DISCLAIMER: The following opinions expressed in this blog are not representative of Ultimate-Guitar.com. All accountability must therefore lie with the author and UG takes no responsibility for his actions. Furthermore, said user realises that he is sat on his high horse and is not a perfect UG-er.
I first started visiting the Ultimate-Guitar website when I was 15 years old. I had been "playing" - murdering, butchering etc are more fitting verbs - the guitar for month or two and I really needed some online lessions, guidance etc. Stumbling into The Pit was a complete accident, and pretty much changed how I saw UG. Rather than a site with a handful of lessons and reviews, I soon realised that UG already was home to a thriving online community, and over the years this has grown phenominally.
I witnessed what can now be refered to as famous incidents. Some of them are moments of immaturity, farse and hilarity: The MXTabs war, Chung and his multiple accounts, the fake modding, demodding and subsequent humiliation of that A7X kid, Joey/Maurice and the stolen song thread, Sammung and his "crabs", the "wut pear."
Others, however, have been genuinely moving. Particularly - and quite recently - Grundy0 and his battle with cancer and the heart-breaking thread involving the guy who declared his intent to renounce his faith as a Jehova's Witness, only to revert back to it due to parental pressure and subsequently breaking his fiance's heart. There's no way of proving for sure that either of the stories were actually truthful, or proving the extent to which they were true, but their validity really doesn't matter all that much becuse they both brought the users of this site together!
I had a moment recently in which I was absent mindedly looking through a thread - the Reading 2008 one as I recall - and I really got to thinking...that UG is really rather unique. In the thread, for example, I saw a conversation between Dan_Rev (?) and another UG'er, who had actually met without realising at the festival. Small world, innit? UG has actual implications in reality. It's quite remarkable.
Furthermore, the UG album projects really do show just how talented and dedicated some of our fellow users are. I genuinely hope to be able to contribute to one eventually, if I can ever get any kind of recording equipment sorted out. A lot of effort goes into them and Glen'sHeroicAct deserves a lot of credit and kudos for masterminding the operations.
Also I have noticed that over time, The Pit has become a lot more pleasant. Random flaming appears to be on the decrease, which I could not be happier about. The Pit seems to be filling up with kinder users, and I say let's keep this trend going! If you see somebody in a thread who has made a point that you disagree with, why not use satirical methods to put your point across succintly, with wit and with less offensively than flaming? Or better yet, calmly explain where you're coming from, acknowledge the other person's side of the argument (within reason) and talk it out properly? I don't mean to imply that all conflict is a bad thing, persay, but it is not always necessary.
Now maybe I'm being very sappy here and totally missing the jokes, but am I the only UG user who gets a bit fed up with "I cum blood", your mom jokes, band and artist forum clickiness and elitism and other 4chan style offerings? If anybody reads this blog and can enlighten me regarding the humour behind those one-liners, please fill me in because I really feel like I'm missing out here. I always figured that the jokes were meant to be post-ironic, self-aware of how un-funny they are...but even if that is the case, they are still over done. Perhaps some users are developing a reliance on such throwaway gags because they have nothing else to say? Or maybe that's the joke within itself.
I'm not saying that UG should be filled with piles upon piles of emotionally invested, unifying threads; "My disabled cat died in 9/11", "I lost the entirity of my family in a nuclear bomb explosion (yet somehow I and everybody else in the world survived)", "I got mugged by an assortment of pirates, ninjas and Jew-jitsu-ers and I've now lost the use of my legs and therefore cannot go to ballet school to follow my Fame-like dreams" etc etc. You get the point. The great thing about those threads, in fact, is the rarity of them. They validate the humanity of The Pit, allow us to take a step back and make us all feel very bloody fortunate. They usually act as a timely counter-point to a multitude of ridiculous threads; just when I feel like never using The Pit again, I see a thread that genuinely engages me.
What I am saying is that maybe we should aim to strike a happy medium between the serious and the funny. I have laughed with and at The Pit many, many times in the four years that I've used it and frankly without humour the forum would be a very dry place. Let's just try to keep the jokes a bit fresh, shall we? Or maybe your mom should keep a bit fresh! Lol wut? DiduseewutIdidthar?
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DisgruntledDuck's blogs, last updated : December 30, 2008
