the lounge is largely good for nothing. it never has served any purpose apart from letting people let off steam.
what does it contribute to bluelight? to life? well, occasionally - just occasionally - an absolute diamond post, thread or theme develops from the lounge, the ms paint one being a recent example.
but the rest of the time it's basically shit, and i deploy the profane intentionally. i mean who gives a flying fuck what colour you pooped today? no-one, that's who. and when it was bluelight social there were plenty of taco threads but not many threads about what colour your shit is, or how many abortions you could eat.
there are different types of posters in the lounge. some people come to bluelight and the lounge is their landing place. they go overboard and post themselves to death before deciding in one thread or another that it's all bullshit and they want nothing further to do with it, disappearing in a huff to post occasionally in Film & Television or the regional forums. and there are the been-round-the-block-and-back die hards who've seen it all and stick around for the sake of it. the lounge is not really a place to cultivate friendships - that tends to happen in the regional and events forums. it's a collective steam room to relax in, and sometimes the choice of fuel is less than edifying... but then that's what the internets is all about,
to an extent. and for that reason i support the existence of the 'post a disgusting pic' threads, etc., even if i personally don't like them.
i say to an extent because there are some things which
aren't funny and which have nothing to do with freedom of expression. people seem to forget that this is not a democratic institution and that every forum has guidelines. people can also seem remarkably forgetful in respect of the bluelight journal feature. it's there for a reason, largely because no-one else gives a fuck
and that's something else to remember. the lounge suffers from a surfeit of self-importance. you do realise that the vast majority of bluelighters have no interest whatsoever in the lounge, yeah?
the fact remains that the lounge has to be a tough forum to moderate. it's obviously a different beast to TDS or whatever, and requires a different approach - but i wouldn't envy lounge mods for a second, and in the past i've turned down the job on that basis. and for what it's worth, and as a 3-year veteran of TDS mod team, i too found the roast thread entirely unappealing and fucking wrong.
on that particular subject, and on a range of others, i find myself in agreement with Dtergent:
Though I don't really expect anything from the Lounge, some people can be overly callous be over the internet. Basic human decency is actually a good thing. Before you get personal, try to see if you will be hurting the person! It doesn't really matter if "you can take it" if someone says the same thing to you. But this has more to do with people than the Lounge, I think.
yes, we're all free to say what we want. isn't it great? now, once the preliminary experimental thrill has worn off and your cock has shrivelled once more, take a moment to reflect on whether you'd say these things in public.
you wouldn't? well,
why is that i wonder? i mean, tangibly speaking, you're just as free to indulge yourself. but something stops you... i wonder; what could it be? do you think that response tells you something about yourself? do you think it tells you something about how your particular ethical code governs your interactions with other people?
freedom of expression is well and good. but it's hardly a catch-all carte blanche... just because something is allowed doesn't mean it must be taken to its (il)logical extension.
and as it happens, freedom of expression doesn't actually exist here. this is not a boundary-free haven for the exposition of alternative viewpoints. i mean, you all read and agreed to the bluelight user agreement when you joined, yeah? what, you think this is some autonomous super-constitutional playground?
no-one would welcome my right to express myself if i posted numerous threads about jacking off to holocaust footage. why is that? well, apart from the existence of specific rules which everyone agreed to, it's also because we do draw lines in the proverbial sand - in life, and online. and if you can't handle that, well, you can go and fuck yourself
either that or join a truly unmoderated forum.
whatever - it's still 98% white noise, and 2% sheer genius. you does your best with what you gets.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
