[...] Blog punching bag James Meeley is blogging again. His first few posts take the radical positions that comics were more fun when readers didn’t know what was coming up; that editors should keep sex out of superhero comics because they should be for all ages (i.e. kids, an idea that’s a long-standing preoccupation of Meeley’s); and that late comics are bad. (If I didn’t know better, I’d think Meeley was a Byrne sock puppet, give the conservative fogeyness of these opinions.) [...]

In general, upon reflection, the problem with online communication isn’t when people misunderstand you, because that can’t be prevented. It’s what you do after that. If you stubbornly insist that any misreading is their fault and you don’t stop repeating yourself until everyone says you’re right or gives up in frustration, that’s an immature, self-centered response.

It can be hard to say “mmm, I can see why you thought that, but it’s not what I intended. Let me try explaining my point again differently.” That, though, is what leads to understanding, I think.

Tough. It’s perfectly fair to judge people by the way they present themselves in public. If he’s actually a nice guy who persists in acting like an idiot in public, then that’s his problem, not mine.

Ok, so it’s not so bad.

In other words, they laughed at Columbus, but they also rightly laughed at Bozo the Clown.

As Ragnell points out, though, in many cases all we have to go by are the online posts of other online folks, as there isn’t anything else from which to form an opinion. There are probably people that think I’m an asshole, an elitist, or whatever from my online posts (actually, there’s no maybe)–and they have the right to think that, if that’s what they take from what I write. If all someone has to go on is how I put myself forth online, then that’s the available information.

I was referring to what OTHER people say about Jim as well as his own statements. It makes me mad as hell that people make snap judgements about a person based on their internet posts, without seeking to understand the person as a whole. Why care when it is so much easier to make a snarky, witty retort that your fellow posters will giggle at? It’s like being back in high school all over again, and that is the pits.

I’m outta here.

Wow, talk about a damning defense.

Thank you for listening.