Cruised through this morning to see what the aftermath was and felt I at least owed it to some users and e-buds to explain what actually happened and why I am out.
Fraggle didn't next me; he didn't do anything but try to rip through my life to gain some e-fame and attention (beyond pathetic but par for the course). It was actually refried who originally began the 'nexting' process by posting comments about my work history, education and location in one of the voting threads. To his credit he did it subtly enough to effectively freak me out without letting everyone copy and paste my CV etc (thanks I guess?). Is this creepy and weird? Absolutely. If you find yourself in a situation where you feel the need to try to scare someone off of the internet by searching through their lives, you are one pathetic loser.
But to be honest as well, I did panic a bit. When you start seeing your TW existence (which began when I was in highschool) merging instantly with your professional and personal life, it's more than a little unsettling. As Bounty mentioned, I don't necessarily want things I said or spoke about online a decade ago to be taken out of context at a later date and I sure don't want additional ties made; this is something I think everyone who has a serious career and conventional life would agree with.
So I did what everyone else in this situation probably did and PMed rayn going "OMG HALP WAT HAS HAPPUNEZD, FIX ME" and then when he didn't fix it in .5 seconds PMed Fool as well saying essentially the same thing.
I freaked out, absolutely.
To me, TW was always dead-set against this. My TW was a place where people met up and had events. Where people could post vacation pics or home reno pics and if a License plate or Home address was in the pic, there was no fear of their existence being exposed (and in fact any such action was met with swift justice). Then lines blurred a bit with the whole Jeremy Daspin situation (where TW really first ran into the now rampant situation of "how do we beat someone who just does not get being owned?" (the solution was to "take it to the *NEXT* level" ), and further became murky with the whole nonstop bombing of isuk (k0tz)'s name.
Then it gained some speed, and the community became divided in a weird way. People fearful of nexting simply left or became permanent lurkers, and people who enjoyed it became only more vocal, re-enforcing the ideology of it being both hilarious and acceptable. People with nothing to lose generally flock to it (because they are young and have no responsibilities, because they have shitty lives, because they are depraved or sociopathic, etc), and because they have the most time on their hands, they make it seem like the majority (or in essence it becomes the majority).
This isn't really a TW that I enjoy. It hasn't been for some time, but it's a habit that has been around on and off for.. 11 years or so now? So it's hard to break the ole "check up on TW when bored" or "whore/troll someone to kill some time" etc.
So, after both accepting that my life would forever be available online (a decision I ultimately made by making various social accounts), that TW was no longer what I wanted and that I didn't enjoy the two being connected, I've decided that it's time to take a break from TW. It's not running away (a bit late for that, everything is already out in the open), it's just putting my money where my mouth and my thoughts are. I'll probably still lurk from time to time, but I am just too old for this shit, and it's simply no longer my cup of tea.
As a parting note, I welcome some of the professional awesome dudes to post their public information; see how awesome it is! (ref you go first bro! spxnge, lemon, coombz even, love to see your pics/careers
)
GL with this Rayn, I only see it getting worse. And it won't kill TW, but it will definitely change it.
CLIFFS/tl;dr
- ref nexted me not fraggle (he is just thunder stealer because of king creep status), don't like this version of TW, fading to shadows, small history of TW/nexting, pic of my boner
