Everything I Need to Know I Learned from the Internet, and more

Originally published October 20, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1405

Assorted stuff…

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Rumor mill: What big-mouthed columnist was recently driven to distraction by a rumor started on a comic news service?

I hate blind items, hate them with a passion. And before I get letters from people who claim I’ve got an ax to grind with people who can’t see, I’m referring to items that run as “news” which do not feature the name of the person in question. The writer of the item tries to get all cutesy by dropping little hints, and it’s simply annoying. If you’re going to write something as an unconfirmed rumor, just come out and say it and live with the consequences if you’re wrong. Because otherwise perfectly innocent folks—such as, say, me—wind up being inconvenienced.

There I was, doing my usual letter-reading thing on AOL, and suddenly I’m being flooded with e-mails from fans and fan reporters, all saying basically the same thing: “Are you going to be writing Amazing Spider-Man?” The answer is no. I haven’t been approached by anyone about writing Spidey, be he Ultimate, Amazing, Spectacular or whatever adjective you care to stick in front of him. But people kept asking. Not only that, but threads started cropping up on Usenet posing the same question.

Finally I found out where the rumor started: With an online news service which ran a blind item that went something like this—

A writer whose star has been rising for the past few months is all but signed to write Amazing Spider-Man. He’s currently writing a couple of books for another publisher, and he is well known by his initials.

Operating with the foreknowledge that it wasn’t me, I took one look at it, saw the “star has been rising” reference, and immediately figured that it was probably referring to the writer of Rising Stars, namely J. Michael Straczynski… more popularly known as JMS. It was a conclusion that a number of fans came to as well, although there were still die-hards who were convinced it was me. When someone posted that I had stated I hadn’t been approached, another poster suggested that perhaps Marvel had contacted me minutes after I had denied it.

The queries have finally tapered off, but it sure as hell was annoying for a while. A personal request to all comic book journalists: Since my e-mail address is fairly well publicized, don’t run any blind items anymore that can remotely be construed as me, unless you say, “And it’s not Peter David!” Okay?

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Updating the wacky world of Political Correctness: At the Disneyworld ride, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” we’ve seen pirates acting badly for years. That’s what they do. They’re pirates, for crying out loud. But a few years back, Disney decided it wasn’t PC to depict such unbridled villainy, so they made some “adjustments.” One of them features a sequence where a pirate is shown chasing a village woman in a circle. They changed it so that the woman was carrying a tray with a bottle of alcohol on it, and consequently the pirate looked like he was trying to snag a waitress in order to get a drink.

But a recent visit to that once-entertaining ride showed that apparently that wasn’t PC enough. Maybe someone decided it promoted alcoholism. So another change was made, and now—in defiance of all sense and logic—the woman is chasing the pirate.

Look, I don’t think violence against women is a good thing, obviously. But c’mon, this is getting silly. NBC yanking that hysterical sneaker ad that shows a woman outrunning a Jason-like madman because she’s wearing the right sort of footwear, leaving her assailant huffing and puffing in the dust? What was up with that? If it had been a female madwoman trying to chainsaw a fleeing guy, would that have been okay? At least you can still catch that commercial on such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, programs where a woman’s ability to take care of herself is taken for granted.

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You know, since I was speaking of the Internet earlier, I cannot help but observe that it’s probably had an even greater impact on our lives than kindergarten. I threw open to the regulars on my AOL board the following proposition: Everything I Need to Know I Learned From the Internet, and started off with the following:

1)               Never apologize.

2)               If you must apologize, never do so without flaming the person you’re apologizing to.

Suggestions were promptly added by the following denizens of the “Peter David Speaks” folder on AOL: Wolf031877 (a.k.a. James), Aldrich13 (a.k.a. Kerry), Kalel224, BoyVey, JasonTodd4, and Ben Varkentine. These include:

3)               Saying you’re sorry or that you made a mistake is a form of weakness. See Rule #1.

4)               No matter how wrong you are shown to be on a given subject, ignore it and lay low on the subject for a few months before bringing it up again. There will always be someone new to convince. However, be careful—some people will have been there for the first time and remind you that you were wrong once and you’re wrong again. Ignore those people, for they are anal and just trying to make you look bad.

5)               When debating online with another person, always misinterpret what they have posted.

6)               Always assume that others mean something much worse than what was actually posted.

7)               Flame others based upon what you’ve assumed they meant, not on what they’ve actually posted.

8)               Never allow others to clarify what they’ve posted. Always insist they meant it the way you assumed they meant it.

9)               When making your point, end the statement with “Period.” That lets people know that you’re right, no matter what they think.

10)           When people agree with a poster’s point in opposition to your position, be sure to accuse them of ganging up on you or being a clique—just to give it that high school feel.

11)           Belabor minor points and retort at length to minor criticisms—sluff off serious, well-thought-out arguments with short, one- or two-word answers that do not address the point.

12)           Condescend, condescend, condescend.

13)           If you are pressed in an argument and backed into a corner by several opponents, accuse all of them of being the same person under different screen names.

14)           If you are losing an argument, ignore the content of the message and pick it apart based on grammar, spelling, or sentence structure. If the message contains no such errors, find a throw-away clause or parenthetical remark that has almost nothing to do with the topic and attack it instead.

15)           Hypocrisy can be your friend. Most casual readers or lurkers, as well as message-board regulars, only remember the latest messages. So feel free to change your philosophy or point of view or ideas about any given topic, depending on the circumstances.

Any others? Aside from the long-standing observation that any argument, if it goes on long enough, will sooner or later result in Hitler or Nazis being mentioned, thereby indicating that the discussion has outlived its usefulness.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)