A Cautionary Tale

Once a upon a time, a trial watching veteran but inexperienced message boarder stumbled onto the CTV boards. It was in the age of the trial of that wee (accused) murderer called – in more polite moments - Phil Spector. No need to elaborate just how factionalized and nasty those discussions became, so much so that the threads were often shut down.

One beacon of hope shone in all of this, a blogger who was in court nearly everyday, a blogger who made it clear that the insane rulings of the CTV moderator were intolerable. A blogger who offered a place of refuge (invite only) for certain posters of the G persuasion. For our purposes, we will call her the Queen Blogger.

For awhile – a very short while – the new private board was a kingdom of happiness. And it was a blast. Posters could let down their hair, swap stories of how they got banned from CTV and make any kind of comments they wanted about the fringe-brains, trolls and goings on “over there.” It was good. And it was fun. Alas, as most good and fun things go, so this went.

Within weeks things began to change. Suddenly the posters were strongly encouraged to participate in threads of games, even if they weren’t interested. They were told to go out, find new crimes stories and start threads on them. Contests were invented. Queen Blogger flogged her wares as product and as prizes for the contests, and trumpeted her quack-quack remedies. Posters began to wonder, but mostly kept their suspicions to themselves.

Then it got personal. One highly venerated poster was dissed so nastily and inappropriately by Queen Blogger and her bloggerettes that others on the board were no longer just suspicious. And many posters got angry. And many posters got restless.

In order to soothe themselves, several posters came up with a plan, a scheme if you will, to express themselves on another board. And WHAM! The iron fist of the Queen Blogger came down faster than you can say “get off that bat-cat tree!”

Posters were told it was no longer allowed to plan and scheme – not even to joke – about that “other board.” Queen Blogger denied this was an edict, but we knew better. And having been raised in a democracy, the discontented posters soon began to privately share their anger and disappointment.

And then it was discovered that those private expressions were not private at all. Queen Blogger and the brainwashed bloggerettes had access to all “private” emails through that board. And it was further discovered that some very nasty personal opinions about we posters had been going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately for Queen Blogger, she and her minions had unwittingly left the thread that these nasty remarks were on open long enough for some of the disgruntled posters to read what was there.

The rest is history. With the extent of Queen Blogger’s duplicity and hypocrisy revealed, a full scale exodus – accompanied by some mighty pointed comments – ensued. Queen Blogger is left to try to pick up the pieces of her cracked, trash-filled, dark-hearted, dishonest board. She and her sycophants can talk kinky sex, flannel blankies and the wonderfulness of Queen Blogger ad nauseum. Perhaps they can trawl through the tattered remnants of CTV to find new cannon fodder.

We won’t get fooled again. We must, however, give thanks to Queen Blogger for one thing. If she hadn't serendipitously picked a savvy, insightful poster to invite the smartest, funniest, kindest posters to her place of darkness, we wouldn’t know each other. So thanks, Queenie, you and your Court Jesters can all kiss our collective asses.