Dishing Out Dirt

[Seyda]

There is certainly a lot to unpack here. I’ve learned a lot about these kind of things after spending about a decade in factions that “controlled” the city and another 5 on the flip side. My very general and absolutely not specific .02—

1 - I missed the unedited version clearly, because this round of rumors seems pretty boring compared to some things that have gotten published over the years.

2 - These are always good opportunities for people to get a lot of insight into what’s going on based on reactions and defense of such. Where there’s smoke, there is either a fire or a pretty sweet fog machine. Who knows.

3 - The point of these things always depends on someone’s perspective. In my experience, when you “control” the city, it’s a bunch of pussies trying to start shit by using this as a vehicle. When you’re not in control, it’s usually a vehicle to push out your truth and or salt without risking getting flattened by those in “control.” One group’s coward is generally another group’s hero.

4 - I honestly think that as a city, we are at a point where we are paying the piper for our collective actions. We now live in a world where people are afraid of real news because it might upset someone, where multiple people will package their own brands of toxicity and ram it down peoples’ throats, and the response to situations involving things not liked are to boycott, ignore, ban, or otherwise silence. Unfortunately, we reap what we sow, which is one news source holding a monopoly which is essentially an online version of the National Enquirer with the comments turned on.

5 - Nobody likes having someone talk shit about them. But most people are pretty okay with talking shit ABOUT someone else.

6 - Anonymity is a powerful tool to create questions in the minds of paranoid people. I know, cause I fell for this shit all the time.

7 - HOWEVER, I think it’s pretty clear based on a few of the responses given that someone put some bait on a hook and cast their line, and someone else was dumb enough to to bite the hook. I think the rest of us should just grab a lawn chair, sit back, and watch how this plays out.

[Mandolin]

Ladies Night - Intense Fog Machine Edition.

[drew]

Can I get a lawn chair that's poolside?

And hmm. Fog machine for ladies night. So good...and bad.

[Seyda]

Ladies Night - Intense Fog Machine Edition.

YAS

[CordaTacita]

Popcorn anyone?

[Joy]

<snips>

The point of the anonymity was never to protect those of us at VNN ourselves. Quite the contrary. It was more for the sake of those submitting the gossip, like a confessional booth. Perhaps they felt safer telling someone something secret and not knowing who they were? There was no malicious conspiracy behind our motives. Ferrero and I brought together a group of others, each from varying, even enemy lines. We had a standard code of ethics: If it was told to us personally, in confidence, it remained that way. Never did we ever submit anything trusted to us outside of our work. Also. ALL information that came to us would be reported. Regardless of how we felt about it. Regardless of the fact that we would open our inboxes and see our own families reporting stuff on each other. I'm talking, childer, partners, clanmates, you name it. We would still remove our disguises and go home at the end of the shift and still love them the same as before, because we did not bring our work home with us, nor did we use it to our advantage.

To call those submitting gossip cowards, I still do not agree. People should be able to put forward something without the fear of being beaten down, bullied, and ridiculed.

This was not an issue when Lorrena was doing it for Valentines day? Many of those seemed to be blanketed attempts to throw mistrust in people's relationships. Had Lorrena used an alias would it have been an issue?

Gossip rags are supposed to be entertaining, and taken with an ocean's worth of salt. As we always used to say, "don't shoot the messenger".

Yeah, super late to the party, my bad. I don't even have much to add except that I agree with this. The Nitty Gritty had a section called 'The Rumor Mill' where I just made up fun lies about people. It was a hoot. The only time I would say it's not okay is if one of the rumors is clearly an attempt to endanger someone or to ruin them in major way, like saying so and so was behind a hit or so and so raped so and so. That would be the line for me.

I don't see a problem with a source of legitimate news also having a place for (mostly) harmless crap, though. It's not like anyone thinks this is real news, I hope. Yikes, if you do.