Rant rant rant
I've never been more disgusted to be associated with a group of people than I am to be associated with the fans on the Cowboy Mouth board. When I created the boards, I put in an off-topic board for everything non-Cowboy Mouth. In the last few months, it has basically become a playground for Adam (who happens to be a friend of Griff's), where he creates a handful of usernames, and has conversations with himself and his group of followers. At first, it was cute (in the same way that it's cute when a 4 year old has an imaginary friend). After a while, it became a bit stale. Eventually, it just became ridiculous. Then the fun started.
He created a username for a character called Jitterbug Jackson. This character was nothing more than a black stereotype straight out of a minstrel show. He did it in the form of an advice column, and featured such gems as "dat b a tough question. How do you know this fella is acturrly your broyfriend? . . . Until a fella gives you a ring and spends a substainiaill amounts o money on you he may just be playin wit your lurve." Apparently this was supposed to be witty humor of some sort.
Inevitably, people got offended. When these people voiced their opinions, they were insulted. Eventually, Adam created a new name who was offended by everything, and he and a group of others proceeded to make fun of the people who "couldn't take a joke." I ended up calling management, and we pulled the entire board for a day, then reinstated it with some rules. It's so sad that we need to have rules to tell people not to make racist comments, but we do. Based on a post to the board that has been made since, someone (the poster didn't identify himself) sent a person to the board in an attempt to impress them, and because of this thread, he had to major damage control. Only now are the people involved getting the clue that their actions on the Cowboy Mouth board reflect upon everyone involved with the band (myself included). Now they've moved the little game to the major Cowboy Mouth fan site. So far, the voice of reason on the fan site is a 14 year old (oh, did I mention that Adam is 36?). I love the Internet.
He created a username for a character called Jitterbug Jackson. This character was nothing more than a black stereotype straight out of a minstrel show. He did it in the form of an advice column, and featured such gems as "dat b a tough question. How do you know this fella is acturrly your broyfriend? . . . Until a fella gives you a ring and spends a substainiaill amounts o money on you he may just be playin wit your lurve." Apparently this was supposed to be witty humor of some sort.
Inevitably, people got offended. When these people voiced their opinions, they were insulted. Eventually, Adam created a new name who was offended by everything, and he and a group of others proceeded to make fun of the people who "couldn't take a joke." I ended up calling management, and we pulled the entire board for a day, then reinstated it with some rules. It's so sad that we need to have rules to tell people not to make racist comments, but we do. Based on a post to the board that has been made since, someone (the poster didn't identify himself) sent a person to the board in an attempt to impress them, and because of this thread, he had to major damage control. Only now are the people involved getting the clue that their actions on the Cowboy Mouth board reflect upon everyone involved with the band (myself included). Now they've moved the little game to the major Cowboy Mouth fan site. So far, the voice of reason on the fan site is a 14 year old (oh, did I mention that Adam is 36?). I love the Internet.
Posted by bryce on 12/12/03 at 9:02PM • link • comment (19)
