Oppugn.us

I find one of the most fun things to do on the internet is interacting with trolls. I know, many of you can't fathom why someone would bother trying to troll trolls, but it's incredibly entertaining. By their nature trolls are pathetic little men who act like bullies online in order to make themselves feel better about their pathetic lives. That simple part of their nature makes them easy targets. People are afraid of them, in much the same way they're afraid of bullies, but the truth is because few people stand up to them they're actually very easy to rip into.

I know, you probably read that sentence and thought, "Well shit Zed, that's what you do asshole." You're right, but I restrict my ranty words to assholes I feel are hurting other people, and I can take it as good as I get it. You got something to say? You think I fucking suck? Rock on, go ahead and say it.

But, you better fucking know your shit, 'cause I sure as hell do.

Let's take an example of a troll from today named Chris Alex Thomas who decided to pathetically attempt trolling me today. At first I thought, "Oh a worthy opponent, very interesting." Then as I read his tweets:

12:24 [@chrisalexthomas] @zedshaw dude you're dumb, found anyone to employ you stupid ass after rails ghetto? keep mouth shut please idiocy falling out, kthxbye

12:24 [@chrisalexthomas] @zedshaw I "trolled" you stupid ass on my blog too, if it makes any difference, I find your stupid mouth hilarious albeit laughing AT you :D

I just got an image of the Arby's douchebag saying to himself, "I know bro, I'll fuckin' nuke that useless punk Zed on twitter. That'll show him I'm serious bro! Pass the bong!" Then I got bored. I mean, if you're gonna troll a mother fucker at least do it right. I think I'd rather watch a homeless guy pound a steamer into a San Francisco sidewalk than play troll with a guy who has no grasp of the English language despite probably being British.

Then it got me thinking, why would anyone listen to a fucktard like that? I mean, what exactly has he done? His blog barely works. The few open source projects he's done have broken links all over. I mean shit, this guy's most extensive project was an Eclipse plugin he worked on for 5 years that just let you use sftp.

Who the fuck is even using Eclipse these days?

You take a look at this guy's source code and you start to see a picture of a total amateur. I can't find unit tests in any of these released projects, so most likely he just doesn't use them. He has blog posts bitching about Eclipse, so I'm pretty sure he's a one trick Java pony. The GUIs he creates are just plain terrible. Other projects just aren't even there with completely empty apache directories.

Overall, his output and quality are incredibly substandard, but he appears to have no idea of this. Reading through his blog you'd think he's an incredibly good programmer making millions working for someone, and who knows maybe he is making shitloads of money, although I doubt it.

Researching this guy, it got me thinking again about my theory of the internet creating the "rise of the twenty-percenter".

You see, before the internet if you wanted to criticize someone and have a wide distribution you had to be good. You had to know the subject, know how to write exceptionally well, and know how to be objective about your opinion. If you failed to do these things then your readers stopped reading you and you were replaced. In food criticism some journalists go so far as to use fake identities so that restaurants don't know about them when they order. Otherwise the critic couldn't get an objective review for the joint because they'd be given the best food possible.

In a way, to be a critic of the 1% of the population producing works, you also had to be in that 1%. The same standards of production quality and capability applied to the critic as to the subject being critiqued.

Then the internet opened the door for the 20% of the population who have absolutely no ability to produce, but who have no problem writing what they think about the 1%. Now the 20% can hop onto a forum and with absolutely no other ability than stringing together a few half-correct sentences, produce a critique of something they know absolutely nothing about. In effect, these 20%-ers are able to write as if they're the cream of the critics without any of the ability or attention to detail required.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for pundits on the internet telling the lie that the opinions of these 20% are just as good as the opinions of critics like Gene Siskel. Sites like reddit, new.ycombinator.com, and Digg all perpetuate the lie that your opinion on their site is just as important as that of Roger Ebert. This marketing then permeates out from the 20% down into the remaining readers who then also believe the crap the 20% write as if it's true.

The major selling point for blogs, social news sites, forums, or any of these "20% == 1%" communities is that it promises people immortality and relevance. Put up a video and you could be famous. Write that winning blog post and you could get a job. But all of that's a lie because without a substantial ability to actually produce behind these 20% level submissions you won't be able to take it very far.

Here's an example. Some folks have said that I'm only famous because of Rails, which is actually not true. I was fairly well known before Rails came out and that recognition, plus my work on several related projects in Ruby, prompted DHH to ask me to hang out with the rails-core guys. Of course, we didn't get along at all since I'm not one to lie and buy into bullshit, but the fact stands that if I wasn't already expert at producing and writing I wouldn't have been able to capitalize on the rise of Rails at all. If I was just some ranting ass who didn't really know what he was doing I would have faded into obscurity.

Another way to put this whole essay is with the title, "You'll know them by their works." With the rise of the 20% you can't rely on the quality of criticism any more. In fact, you have to assume that any criticism you get comes from complete idiots who think their 20%-er quality opinion is on a level with Roger Ebert's wonderful writing. You have to take whatever they throw at you and just assume they're useless total idiots like Chris here.

Instead, when a total fucking moronic douche vaginale like Chris pops up, you have to look at his code, and if you find nothing but a pile of half-finished completely irrelevant junk, then what he has to say is yet another example of the rise of the pointless 20%.