it is gone like something large, hovering high, has covered up the sun (part III)

(continuing from part II)

So, where were we?

I'm not apologizing for who I am anymore. I certainly don't need your help. And I don't give a damn if you approve.

Right, the 21st of June. Still.

Spoony, at this point, was at the eye of quite the little storm of drama, rivaling me at my best. Or, well, worst. During this time, he did manage to put out four--four? Maybe six--E3-based video logs onto his site (but not onto That Guy With the Glasses, where his videos are now pretty conspicuously absent). Even with that, the comments kept flying in on his feed. From @MaffewGregg on the 22nd:

You'd think @TheSpoonyOne would know how netiquette works by now.

Spoony's response:

@Maffewgregg you'd think you'd know how to mind your own goddamn business by now.

From Karkat Vantas:

@TheSpoonyOne No wonder Scarlett left you, you disgusting shit stain. I'd tell you to die, but living would make you suffer much more.

Spoony retweeted that, followed by this:

You see the kind of thin-skinned, ignorant, cunts I gotta deal with on a daily basis?

Obscurus Lupa responded:

@TheSpoonyOne Is this the part where you call everyone lesbians for not wanting to go out with you?

Spoony replied back:

@Obscurus_Lupa Case in point.

Lupa back:

@TheSpoonyOne Has Oreo found you a new "mommeh" yet?

Spoony retorted:

@Obscurus_Lupa Well now, look who's sunk to my level. Welcome to Thunderdome, kid.

Kaite said:

@TheSpoonyOne Noah, you are the only one responsible for letting this continue with yourself. Seriously, google narcisstic traits. :(

The response?

@KaiteEmm Seriously, google "shut the fuck up."

From Romaku:

@TheSpoonyOne I'm ashamed I used to look up to you.

The response:

@Romaku1 You will be missed. By someone, I'm sure.

David Key:

@TheSpoonyOne Noah. Calm down, man. Just relax. I know you got over by being sarcastic and angry, but you're not doing a video. Just chill.

Spoony:

@LvOverRide I'm perfectly calm, dude.

I'd hazard a guess to say he really is, or at least, thinks he really is--that all this has been cathartic for him, allowing him to vent against someone that's not himself. And we've all done it, I think, because we still haven't completely socialized the difference between speaking to ourselves/our local family/friends and speaking to the wider world. In part, services like Twitter compound this lack of comprehension because first, it's so easy to send out 140 characters or less on practically anything, but second, because it's very easy to equate "followers" (who may not share even common likes/dislikes with us or our local social sets) with "friends" (people we believe can be trusted when we need to share our experiences).

From Spoony earlier today:

There's nothing more boring than people who love you.

That's possibly true, but I'm more on the side of Jim Bevan, who said a few hours past that:

Freakin' train wreck happening here. And I am seriously concerned that the person at the center of it all is going to do physical harm next.

As a denizen of the net myself, it's not my place--or anyone's--to try to constrain behavior. We can advise, we can recommend, we can suggest, but at the end of the day, we as netizens do not have individual power for anything other than choosing to intake (or not to intake) what we see.

That being said, there's a lot of worry currently about Spoony, partly based on how completely he seemed to fall apart on Twitter. I would be the first to tell you that posted behavior may have nothing to do with actual feelings--but on the other hand, anyone still reading likely also read the recent storm of drama on this blog. While both Spoony and I have the capacity to exercise restraint, we both chose in our own ways not to exercise that restraint.

The result in my case was a lot of worry from my friends. I've answered a lot of IMs and emails reassuring people, and I'm trying to think as clearly as I can and let venting on the blog go for now. It's not always easy, because the automatic turn in my case is to dwell on what's gone wrong, what could go wrong in future. I'm a cheerful pessimist in the best of times.

Spoony, well, as he pointed out himself, he tends to turn to Byron in times of deep pain, and...as he also pointed out, that's not the best thing. And from there, he turns to anger as a cover for that pain. At this point, he may well be happily spinning off froth with no greater emotional weight than a glasswing--but when he started, that anger, that pain, that rage was clearly visible.

I think the best thing to take away from this--and part of the reason I turned this into three separate entries in the first place--is that we have a long, hard road to travel to get to the place where we can separate ourselves and our intimates from our social media contacts. Cases like this show the potential danger of forgetting that--due nearly entirely to what he said on his Twitter feed publically, he lost a rehosting gig, all the other Channel Awesome contributors who were working with him into meta storylines likely lost the ability to continue those storylines, and at the other end of this observation, I'm still thinking Spoony has a long way to go before he really accepts what's happened in the first place.

Train wreck? Meet the Train Wreck.