Voracious Voyeur
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!! LOVE this article..
And loving the pics, too!! 
Internet Vigilantism
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3/23/2009, 1:05 pm
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pwsull
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
Thanks for the fascinating link V V.
The power of mass internet harassment is interesting especially if you really are an a-hole who is beyond the reach of the law and deserving of punishment for your behavior. Hearing about this stuff certainly gives you a vicarious guilty pleasure, but it is also terrifying. There is a reason societies discourage vigilantism. The problem I see is also its horrible strength: misuse of the anonymous power of the mob careening out of control like a massive avalanche bearing down on an unsuspecting village. Who gets to decide what behavior deserves this level of internet retribution/cruelty? What if you are framed by someone and receive this treatment without having done anything wrong. And I guess that is why we generally let the rule of law take care of these things, not the old style lynch mob or shunning and stoning crew.
I am not sure V would approve. He was about toppling fascism, not about ganging up on individual violators of the code of human decency and figuratively beating the **** out of them. It concerns me that V's image has been co-opted by the internet vigilante movement. Several of the photos show members of the internet vigilante mob concealing their identities with V masks. It was good to see his face, but after I stopped chuckling about the fate of their self centered, obnoxious, rude victims I felt ashamed that our hero has been used in this way. Group dynamics are scary. The mob always ends up acting out the most alarming human behaviors and rage in the name of moral (or perhaps a-moral) certainty: lynch mobs, riots, fundamentalism, fascists...
It is funny though at first glance.
--- 
"Perily, this pichyssoise of perbiage peers most perbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me"...... P |
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4/16/2009, 4:42 am
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Voracious Voyeur
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
While I agree that mobs are scary and dangerous things, I admire the spirit and empowerment of vigilantism. It's a conundrum.
There are always going to be some individuals who go too far. That's what troubled me about this article, not the use of V's likeness as a symbol.
But...I must disagree, V did go after "individual violators of the code of human decency" and literally, not figuratively, "beat(ing) the **** out of them." That's exactly what the fingermen in the alley were. Men who thought they could get away with something cuz no one was watching them, or they're above the law, or whatever their excuse(s) for doing something I'm quite sure was not in their official rulebook.
You see V masks sprinkled though the crowds everywhere there are protests and resistance, nowadays. It always makes me smile!
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4/16/2009, 7:31 am
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pwsull
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
So V V you are in the right place, but it is too bad you arrived to find a village with so many empty and abandoned houses, including mine which will most likely soon be dark again. I'm paraphrasing and probably taking liberties here, but MK the "verbal vendicatrix", and late of this board (  ) described this cybershadowgallery as a meeting place for "smart chicks". (And a few "smart dudes" who provided some Yin to the Yang of estrogen and of whom I appear to be the only one still rarely dropping in... Let's not forget Vadin, Krydium, RedZen, MartinxXx....oh and there was that troll [name escapes me] who Leda and Vadin tossed out on his ear for rude, sexual behavior not becoming a gentleman).
So as to the Internet Vigilantes, I should be careful about putting my thoughts to keyboard early in the AM before I go to work when I am half awake and in a hurry to get out the door.
I made some big assumptions about the conventions of metaphor in the genre of graphic fiction and its translation into film, and expressed my thoughts in a muddled and contradictory manner. Often words are my allies but sometimes betray me when I don't think through all of the nuances and implications.
Fortunately for me message boards are a conversation rather than a stand alone essay, so I can clarify.
quote:
Voracious Voyeur wrote:
But...I must disagree, V did go after "individual violators of the code of human decency" and literally, not figuratively, "beat(ing) the **** out of them." That's exactly what the fingermen in the alley were. Men who thought they could get away with something cuz no one was watching them, or they're above the law, or whatever their excuse(s) for doing something I'm quite sure was not in their official rulebook.
You see V masks sprinkled though the crowds everywhere there are protests and resistance, nowadays. It always makes me smile!
Hmmmm.
V V, ofcourse you are 100% correct that V literally beat the **** out of the Fingermen. He was on a Vendetta and was bringing Old Testament God vengeance and punishment to truly evil men who had violated all of the boundaries of human decency. His vengeance while individually meted out to these evil men was however in the service of a greater revolution over the repressive regime to beat all repressive regimes as well. For us the movie go-er, his moral compass was true and while his "eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth" methods were a little unsettling, they grandly satiated our thirst for the Jeffersonian ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" triumphing over discrimination, fundamentalism, repression, self serving sadism, and torture. The political statement of the film makers was clear given their sensibilities and the agenda being followed by the Bush administration; and V confirmed and satisfied our liberal beliefs and outrage.
Were V's methods acceptable? I think most of us agreed they were reprehensible, but they grandly satisfied our gut desire for retribution, and to twist an Evey phrase: it took a monster to fight the monstrous. It was fiction though, a fantasy, which makes it OK to enjoy without risking violation of the fragile rules we all observe to avoid anarchy and chaos in our daily lives.
One can also argue that in the real world there are situations where it is OK to "take the law into ones own hands": real world situations that call for revolution over monstrous repression and cruelty. From an ethical point of view, this is a no-brainer. It is a slippery slope though. In retrospect we all know these historical situations and accept them, but while they are actually going on it is a hard call to make and the solutions rarely as appealing and definitive as a mass of V's converging on parliament and presumably leading to regime change by mass effect.  To put the devils advocate shoe on the other foot, Bush and his cronies had moral certainty about the evil of Al-Qaeda, The Taliban and Sadam and believed their own morality and western "democratic" ideal would triumph. But look at the global mess that created for us and possibly generations to come. V’s moral certainty about killing those responsible for Lark Hill and overthrowing Norsefire feels right to us with our liberal sensibilities. Obviously there were many people for whom the Bush-Cheney moral certainty felt right too. Slippery slope indeed…who is really “right”.
I am compelled to attempt an understanding of the big picture. So what am I trying to say? This is what I was thinking but failed to write in my last post while in that early morning fog. I think there is a big difference between the use of violence, be it literal or figurative, in a just war or revolution, and a mob picking a random individual to tar and feather because that individual is self centered and doesn't care about the rights and feelings of others. And in fiction it is easy to make the conflict much more black and white and the solutions more satisying than they would ever be in the real world. The moral certainty of fictional characters like V taps into the human desire for clarity truth and justice. Parenthetically, Alan Moore seems to like these characters and their provocation of our juxtaposing desire for moral clarity with distrust of any individual's ability to be judge, jury and executioner. The "Watchmen" characters Rorschach, The Comedian, Dr Manhatan, and Ozmandias all raise these isues in spades. In fact characters like this are a staple of comic books, graphic novels and their translation into films. Did those individuals in the internet vigilante piece deserve some sort of consequence for their selfish, self serving, self centered behavior? Absolutely. As vicariously satisfying as it was to us did they deserve to have the full power of the internet focused on ruining their lives? I think not. This is not a graphic novel vigilante like V or Batman dispensing a monstrous evil doer. This is anonymous lynch mob behavior (with V masks rather than ku klux klan hoods) on a grand, world wide scale made possible by this technological marvel of the internet.
P
Last edited by pwsull, 4/17/2009, 8:36 pm
---
"Perily, this pichyssoise of perbiage peers most perbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me"...... P |
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4/17/2009, 8:24 pm
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friendlysolarflare
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
quote:
pwsull wrote:
I think there is a big difference between the use of violence, be it literal or figurative, in a just war or revolution, and a mob picking a random individual to tar and feather because that individual is self centered and doesn't care about the rights and feelings of others.
Exactly! And that's why I don't find those stories about Internet Vigilantism funny at all, there are just too many death threats involved.
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4/18/2009, 12:35 am
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friendlysolarflare
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
quote:
Iseult1124 wrote:
I hope that, if you do let your house go dark again, you'll come back occaisionally to dust and air out (and visit with those of us still here). 
Hear, hear!
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4/18/2009, 7:01 am
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Voracious Voyeur
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
quote:
friendlysolarflare wrote:
... there are just too many death threats involved.
This was what I meant when I said above, that some people will always go too far. There are always some who will cross over the line.
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4/23/2009, 2:23 pm
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Voracious Voyeur
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
quote:
pwsull wrote:
So V V you are in the right place, but it is too bad you arrived to find a village with so many empty and abandoned houses, including mine which will most likely soon be dark again.
P
That is the sad part about discovering this little corner of the net, so late. But, it has still provided me with a good deal of entertainment and interesting diversion (not that I needed any more diversion!) and I will continue to pick around in the dusty bits, maybe even spark up a bit of resurrection from time to time.
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4/23/2009, 2:31 pm
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friendlysolarflare
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Re: !! LOVE this article..
quote:
Voracious Voyeur wrote:
quote:
friendlysolarflare wrote:
... there are just too many death threats involved.
This was what I meant when I said above, that some people will always go too far. There are always some who will cross over the line.
I agree. I also think part of the problem is that the internet makes it so easy to stay anonymous - it costs nothing to add a little death threat here or there.
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4/23/2009, 8:19 pm
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