feels a lot more painful than it should, even if it's just an opinion or belief of mine. Yes, I come with baggage. (Where's Raz when you need him??) And so (for the sake of my own self-worth) I find myself defending my beliefs. Not attacking you, mind. Defending me. That's an important distinction, even if you feel the end result is the same.

I can really sympathise with this; I suffered low self-esteem for my most of my childhood, teens, and early twenties. It's not a quick thing to climb away from, and I think I still live with psychological artefacts of it now, but I've always found creative pursuits are one of the best ways to build self esteem, one project at a time.

[Ben X]

Well, I just PMed TP about that Bouncing Balls thread and then saw this. Appropriately, I will now POST A PM:

 

Hey dude,

Just so you don't feel like you're taking crazy pills, I don't think posting a crazy PM from a troll you've never encountered before before is bad form at all. Probably what people are actually reacting to is a new thread being created in relation to the FF thread, which they probably knee-jerkingly saw as a continuation of the argument. Or possibly it was framed a bit seriously, so it came across as a complaint. Perhaps a post in the Life thread might have been seen as less dramatic...

As for this stuff about you being in the centre of the majority of dust-ups or whatever it is people are saying, I think the problem is (as I think we talked about in the pub) not that you *start* the dust-ups but that you bite your tongue less often than some and you expect to be treated online as you would in person, which is fair but does seem to lead to you being noticeably prominent. Unfortunately, it seems to give people the impression of you being antagonistic rather than reactive.
Anyway, I would have posted all this if the thread hadn't been locked, but I didn't get there in time so thought I'd PM you about it.

B

PS you're so right, Alien & Aliens look fucking amazing on blu-ray!

 

Full disclosure: I've become mates with TP IRL. However, rather than make me biased towards him, it's generally meant that where at first I've thought he was imagining slights or over-reacting, I've bothered to go back and check and realised that actually the person he's reacting to was a bit out of order and I just didn't notice because my arsehole-volume is turned down for the internet, which TP's, I think, isn't. It also means that I know that IRL TP is lovely and although he enjoys a good discussion, he never gets rude or antagonistic. Nach describes him well.

[JonCole]

Thanks.

[syntheticgerbil]

I don't necessarily think it was a good form for you to post an angry PM publicly either Thunderpeel, but I more than understand as I'm no stranger to getting carried away on forums or rubbing way too many people the wrong way for expressing my opinion or distaste in a crappy way when I generally like a lot of the people I make hate me. It's tough sometimes and it doesn't help I purposefully just trolled and trashed people here on Idlethumbs early in its life. I've met some friends on the internet in real life and while only one person has outright said it, I get the feeling they are often surprised I don't come off as much of a dick when I'm talking in person and instead more of just grumpy in a non malicious way.

 

I can see how you have been embroiled in a lot of forum debates lately, but I also have not seen you lashing out at others in personal just as you say, which I respect the most. Even if you sometimes push the issue a bit much, I think a lot of other people who just love to start arguments for the sake of it (when they don't even believe what they are saying) have tended to goad you as well. I also feel like a lot of people were demonized (myself feeling that way as well, but whatever, I try to be decent that's all I can do) as a whole in the Feminist Frequency thread when I've seen them kicking around for years at Idlethumbs and know they are in fact not douches. But on the other side, I can see how members who maybe don't observe forumites as closely or having been around long enough to get a taste of someone's personality may jump to conclusions about people here, but I don't necessarily think it's fair.

 

Anyway, I might even be saying all of that in a prickish manner, I don't know. I've had my differences in the past with you as well, but  I know they weren't important. I know you're a cool dude either way, and most importantly I've had a lot of fun productive conversations with you on Idleforums and Lucasforums about video games and you often keep threads going and interesting. It sucks you won't be posting for a while. I do hope you come back and that everything is okay.

[Forbin]

I'd been avoiding reading the FF thread since it seemed like it might be a bit of a mess.

Whatever else TP, it seems like you certainly had people deliberately ignoring the content of your posts.  For that to continue for so many pages, and then transition to PMs, that's got to be frustrating.

[subbes]

I hope your vacation is fruitful and you feel better soon.  Take care of yourself.

[Gormongous]

I am disappointed, I came here expecting to be attacked and got a heartfelt apology instead.

 

The internet is a weird place sometimes. It's so much easier to communicate and so much easier to be misunderstood. With luck and patience, we all grow calmer and wiser over time. I hope you feel better after however long a break you need, TP.

[castorp]

Yeah, come back soon Thunder, you're an important part of this community. (I mean, you are other parts as well, but those seem to be effects of things you have to struggle with yourself, so whatever, hope you figure things out for you. But don't change too much, communities need some crazy argumentative people that are not just trolls and/or stupid. [To clarify, I think you are neither.])

And for what's it's worth, I didn't much notice 'things going bad', at least not from your end. It rather seemed that the recent influx of air fired up your argumentative spirit more than usual. Didn't just happen to you, I'd say. Oh, did you know that the German word for 'air' is 'Luft'? Get it?

[osmosisch]

I'm sorry to hear things are getting to you ThunderPeel. Posting this thread shows a lot of integrity and proper self-examination in my opinion, which I applaud. I hope you feel better soon and manage to develop a method of interaction that isn't so harmful to you (and possibly provocative to others, but hey).

[Colourful Stuff]

Self refection is important and difficult TP, well done. I moved here from the Giant Bomb forums under similar circumstances. A dispute over me not liking QI and thinking Stephen Fry should do fewer adverts ended with a stranger sending me a sweary pm. It shouldn't bother us, but is does so it's best that we make the changes necessary.

Thanks for playing the loveable misanthrope.

[miffy495]

I've got my issues with the way things have gone lately, and I think I've stated as much in other threads, but to clarify Thunder, I've felt that at worst you've been guilty of poor choices of words and a poor sense of when to back down. Neither of those things make me think of you as a bad person, just a rash one sometimes. In general, I'd consider you an important part of the community, so I hope your mental health break goes well. It's been weird as one of the old guard (read: from when IdleThumbs was a website with words you read) to see the forum explode, die, explode again, die again, and now re-re-explode as the podcast has gone through it's cycles, and the influx of new members has had its ups and downs. A lot of the friction recently I would attribute to the fact that those of us from the day had got to know each other pretty well and so those slights didn't happen. Even when the words were chosen poorly, the community was small enough that we knew the person saying them well enough to know there was no harm intended. That's not reality here anymore, so we've got to be a bit more cautious about what we say. It's strange to get used to, to say the least. I'd say that the scraps you've been in recently are a direct result of that, more than of any personal fault of anyone involved. Feel better, man. Hope to hear from you again soon.

[baconian]

...

As for the rest of this: ThunderPeel, you are undeniably the center of the majority of dust-ups on this forum. Maybe it's not every other person here's fault.

...

I would like to add that Thunderpeel was not entirely at the centre of some of the Feminist discussion threads, I noted that relative newcomer Luftmensch along with a couple of other new users would not let certain controversial issues drop that should have been dropped quickly, thereby goading our more unsuspecting members into raising their genuine issues, and seeming to take a lot of undue flak.

MY 2c, get well soon, Thunderpeel!