Gumbo ya ya, signifying nothing - Democratic Underground

ForrestGump

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Mar-18-08 08:41 PM
Original message

Gumbo ya ya, signifying nothing

Not a reference to the DUer known as GumboYaYa, whose posts I remember signifying quite a lot, but use of the Cajun term that means "everyone talking at once." Sort of like this place has been since its inception, often with some classic results (whether frivolous or thoughtful, and sometimes both), though these days it seems like little really gets said. For me, at least, it's the prime reason why I've hardly participated in DU for the past year, and I know for sure that the same is true of other DUers who've been aboard since before this virtual community took (in my considered opinion) a sharp nosedive around 2005.

I can only speak for myself, and I'm well aware that nobody here has any obligation to change a single damned thing to please me, but I would really, really, really like to suggest to many here that if they truly have nothing to say then perhaps they shouldn't post that nothing, let alone make a day of posting sequential pieces of nothing that are of little or no real interest to even the author. Some people, in conversation, appear basically afraid of pauses and gaps in narrative, or of more than a second's silence...it gets kind of odious, after a while, when the continual jabbering is obviously just a way of obscuring dreaded silence and much of what I see posted in the Lounge these days is that verbal tic's prose equivalent.

In short, some actual content here would, at least in the eyes of some of us, be a refreshing change. It doesn't have to be monumentally deep or meaningful, because part of the Lounge's appeal from the early days rested with the decidedly superficial and near-meaningless comedic gems that made this place such fun, some of which people here talk about even years later. I don't think the change in signal-to-noise ratio, with noise almost completely obscuring signal, is solely a matter of numbers, either (in that the population of this place has exploded), because much of the pointless crap that dominates this forum is posted by a relatively small, but very prolific, cadre of people.

And, although it may be that some people outwardly seem to have had or currently lead more inherently 'interesting' lives, I don't believe that lack of overtly dashing exploits or whatever other criteria makes a person any less interesting, at heart: in other words, I'm confident that those who fill this forum with unfunny, thought-unprovoking, anti-charismatic drivel could just as easily sit down and post stuff about their everyday life that's as compelling as any other contributions. The highly bodacious LaraMN is a great example for anyone who wants to see how everyday stuff around the house and surrounding errands and motherhood can be spun into comedic gold...sure, not everyone's got her gift for writing and sheer storytelling power, but most of what she writes about is the kind of thing that happens to many of us and to which we can relate. I don't remember her writing about wrestling alligators (though it wouldn't surprise me if she gave it a try...maybe that's where she's been lately) but Lara was one of those people whose posts were well worth looking for, as opposed to one of those whose posts were generally to be avoided. In the last few days I've put a few people on ignore, at least for now, solely because I got tired of wading through their considerable mass of posts and threads to find something worthwhile in the Lounge. I know at least a few people who'd probably take off their ignore lists people who once earned the personal tombstone simply because they flooded the board with inane, pointless drivel but who might now be candidates for rehabilitation; people who once were blind but now can see the errors of their ways.

And copycats...oh, please, don't get me going again on those. I was a prime offender to those here who basically detest copycat threads of all kinds, but I at least tried to make them funny. Tried, anyway. So did most of the other copycatters prior to this past year or so. Now I see legions of copycat threads, sometimes a massive explosion of them that totally overwhelms the board (like today's "bunch of" posts...no way in hell I can tell which is the original post with that one, for sure), that all have one thing in common: they're not funny. And by that I mean that they're not funny in the ironic sense, in the overdone slapstick Three Stooges sense, in the witty or punny sense, in the driest of dry senses, or in any other humor sense known to our species. So, please, latter-day copycatters, repeat after me this simple maxim:

copycat threads that are not funny have absolutely no point.

That was easy enough, wasn't it? Simple concept, really.

And now this, please:

I solemnly swear to, from this point forth, only post copycat threads that are generally distinguishable from the original thread because of the presence of some form of humor, no matter how subtle or tenuous or plain bad and groanworthy.

Thank you.

The fact the the Lounge has largely become this boring virtual destination that's largely devoid of anything with even the slightest interest to many of us is not why I've been away from DU. It's a big reason, though -- I mean, how many times can you scan several pages of this forum, finding just dross, and still get excited about the place? -- and even though I'm pretty busy I'd probably make time for checking it out and posting in it if it was even as interesting as it was a couple of years ago. Sure, it's perhaps a welcome alternative to GD: P (don't know...I never have been there, for good reason, and these days when I pop in to DU I usually just look at LBN and do a quick scan of GD), but so is major surgery without anesthetic.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. I know some of you will agree, because I know some of you do agree, and I know some of you will disagree or speculate on exactly how high my horse is or perhaps challenge me to put my typing fingers where my mouth is and do my bit to change things. The fact is that I'm too burned out on this place to bother with anything, really, at least right now: I'm pretty much just hoping that some of the culprits who've turned this forum into their personal pointless playground, buried in fluff, might see the light. Probably not, but I still had to rant about it for a while...who knows, maybe this will one day be seen as DU's Good Old Days. I sure hope not. Because, really, as it stands right now, DU is sucking quite vigorously. And the only redeeming feature of the Lounge, more than half of the time this past year, is when someone posts LOLcats.

Here's a LOLcat: