Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. I just read his actual comments. You can, too, here. Aside from really really liking him now (bitchy assholes unite!), I have a few thoughts in general about this hot mess.

The comment threads on that post really illuminate the sort of twaty attitude I associate w/ lj users. Everyone is all "ME ME ME!!! Pay attention to my ONE REALLY FINICKY QUIBBLE! DO IT NOW!" and that whole attitude really makes me laugh. I mean, ok, so he addresses "Americans" instead of just English-speakers. Cue the lulz. OF COURSE all the non-Americans come out of the woodwork and get really PISSED OFF that he dare say Americans rather than English-speakers. But isn't "American" shorthand for "idiots who are loud and annoying"? Yes, I think it is. Here you are a virtual "American" if you're an entitled individual who thinks lj should bow to your every quibble. (Here I am not necessarily voicing my personal opinion of lj users but making a point about the concept of "American" attitudes which very much apply here.) Do I have opinions on this attitude towards the concept of "Americans?" Sure. Mostly, I think that's pretty accurate. I know that I have totally inappropriate meltdowns when my iPod doesn't work. This is a pretty entitled attitude on my part and I probably could use some perspective when I flounce around ruining everyone's day because I can't listen to "The Sharpest Lives" on repeat.

I mean, were his original remarks about people who put forth initiatives to screw lj over (in retaliation for perceived insults) WRONG? Um, strike/boycott, much? Anyway, I don't really have any direct opinions about lj's policies or the strike/boycott. I do think some people could use a bit of perspective, though.

There is SO MUCH going down in this whole clusterfuck that it's difficult to even parse which thing to tackle.

The two biggest issues that stand out for me are the anti-Semitic commentary and the issue of translation.

Of the former, I suppose that a lot of people are unaware of the continued and pretty deep-seated, um, hm, culture of anti-Jewishness in Russia/the former Soviet countries? I mean, right in the threads to the post I link above there's a user who basically says "this dude accuses people who disagree w/ him of being anti-Semites!" which is pretty much a preemptive nullification of any such remarks. Now, why even raise this issue if the "jew card" wasn't already in play? This is so nuts. I suppose there's nothing to say about this besides "hey, in Eastern bloc countries, people still hate Jews and use any platform to wave those views around." What does dude's opinions on the way lj is run have anything to do w/ his ethnicity/religion/citizenship? Which everyone reading this will say "nothing!" but the point here is for some people it means everything. I've seen some commentary where people say "what's with the anti-Russian prejudice?" and I assume that must stem from people aware of these attitudes making flip comments like "oh, what do you expect from Russians?" Idk, because I haven't seen anyone say that. It's true that we have to be very careful about labeling any entire group with broad, negative stripes. There is the fact that these anti-Jewish comments are being made, however. It's a lose/lose situation.

Now, about translation: what's really interesting to me about all of these mess is that the majority of people who read translated materials sort of have an implicit mental contract where they trust the translator to be working in good faith and to be knowledgeable equally in both languages they are working in. Why? I always find translated works suspect unless I know the person doing the translation. English is very easy to manipulate subtly because we have so many homophones. Everyone knows examples of Asian languages translating English literally w/ humorous results--it works the other way around, too, and not always in a way that pops out as obviously missing the point. I really think people need to be more more suspect of any sort of translated materials--not just in the case of ljnanigans. There's a reason politicians have speech writers who are versed in rhetoric. Subtle shifts in word choice greatly influences our interaction with source materials. Russian is a very different sort of language than English and it expresses different concepts than English does--all languages have their own sort of super-grammar that has meaning that is not easily explained in translation.

I can't believe I gave this serious thought!