domino harvey wrote:
Mr_sausage wrote:
I don't know about any of you, but criterionforum dot org is not my home, it's a forum I visit. The people who would consider a forum a "home" are the same people who get seriously addicted to World of Warcraft or Everquest: all their social interaction and sense of belonging and community is done exclusively on the internet. Mubi is a hilariously awful name, but so long as the same members and threads remained, I wouldn't care. Only someone who's invested his personal identity in the place would seriously care.
I see what you're saying, but I think it's a bit harsh. I don't think of the Dot Org forum as my home, but certainly it's the best place to turn to for intelligent or interesting conversation about film, and if an outsider interest-- like, say (to use an extreme example) Hot Topic-- decided to usurp the forum, it probably
would bother me to be associated with that. Now, granted, I think being associated with the Auteurs was embarrassing enough without adding insult to injury by calling the place Mubi, but why make sweeping speculative judgments of a forum member's personal life based solely on their being upset over such a move?
Hmm. Didn't expect to be taken up on what was to me just a bit of mockery, but ok.
I've encountered this kind of thing before (over-attachment to online communities for the sake of communal identity), so it was really more of an educated guess on my part than speculation. But surely you can see the difference between how you've phrased your hypothetical objection and how he phrased his objection. To you, this is a great resource and you'd rather it not be associated with some outsider interest which could dilute it. That is reasonable.
His objection, however, made no reference to outsider interest or dilution or anything to do with the actual content of the site being altered. All of his objections revolve around how the forum name affects his sense of pride and identity within the community.
Look at this sentence alone: "The Auteurs is more than just a name, it became so much more. It became a badge of honor." This guy think it's a freaking
badge of honour to be a member of a forum
anyone can join. It's all about what the name says about him, not whether the content of the site is affected. He's angry that he can no longer claim the honour of being one of The Auteurs: he's a Mubi man now*. To me, that screams unhealthy attachment.
*I move that from now on we only address this poster as "Mubi Man."