Tags
blogging, censorship, culture, freespeech, larping, opinion, QAnon
LARP-ing for those who don’t know, stands for “live action role play.” A LARP. It is like play acting, pretending, or in a video game, like a first person shooter game, taking on the persona of the character. It basically means having a grand adventure and playing a virtual character.,
It’s not necessarily a bad thing! In our culture we’ve come to use larping in a more negative context, as in indication that something is not real. When virtual reality has merged with subjective reality and objective reality is now slain on the ground and bleeding out, you need some way of discerning truth from fiction.
Queen, in Bohemian Rhapsody captured the nature of the problem well, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality…” I really dislike that song, by the way. The music is fun, but I mean it is depressing as all get go and very sad.
So Twitter in it’s wisdom, I mean in it’s extremely biased love affair with censorship and the stifling of free speech, has been running about shutting down and removing QAnon accounts. Thousands of them. I’m not worried about it, but what I do find fascinating is the outrage, the accusations that suggest this is justified since QAnon is just a grand LARP-ing adventure. Totally fake, just people play acting. A bunch of Christian, Trump supporting, play actors, to add insult to their injury.
In all the time I have been following Q and Q supporters, I have never seen anything the least bit hostile or threatening. There are literally hundreds of thousands of them, so obviously I have not observed them all. Spats and sharp words are also common on social media and Twitter, but honestly the accusation from Twitter that tries to declare QAnon is potentially threatening and potentially violent is just as bizarre as claiming they must be shut down because they are nothing more than a conspiratorial larp.
Well shucks, 90% of the internet is a, “conspiratorial larp.” Twitter must mean, QAnon is larping in a politically incorrect direction we disapprove of. Like, stop saying you’ll win in the end or I’ll just take my dollies, go home, and tell mom.
I found this whole thing curious on account of the fact that there are people rioting on our streets right now wearing masks and carrying shields made out of garbage can lids and pool noodles! What the heck? That behavior however, is apparently okay, quite real, and not a larping adventure at all. Well, Sheesh.
Still waiting for Twitter to do something about all the actual threats, intimidation, and pedophilia going on among their ranks, but I digress.
A bit amusing, but when all this stuff started going down in my state and mask mandates were passed, and everything went crazy, I decided I’d just stay home. Like, I don’t want to play. This is not my fantasy. I can’t work, enter a store, or buy groceries without being masked up and compliant. That’s fine, I’ll just stay home, I have plenty of other things to amuse myself with. And I did just that for weeks until somebody who knows me quite well said, Look, this is total performance art, a complete larp, it has no basis in reality. Now will you just mask up, put on the gloves, and look suitably concerned and wistfully anxious?
She had me at “performance art.” I was finished off at “wistfully anxious.” Long ago I was in a play and my job was to simply stand there looking suitably concerned and wistfully anxious. This is amusing and challenging if you have no lines, kind of like playing charades with no words. Go ahead, I dare ya, try acting out “suitably concerned.”
All of these words just to tell you that what is going on out in the world right now is a real power struggle, an epic battle over who gets to control and define your reality for you. We get to tell you what is real and what is not. We get to control the horizontal and the vertical. We get to pick what game we are playing. We get to tell you what to wear. We get to tell you who you can play with. We get to tell you who you can talk to. We get to say who uses what platforms, and what they can discuss with one another.
Uhm, no. Unacceptable. Each one of those Q accounts has several thousand followers, even tens of thousands. That is a pretty big silent majority from all walks of life, numbers that should offer some evidence to suggest this is not a fringe group of radical conspiracy theorists, but some rather ordinary patriots communicating, encouraging one another, and building community together.
seekingdivineperspective said:
OK, now I know what larping is … so what’s Q? (Pardon my ignorance.)
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jsolbakken said:
Q is a character on Star Trek:Next Generation that has god-like powers and who loves to mess with Captain Picard.
Or, perhaps you mean the Q that claims to be inside the bowels of the Derp State apparatus with the intent to subvert it.
Is this a great blog, or what?
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seekingdivineperspective said:
Haha – *whoosh* right over my head.
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oneta hayes said:
I’m with you with a question about Q. Thought it might be right down my alley. Now I wonder if it is real. How can I find out?
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insanitybytes22 said:
What Q really is, is basically a bunch of people who started following this guy who was dropping information and hints about things going on in the world. He may have worked in government somewhere or he may have just been a crazy guy working the night shit somewhere. Nobody really knows. Much of what he says is pretty cryptic, some of it is already well known. That movement expanded and grew into a huge community of patriotic people who support the President, often have some pretty strong Christians values, and go around saying crazy things like “do good in your community” or “stay united” or “keep the faith.” They have some hashtags they use on Twitter like #WWG1WGA. It means “Where We Go One, We Go all.”
I think they’re just mostly Americans who love their country, lots of veterans and retired people. Recently they caused a stir by posting videos of themselves in their homes taking a “soldiers oath.” The thing is a “soldiers oath” is simply a promise to uphold the US Constitution which shouldn’t really be controversial or radical or scary. There where moms with babies on their laps, elderly folks, guys on break at work. I thought it was pretty cool actually.
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Mary Yvonne said:
Oh would that they quood!!
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freemattpodcast said:
Q is supposedly JFK Jr., who didnt die in that plane crash
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Angel at Watchyourlifeinpictures said:
Antifa and pedophiles stay and are protected by Twitter.
Q people are banned.
However I do get news almost exclusively from conservatives on Twitter, and a few non conservatives like Tim Pool.
@cernovich
@stillgray
@jackposobiec
@jameswood
@mrandyngo
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dumbestblogger said:
Tim Pool is pretty good.
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Angel at Watchyourlifeinpictures said:
Tim has certainly been red-pilled lately. Cernovich is the absolute best.
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dumbestblogger said:
I’m not on Twitter. I know nothing. But I’m sure good there isn’t a wealthy pedophile out there who has access to the people at the highest level of US government and brings the President to his private and Island while getting the FBI to look the other way while he serially abuses hundred of underage girls. It’s a good thing that we live in a morally upright country where something like that would be impossible.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Right? We really don’t have any conspiracy theories left to ponder, they’ve all come true in 2020.
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dumbestblogger said:
Just about. I was explaining to someone the other day that denying the existence of UFOs is the real conspiracy theory now.
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RichardP said:
Q: Who/what is Q?
A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon
I can’t work, enter a store, or buy groceries without being masked up and compliant.
I get amused with folks who claim that the state is unconstitutionally trampling on their freedoms by requiring them to wear a mask.
I ask them a couple of questions and get nothing but blank stares in return: Q: Which side of the road do you drive on? Why? Q: What do you do when you when you approach a traffic light that is red? Why?
You get the idea. You too can make up similar questions that demonstrate the extent to which our “constitutionally guaranteed freedoms” get trampled on every day and we don’t give it a moments notice.
LARPing Ones Way Through Life. An interesting title for a book. But I think someone beat us to the general idea.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
**William Shakespeare
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jsolbakken said:
“You get the idea. You too can make up similar questions that demonstrate the extent to which our “constitutionally guaranteed freedoms” get trampled on every day and we don’t give it a moments notice.”
You could not possibly be missing the point more badly on this. IF we the people were not allowed to question which side of the road we were being ordered to drive on, if we were being lied to about it, and if there were legitimate reasons to suppose that maybe we were being ordered at bayonet point to drive on the worse side of the ride making our lives more endangered, then there would be a problem similar to the problem with the masks and the vaccines.
Nice try though, do spin again.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Hmm, I was just pondering ” the extent to which our “constitutionally guaranteed freedoms” get trampled on every day.”
Yeah, for me that’s a not so much. Until recently, I could certainly complain about what side of the road we are driving on, protest, gather, petition the government, try to get it changed, or just take the bus or train instead. The point being up until recently, we’ve had freedom, options, choices, the right to disagree.
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Lisa V said:
Good post. I had a friend (in California) walk into one of those combo gas station/sandwich places the other day without his mask. A woman walked right up to him, glared and said, “You are evil.” To which he responded, “You have no idea.” Made me giggle. I joined twitter about a year ago to expand my reach for my novels, but found it so offensive, so depressing and confrontational that I left. Not worth my time and energy.
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! Good comeback from your friend. It’s very strange to me how we now feel like we have the right to walk up and approach strangers with some hostility. That’s totally surreal, especially from some of the older women I’ve been observing. It’s unnatural and out of character and all weird.
Yes, Twitter can be a cesspool. I guess that is true of all social media. You really have to set boundaries, to mute out the poor behavior, to control and filter your newsfeed so you only see what you want to see. Even that is an imperfect thing and not always worth the trouble. 🙂
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Guiltless Passion said:
I’m with you! I just stay home. It’s crazy chaos and I prefer the safety and warmth of my home🙏🏼
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writingbolt said:
I suppose I should look up this QAnon business, because I am fairly clueless. But, from what I gather, these people are acting out online to entertain themselves without conscience of rousing the obtuse who do not grasp how their behavior is merely play. Cannot you understand Twitter’s need or desire to put out the flames? If you prick a grizzly bear, does it not roar and lash out? Perhaps Twitter is just trying to avoid senseless conflict and potentially worse action by silencing the bully-ish Shakespeares out there. It’s not an infringement on American rights as much as it’s preventing war. If you sat next to someone who felt compelled to throw their drink at the person next to them just to get a rise out of that person, would you not feel the least bit compelled to stop the troublemaker?
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! Well, I cannot think of anything less descriptive of Q followers than bully-ish Shakespeares who throw their drinks on people. That caricature is in such stark contrast to the truth of what I’ve observed that it’s kind of comical.
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writingbolt said:
I just rolled with what came to mind….
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amusing to be sure, but it just doesn’t fit the target at all. 🙂
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writingbolt said:
Well, then I am misunderstanding the nature of the Q collective from your own words. It’s your fault I misunderstood. 😛
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Mel Wild said:
Thanks for the clarification, IB. And here I thought Larping was Twitter. 😛
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victoriarose002 said:
Well written and interesting post, though I can’t say that I agree with it. Though people should be able to express their views freely online, I think that there ought to be some censorship when it is such a massive thing telling people that it is basically all a hoax, when it isn’t.
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jsolbakken said:
“there ought to be some censorship when it is such a massive thing telling people that it is basically all a hoax, when it isn’t.”
How do you know what is a hoax and what is not?
And, just censoring people from expressing their opinion that something is a hoax will not stop people from thinking that a suspicious event is not a hoax.
The reason censorship of this sort lost favor as a result of the Enlightenment is because it was discovered that the truth is apprehended better by a free exchange of ideas rather than allowing self-interested and power-hungry “authorities” decide what people were allowed to think and what they were not.
When you impose censorship, and it is an imposition, of course, you are not merely oppressing the speaker, you are oppressing the listener as well. Not everybody has something to say, but everybody needs to hear the entire story and not just the part which you approve.
You say there ought to be censorship? How much force are you willing to use on those who disobey your decrees of censorship? Will those who insist on speaking things you don’t like merely be fined? Will they be imprisoned? Will they be sent to concentration camps? Will they be executed? What, exactly, do you propose to be the remedy for speaking words you do not approve of?
And what about those who insist on listening? Will they be executed as well? The Nazis and the Commies executed people they caught in possession of radios. Not for broadcasting, but, merely for being able to receive transmissions they were put to death? And yet people risked death in order to hear something which their fearless leaders wanted to protect them from.
Sorry, Victoria Rose, your opinion creeps me out, deeply and profoundly. Your opinion is evil and Satanic and I will fight you any way and every way I can.
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victoriarose002 said:
Okay, when I was saying there should be some censorship, I was referring to on platforms like twitter where things can be spread around really easily. Obviously the picture is bigger than this and it depends on how someone exercises their point of view. It is quite obvious to me that this is a very dangerous virus, whatever it was caused by, and hundreds of thousands of people have died from it. And not for one minute did I suggest that people who di say these things should be hurt in any way what so ever! All I am concerned about is that as many people as possible are able to realise the importance of doing little things like wearing a mask in busy areas and handwashing in order to keep others safe. Therefore I don’t see how it can be evil, or satanic😂👌
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jsolbakken said:
“And not for one minute did I suggest that people who di say these things should be hurt in any way what so ever! ”
Hurting people is what “law” is all about. People who break the law have to be hurt bad enough to make them stop breaking the law. If you don’t want to hurt them, then, don’t bother making a law about it in the first place.
I tried to make this point with liberals who propose “Gun Control” laws. I ask them, “So, Lib, are you going to enforce your “Gun Control” the same way you enforce all the other laws that you don’t enforce? If that’s the case, then, go ahead and pass all the “Gun Control” you want. But I know that’s not the case. I know that Libs believe in selective enforcement. Libs will eagerly destroy their political enemies who violate any law of any sort, and they will even more eagerly aid and abet their political allies in their violating of any laws of any sort. ” It is at this point that the Liberal in question calls me a racist sexist transphobe.
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