I wasn’t planning to comment directly on yesterday’s twitter dust-up between Heather Armstrong and Anna Viele, for reasons obvious to anyone in this blogging community, where it so often seems that remaining silent is the only means we have as individuals to protect (or defend) ourselves anymore. Stating the obvious here, but there’s a terrible and rotten irony in that — that we’re writers who’re slowly being trained and groomed to be gutless and stay silent when we should most stand up and say something, for fear of making ourselves targets.
It’s bullshit, and it’s awful and depressing and cowardly. And you know it, and I know it. We’re cowering before a very small minority, however vocal they might be, and allowing them to shape our behavior. Speaking for myself, at age 40, I’m frankly a little too old for this being-bullied-by-phantoms shit.
So after sleeping on the matter I came to the conclusion that it would be unfair and dishonest of me - as someone who has been similarly attacked by Viele in the past – to not speak up in support and state publicly that I agree with and stand behind Heather’s assessment of the character and nature of Viele’s presence and activity in our community of bloggers, which is as a troll or (as my friend Cecily brilliantly interjected last evening) a “griefer.” Argue as Viele may about terms and definitions, when what you’re known for is relentlessly giving people grief for their successes and mocking their honest humanity – rather than for, say, the quality of your own writing, or for other beneficial, substantive contributions made to the community in which you operate – and when you parasitically employ the writing and work of others as a means to generate conflict and negativity FOR YEARS, rather than create anything positive or wholly original of value yourself… well, perhaps you should reconsider the path you chose. Perhaps some reevaluation and self-reflection is in order.
I’ll leave it at that.
