Faux-Bos and Faux-Pas
By now you’re probably as bored of the Faux-Bo wedding as I am.
I planned to let this whole clusterfuck wither and die, despite prodding by defenders of the couple, who want me to know that they have media connections, and are working on a BIG STORY about bullies and crafting.
Also, THEY HAVE SCREEN CAPS.
But something about this has been nagging at me. And it wasn’t until this morning that I realized why it’s all so strangely familiar.
It started bubbling in my tiny mind when I read this passage in one of the 25,000 word emails the groom’s uncle sent me:
“Etsy used to be his wife’s safe place, where she could go and talk about crafting and vintage clothes with like-minded people. How could she have known a team of juvenile, faux-moral people were going to come piss all over it?”
And this morning, while I was clearing a huge branch that suddenly fell in our front yard – because God is punishing me – I realized this was all part of a larger story. And it’s a story I have wanted to tell you for almost a year.
* * *
Last Halloween, I put up a picture on the Regretsy Facebook page. A place I created and maintain, full of like-minded people. My safe place.
The photo was of me and Bronc, in costume at a party. He came as Chaz Bono, and I came as Chastity.
I have to admit, I was really pleased with myself. I couldn’t think of another scenario where a man and woman could go to a party as the same person, with neither one in drag!
LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM
Of course, it was a mistake (for a few reasons). An internet community you feel at home in – hell, even a community you create – is not your safe place. It’s the internet.
To say I was surprised by the reaction would be an understatement. The thread exploded into well over 1,000 extremely emotional and angry comments in a matter of minutes. People started calling me transphobic and homophobic – things I have never, ever been accused of before.
Then I made my second mistake, and it’s the same one the Hobo Wedding Party is making now: I got defensive.
How could they get it so wrong? I’m not making a comment, I was just being funny! And anyway, I am not an enemy of the LGBT community, not by any stretch of the imagination. I have fundraised, walked, delivered meals, sat with friends as they died… for fucks sake, I was MARRIED to a gay man for fifteen years! DON’T YOU INTERNET PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM?
No they don’t. They don’t know who you are, and they don’t give a shit. And now that they think they know who you are, their perception can’t be changed. Talking about how much you “love the gay community” or “these nice kids really care about poor people” sounds like the bigot who says, “One of my best friends is black!”
Fortunately for me, something clicked that night. Because at some point, while I back and forthed and obnoxiously tried to prove my point, I realized that I was not dealing with butthurt. These people weren’t reflexively offended on behalf of someone they didn’t know. These people were actually wounded by something I had done. And I was mortified. And I took it down.
One of the things that stuck with me from that thread was an interaction I had with one of the angrier people posting. I protested that context matters, and he said it did not. He said, “If you stepped on my foot and you did it by accident, it would not hurt less than if you did it on purpose.” I thought that was ignorant of course, because hurting someone purposely is very different than accidental harm.
But I’ve come to see that there is, in fact, truth in that statement, and that truth is simply this:
YOUR context doesn’t matter.
Etsy, Your Safe Place™, is the 53rd most popular site in the United States. How much traffic do you think that is? How arrogant are you to think that every single person passing through is going to give two fucks about your context?
Not as arrogant as me! Facebook, my safe place, is the 2nd most popular site in the world!
So I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that as soon as I took the image down, it came back. People started Facebook groups almost immediately using the photo. Someone tried to extort money from me. I got hate mail, threats of physical harm, threats of hacking, threats of boycotts, threats to my family.
And then there’s Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Click image for full sized humiliation
This bothered me the most, I think. Mostly because I can’t understand why anyone in the LGBT community would seek social justice on a site that routinely refers to its users as “fags.” But also because it memorializes my filing a DMCA on someone on LiveJournal who took the image off my personal Facebook account before I removed it. And for someone who thrives under the Fair Use umbrella, it makes me a hypocrite.
(Edit: I also cringe now when I see the word “stolen”, because while I think taking a photo off someone’s personal Facebook page is different than taking it from a public fan page, it was most definitely not theft.)
So this has all gelled for me today in a really surprising way. Watching the defenders of this wedding tweet, post, comment, threaten law suits, attempt to engage the New York Times, report me to Facebook as a hate group and generally piss their own pants only points up to me what an asshole I was.
But let me be really clear here. I am not sorry for the costume I chose, because I know who I am, and I know what is in my heart, and in no way did I mean to cause any suffering for an already marginalized segment of our society.* And I can see that Mr. and Mrs. Faux-Bo also don’t feel sorry for the choice they made, and I don’t judge them for that at all. We both have our contexts.
But.
When you put your wedding or your birthing video or anything private online where your context does matter, you are asking for a world of shit. And the internet is only too happy to serve it to you.
And you know, it’s not a matter of sociology or modern manners, or what the internet brings out in us. That is all grade A horse shit, and another way we excuse our own behavior and poor judgment. Villainizing the internet is like blaming McDonalds for making you fat. We are the internet, and what happens here is what you and I choose to do. I’m not going to campaign to improve it. I think it’s perfect.
And frankly, I’m not sorry that I don’t think about your context or your mental state or what you’ve been through when I look at something personal you have chosen to share with the world, and I don’t expect you to do it for me. This is not AOL Hometown, and we’re not all friends.
There is only one way to use the internet as your safe place, and that’s to create a private space where you control who sees your content and who can share it. Because when you share photos of your bad decisions and poor taste with friends, you can count on them to lie to you.
Well, not your real friends. But that’s another blog post.
* 8/7/11 UPDATE: In this post, I tried to take responsibility for my actions. But I could only apologize for the part I understood. If I just apologized without knowing why – to make it go away – it would have been meaningless.
I am grateful to all of you who have written to give me some insight. This is the first time in a year anyone has helped me to have a better understanding. Now I get it.
I humbly offer my apologies for making an insensitive choice, for not knowing why it was insensitive, and for causing any hurt to anyone.
I will never discuss this publicly again. If you still want to talk about it, you are welcome to email me, and I will keep our correspondence private.
BACK TO THE FUCKERY
August 5, 2011 at 4:28 pm
beautifully written, i’m glad that even though you’re a heartless-love-shitting-hell-devil, you can still see both sides of things
August 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Agreed. Well said you fat, jealous loser.
Lead on to hell, my mistress!
August 5, 2011 at 6:32 pm
I am in awe of what HK ( and Bronc) have gone through to bring us some laughs and a joyful escape from reality. HK is the real deal putting herself through Ebay actions via her radio show with all proceeds going to Project Angelfood! We’re not laughing at the craftards we are laughing with them! The haters fail to mention the self-absorbed artists/ resellers who advertise $3.00 items for $25 or a painting infused with semen for $500. How cant you stay sane without pointing at these ” me me me” people. The HoboFobos were proud of their creativity and posted it on the internet but their narrowsitedness was pointed out on Regretsy but wouldnt have had they kept it in their own secrrtspace
August 5, 2011 at 6:45 pm
agreed!! by all means, sell your magik womyn merkin tassles, but if you can’t take a joke, you have no place posting on the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 6:54 pm
It would never have been a Regretsy piece if their wedding had been, “Look how we made our wedding special using our creativity and $500, with our handiwork and help from friends and family.”
August 6, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Something I doubt they have considered is that if Regresty hadn’t have pointed it out – someone else would have. Someone would have come along and would had really and honestly torn their special day asunder. I think its sad they can’t simply take April’s post with a grain of salt as SOMEONE ELSES point of view of what they did.
Because thats what it is. And while she wasn’t cookie sweet about what she had to say – she could have honestly ripped those kids a new one about the theme of their wedding. And some of the same ones who might be defending them right now, could easily be the same people who’d go epic twatwaffle on them over their “hobo chic” wedding.
August 6, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Read encyclopediadramatica – talking about the snark calling the snark black – feh.
You know, people don’t have the right not to be offended. (see Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988))
Love regretsy, thought the costume was pretty darn funny and creative. I think you need to have shariesCraftworld memorialize your costume in 3-D.
Just saying.
August 7, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I actually kind of hate ED. It’s not funny, I’d hesitate to call it snarky, it’s basically a site for people who can’t come up with anything interesting to say. It’s like the guy who won’t stop swearing and claims he has Tourettes. It’s like that kid who goes “YOUR MOM” to everything long after the moment it stops being funny. If I wanted to be called a fag/twat/cunt/cumdumpster/etcetcetc, I’d go to a Neo-Nazi meeting wearing a strap-on and a whore dress.
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
This. This is why I admire HK so fucking much! For fucks sake HK, do you have any idea how many paper cuts I have now from rubbing your printed post all over me bod?
August 6, 2011 at 5:56 am
To paraphrase “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”:
You can love Regretsy, just don’t LOVE Regretsy
August 5, 2011 at 7:37 pm
April Winchell, you have one serious fucking thick skin. Good luck with that. Glad it’s not me. I’m a fucking coward. Regretsy rocks on!!!!
August 5, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Absolutely agree with KatieRow!
Love your site, and insight on what you see on Etsy! I also 100% agree with your take on the expectation of privacy when posting on the internet.
Keep being amazing!
August 5, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Stay Calm and Regretsy On!
August 5, 2011 at 4:32 pm
A dear departed friend of mine had a favorite saying: Fuck ‘em all but six, and save them for pallbearers.
Just something to think about.
August 5, 2011 at 4:39 pm
You only need one if you plan on having a Viking funeral, and they don’t even need to be a friend. They just need to be willing to stuff your ass in a canoe and set you on fire.
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
This comment made my day. Someone give this person an award.
I need to update my living will regarding my final arrangements.
August 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
When I decided on a Viking funeral, I was quickly reminded by my colleagues (attorneys) that it is illegal to put a corpse on a boat and set it on fire. Damned government regulations. But you can do pretty much anything you want once you get into international waters, so there are ways around it.
August 5, 2011 at 5:17 pm
The line of people willing to do that stretches around the block. And most of them would be disappointed if they thought they had to wait until I was dead to strike that first match.
August 5, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Hey, Dawn… did they have anything to say about sky burial, by any chance?
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
I’m actually under orders to take my bff’s corpse out into international waters and send him off via water-slide. The problem will be getting the cruise ship with all his friends and family organized. He’s promised to leave me enough money to pay for all this. So I might do the flaming canoe thing and just laugh at him for giving me all that cash.
August 5, 2011 at 6:57 pm
jecca:
one of my entirely too many spouses/exspouses wants a sky burial. he has pretensions to the native life in the running for as ludicrous as the no-longer-to-be-mentioned hoboparty. i would probably sky bury him right now {he’s still alive} but i always told him i was going to have him go neuro which means have him cryogenically frozen. just his head. come to think of it, i’d probably do that now, too.
August 5, 2011 at 7:05 pm
I actually want a Viking funeral.
August 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm
I had a Viking Yogurt Rodeo once.
.
.
.
But that’s a different story…
August 5, 2011 at 9:04 pm
I actually went to a Viking funeral once. They got around the law by cremating him first and then putting his ashes in the boat, which they then set on fire. And which boat then floated very close to some reeds, nearly setting the shore afire and causing frantic bailing and dousing by the attendants to the burning boat. And we had to stand there and watch this whole clusterfuckery without laughing because it was supposed to be a serious funeral.
August 5, 2011 at 9:22 pm
I promised to give my wife a Viking funeral, even if I have to risk arrest, and I said it in our wedding vows, in front of 50 friends and family members.
August 5, 2011 at 10:00 pm
re: sky funeral… do they just shove your body out of the open door of a plane? Because that could get REALLY messy.
August 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I plan on donating my body to science, so fuck ‘em all! FTW!
August 5, 2011 at 7:43 pm
I plan on donating my body to Ignorance.
August 5, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I’m donating mine to science fiction.
/Rodney Dangerfield
August 5, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Sampler please!
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I love your Halloween costume, that’s some funny shit right there.
August 5, 2011 at 4:30 pm
hell yeah!
August 5, 2011 at 4:30 pm
You know, if lightning strikes and they do get Time or the NYT interested, they should at least pay you to let them run this entire piece as a sidebar.
August 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Oh, they won’t. (Get Time or the NYT interested, I mean.)
I would imagine that their “media connections” are something along the line of “my BFF’s ex-housemate totally writes capsule movie reviews for the Green People’s Weekly”.
August 5, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Along the sidelines of the magnificent fiery ball of destruction visible from space that was the discussion of fauxbo weddings, I noticed some sociologists pricking up in interest.
There might one day be a scholarly paper or two on the factors that contributed to this perfect storm of internet fuckery. I’d like to read them.
Of the many neologisms coined during the event, I predict fauxbo will persist.
August 5, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Time Magazine already beat them to it:
August 5, 2011 at 4:31 pm
An excellent post. I know from the forums there are a few people (myself included) who have been involuntarily wrangled into butthurt Internet drama that, for better or worse, we just can’t dig ourselves out of. As soon as someone has it in their mind that the stranger on the Internet is an ass, they will do everything they can to prove that to themselves and others. Context doesn’t matter because context is personal, same as the butthurt. Even if you can prove the people going on the offensive did something illegal or genuinely harmful, it’s not going to change anything. You’re still the asshole to them and everything they do is justified because you started it without even knowing you started anything.
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Maybe the best idea then is not to react at all? What else can someone do? (This isn’t ironic I’m actually wondering about this!)
August 5, 2011 at 4:48 pm
If you don’t acknowledge it, some people are crazy enough to escalate it until you have to acknowledge it.
There’s no winning in the butthurt Internet controversies. The butthurtee tends to embarrass himself and the accidental butthurter is treated like shit.
August 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Yeah, I’ve attempted ignoring butthurt and have had people crazy enough to track me down outside the original forum.
August 5, 2011 at 5:56 pm
That’s a fact, Jack.
August 9, 2011 at 9:40 am
Yep, like Zoraboo I’ve been targeted IRL by a crazy person after unwittingly getting sucked into their craziness. That said, it’s a pretty unusual reaction so I tend to think “ignore” is the safest and healthiest response.
August 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm
…but when you dont react or counter it is assumed the accusation are accurate
August 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm
rj, I already thumbed you up but that isn’t enough. I just wanted to add something like whoooooooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa WHAT HE SAID!!!
plus some whistles and bells and a cartwheel.
August 5, 2011 at 6:59 pm
But you will notice that for all the mud being slung at April, the pot-shots Regretsians took at the wedding party’s personal appearance were deleted. I am a member of forums where “anything goes” except failure to kiss the ass of the moderators.
August 5, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I for one am not bored of idiots dressed like Huckleberry Finn. I hope it never goes away!!!
August 5, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Class isn’t in what you say, it’s in what you do.
And you’re acting like a pretty classy broad, AW. Keep making me spew coffee at my monitor, you foul mouthed twat!
August 5, 2011 at 4:33 pm
This is quite possibly the best and most fantastic thing I’ve read here. Bravo. For real, no sarcasm.
Although I feel naked posting a comment here without sarcasm. Maybe I’ll add just a little, but only in the postscript.
PS. Butthurt.
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
The important thing is that you tried.
P.S. Vulva
August 5, 2011 at 5:09 pm
P.S. Goatse
August 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
P.S. Eat Kale
P.P.S. Menses
August 5, 2011 at 5:23 pm
P.S. Felted vampire fetuses
August 5, 2011 at 6:52 pm
P.S.
August 5, 2011 at 7:49 pm
P.P.S: Who doesn’t?
August 5, 2011 at 8:19 pm
P.P.S. stop threatening my sacred wombynhood
August 5, 2011 at 7:45 pm
P.S. Viking Yogurt Rodeo
August 5, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Even after googling, I still had to make an educated guess about what it is.
August 6, 2011 at 8:02 am
Really? After Googling it, I’m even more confused. I think I understand how the horned helmet is used, but what are you supposed to do with the fruit at the bottom of the yogurt cup?
August 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Seconded.
PS. Okra is dope
August 5, 2011 at 10:04 pm
this thread (#8) has me crying right now… I think menses is what put me over the edge
August 5, 2011 at 4:33 pm
I don’t usually read the long post, but this one was some good shit.
August 5, 2011 at 5:09 pm
TL;DR: April Winchell has a soul; still fiercely badass.
August 5, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Sampler please!
August 7, 2011 at 9:22 am
August 7, 2011 at 9:25 am
I have this as a magnet.
August 5, 2011 at 4:34 pm
You made fun of my disabled spouse’s disability under the guise of helping us raise money for our daughter.
Oh, wait… I laughed at that. So did he. I think he may have even said something post-worthy, but I don’t care enough to go look it up.
I’m stunned that this hobo thing has been such a big deal. You never can tell what people will bunch their grundies about anymore.
No matter what happens in this big old crazy world of the Internet, you have a forever-supporter in me. FOREVER. Even that restraining order won’t keep me away. I CAN’T QUIT YOU, REGRETSY LADY!
August 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Ditto about the “fan forever” thing. Until you make fun of my homo-hobo wedding…Even then.
August 5, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Homobo is a bold and valid style!
August 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm
How Hobo-erotic! (Hi there, first time poster, long time lurker and I’ve been dying to post that somewhere ever since I first read about this wedding.)
August 5, 2011 at 6:56 pm
OMG! I see that I will have some copyright infringement duties to do this weekend. Hobo-erotic. I wonder if I can sell that for $5.00? Believe me when I say, I am going to be working on it!!
August 5, 2011 at 7:14 pm
GREAT screen name!
August 5, 2011 at 8:59 pm
We can pair it up with Whiskeypunk.
August 6, 2011 at 1:36 am
Oi, I perfected whiskeypunk.
August 5, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I third the forever-fandom. I feel like the people that flounce were never dedicated in the first place. You’re doing amazing things here, HK, and don’t let anyone let you feel like the actions that you are taking in your life are not the appropriate ones. Everyone is out to live for themselves, and all you can do is what you feel you are supposed to be doing. There are no bad decisions, only actions that move us towards where and who we are supposed to be in this crazy, fucked-up, butthurt world.
August 5, 2011 at 8:13 pm
OMG! “Bunch their grundies” is my new favorite phrase!
August 6, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Screw those faux hobo idiots for not respecting other’s freedom of thought. The thing wasn’t cute, it was tacky. If they didn’t want people pissing on their love, they shouldn’t have allowed an Etsy feature.
August 5, 2011 at 4:34 pm
I’ve been learning to just walk away from things on the internet.
The physical distance between me and my computer really helps. At least until I walk back to check my email.
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
The Internet has a short memory span. Yeah, stuff get immortalized forever, but no one will remember it in a day or so, unless you make a federal case out of it. If something is pissing you off, just walk away. There is an entire world outside the internet.
Plus, there is also this:
and this:
http://xkcd.com/386/
Wise words to live by.
August 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm
I also like “Never mud wrestle with a pig. You both end up dirty, and the pig has all the fun.”
August 6, 2011 at 1:10 am
I don’t know about that; wrestling with a pig sounds like a lot of fun actually.
August 6, 2011 at 1:53 am
No way. Pigs are scary animals.
August 6, 2011 at 2:28 am
And extremely smelly.
August 6, 2011 at 8:07 am
Personally I like “Never try to teach a pig to sing – it wastes your time and annoys the pig”.
August 10, 2011 at 1:59 pm
pigs aren’t smelly, actually. they have no body oils. hence, no smell at all. they’re only smelly if they roll around in their own filth. (i know this because i have a pet pig who lives in my house.)
but, they do have very pointy hooves that would hurt like a sommabitch if you wrestled with them!
August 5, 2011 at 4:52 pm
It’s amazing how being around Regretsy has helped me get better at walking away, because I know what I’ll look like if I don’t…
August 5, 2011 at 5:03 pm
That first image is insulting for several reasons, most of all its laziness. Not worth reposting ever, anywhere, really. The second image is fantastic. xkcd is a wealth of wisdom.
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Agreed. Also, the first image is a very poor analogy. You don’t get participation ribbons and hugs for arguing on the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Someone needs to make Internet Argument Participant Ribbons immediately.
August 5, 2011 at 8:04 pm
@gotchan
Also you get a sense of pride and accomplishment because you did something.
August 6, 2011 at 1:58 am
I have to say using “retarded” as an insult really grates with me. I even have an eye-twitch whenever I see “craftard” used on this site. Why is that OK? Maybe you don’t mean it to hurt, but like HK said, *your* context doesn’t always matter.
I don’t feel like making a big post about why I dislike this, but will expand if anyone really wants me to.
August 5, 2011 at 6:35 pm
My husband has been quoting this to me for days, ever since the faux-bo flap started.
August 5, 2011 at 8:19 pm
I have the someone is wrong on the the internet pic saved for purposes such as these
August 6, 2011 at 9:45 pm
People who aren’t funny resort to using people with special needs to make jokes. This makes my skin crawl. I totally get that this is free speech, yada, yada, yada, but it isn’t funny. Grow up. Pick on someone who has the ability to stand up for themselves.
August 9, 2011 at 10:01 pm
I don’t remember where I heard/read it, but the phrase “You are not the jerk whisperer” spoke to me. Now I just leave it alone. Unless I’m drunk. So, like 50% of the time. Better than nothing, I suppose.
August 5, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Word, Lady.
August 5, 2011 at 4:34 pm
You know what else is subjective? Morality. And fuck Uncle Creepy for having the temerity to claim that someone else is “faux moral.”
August 5, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I guess he just doesn’t know YOUR CONTEXT
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I guess he doesn’t care about anyones but his own… Until it’s time for them to care about his.
August 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Wait, is this the same Uncle Creepy who has a song that talks about molesting a young girl? Huh…I suppose that’s subjective too.
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
But he’s playing a character! You have to see it in context! See, that guy’s an uncle who’s singing to his niece, and in real life he’s… an uncle… who sings…
… shit.
August 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm
To be fair, he seemed to be trying to do a first-person song like Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy,” but Eddie Vedder writes in a powerful, poetic style. If he wrote mundane lyrics like “I kicked Jeremy’s ass in class today” he’d be seen as a creep too. It’s not only context that’s important, but frickin’ SKILL at taking on subject matter like that.
August 5, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I feel like I didn’t really properly say what I wanted to, which is that it’s always weird when someone demands that their particular context be acknowledged, even as they willfully refuse to recognize that the people they are demanding butthurt-soothing from have their own, equally valid angle. Neither he nor anyone else has the privilege or responsibility of being the arbiter of someone else’s moral outrage… but don’t tell him that. He’s been on the RADIO, GUYS.
It’s like a joke my boyfriend and I have between each other- “Well, before, it just hurt your feelings. But now you hurt my feelings, so you have to stop.”
August 5, 2011 at 8:09 pm
I love how he thinks we all have to listen to him because his band had a song on the radio.
I’m pretty sure HK’s been on the radio once or twice… or had a show./sarcasm And was Miss Finster.
WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE YOU.
August 5, 2011 at 9:14 pm
To be fair, he wasn’t the one who said that. It was some person who thinks that attaining some level of celebrity makes you immune from criticism.
August 5, 2011 at 9:59 pm
As does a rockin’ pair of fine ass-shoes.
August 5, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Is it only songs on the radio that make you immune to criticism, or am I perfect because of the series of radio spots I did for a local double-wide trailer dealership?
August 6, 2011 at 2:33 am
I feel like I should take pictures of a couple pairs of really fine-ass shoes I have. I doubt hers are as fine-ass. I mean, these are ’40s retro fine-ass.
But other people may not understand my context, growing up as a kid with narrow feet who could only wear the ugly brown lace-up shoes.
August 5, 2011 at 8:09 pm
it’s always weird when someone demands that their particular context be acknowledged, even as they willfully refuse to recognize that the people they are demanding butthurt-soothing from have their own, equally valid angle.
Repeated for truth.
August 5, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Yeah, I love how indignant he is while simultaneously having called every user on this website a cretin and faux-moral among other things. I’m sorry, you’re mad about strangers on the internet insulting strangers on the internet while you insult strangers on the internet? Yo, dawg….
August 5, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Speak freely and carry a big, upcycled fairy wand. Just don’t quote me out of context.
August 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm
August 5, 2011 at 4:35 pm
The only thing I’ve learned from all this is that HK’s father was Paul Winchell. That is so fucking cool.
August 5, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Right?! Why didn’t we know about this sooner?
August 5, 2011 at 6:12 pm
I’ve known it since I found out her name was April Winchell. I grew up watching her father on TV (April and I are about the same age). My brother and I shared a room for a while and he had a Jerry Mahoney dummy (one of Paul Winchell’s ventriloquist dummies). I can’t tell you how many nightmares that thing gave me, can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night to see a creepy dummy staring at you from across the room?
I sometimes wonder if April ever had the same problem.
August 5, 2011 at 7:20 pm
When I found out her name was April Winchell and that she was a voice-over artist, I thought, “Hm, what are the odds?” Turned out they were pretty good.
I think the three of us are about the same age and I had SUCH a crush on her dad when I was a little girl! I don’t remember thinking I wanted him to be my dad, per se, but I always felt so happy and part of a big happy group when I watched his show.
August 5, 2011 at 9:10 pm
I remember him in so many things, but the one role, and I know this is a bit goofy, since he did so many other memorable roles and I was around for his Jerry Mahoney days, but the one that always comes to mind is the discussed in the comments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XYwH1gqT3w
August 5, 2011 at 7:04 pm
I found out a few days ago that April was the voice of Baby Herman’s mother on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I peed my pants a little when I found that out.
August 5, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Oh good, I’m not the only one who piddled myself with that knowledge.
August 5, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Shut the fuck up. That is amazing. I love that movie.
August 6, 2011 at 1:05 am
I was going to say that. EXACTLY that!
August 6, 2011 at 5:06 am
Ouh comon, I peed my pants today, when I found out that she was BIANCA BEAKSLEY on DARKFRIKKINGWING DUCK!!! I had that pleasant warm feeling while a squealed… Then I went and changed my undies and cleaned my sofa from my pee and cum. (I started to laugh when Ir ealised, Bianca Beaksley even resembles her a bit… If she ahd long hair that is…. XD )
August 5, 2011 at 7:29 pm
The only thing I got from this is that ED users have etsy accounts.
August 9, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Every time I see ED referenced I think of erectile dysfunction. And then I remember those commercials that Bob Dole did. I’m prone to tangential thinking when I’m drinking. And when I’m not.
August 5, 2011 at 7:37 pm
I’m embarrassed I didn’t make the connection before. My kids watch Disney movies all the time.
April, I’m really impressed by your strength of will and character.
(And a little floored by the sheer VENOM in that Encyclopedia Dramatica entry. Just…wow.)
August 5, 2011 at 8:57 pm
That’s kind of how ED goes. I’m pretty sure even their own article about THEMSELVES is as venomous.
August 5, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Can’t ED be treated? Viagra, anyone?
August 5, 2011 at 9:15 pm
I’ve known several people with ED pages. In their case, the nastiest stuff is the part they wrote themselves.
August 6, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Oh the whole point of ED is venom, pretty much.
August 5, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Hell yea! How many of these butthurt jerks can say their family amounted to something?
August 5, 2011 at 11:31 pm
It is cool, huh?
I have this little Disney obsession, that I blame on having grown up 30 minutes away from Disney World, back when they used to let Florida residents in for free during the off-season. (We went ALL the TIME.) So, yeah, Disney is pretty much inextricably part of my brain, and I know the names of a large number of voice actors, imagineers, and animators. I loved Paul’s work. He’s up there with Thurl Ravenscroft in my list of favorite voices.
August 5, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Eloquent and heart felt!
I love that Halloween costume pair, though. Reminds me of Jenna and her bf Paul dressing up as a pair of Black Swans. If you would have sang “I Got You Babe” together, that would have melted my cold, fat, jealous, loser heart.
August 5, 2011 at 4:53 pm
or alternatively, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. best duet song ever.
August 5, 2011 at 11:48 pm
I love it too. But since I’m straight I sent the link to my gay sister. She thought it was awesome too and gave it a chuckle. So it’s not necessarily an “offensive to gay community” costume, just “offensive to crybabies”. Which is pretty much par for the course for everything.
August 5, 2011 at 4:36 pm
In your defense, Encyclopedia Dramatica only has about zero funny pages.
August 5, 2011 at 4:37 pm
They seem to have taken out the part that said, “She had cancer, but unfortunately she survived.” Which is a shame.
August 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
As much as it stings to see things like that about you, it’s best not to pay attention to ED; they insult basically everyone and their wiki pages often get vandalized by people who are big into grudgewank anyway.
August 5, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Oh, I just realized that ED is for “Encyclopedia Dramatica”. I thought they were referring to Erectile Dysfunction. Same thing? Or am I just ig-er-nant?
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
There’s medicine available for Erectile Dysfunction. Encylopedia Dramatica is incurable.
August 5, 2011 at 5:38 pm
that’s ok, I actually thought ED was another name for the groom’s Uncle.
August 5, 2011 at 4:50 pm
That whole page made me cringe. It wasn’t funny at all, and was just plain mean. I would have felt the same way even if I didn’t read Regretsy and love you.
August 5, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Yes it’s mean and stupid, but I did LOL at “April also never invented anything and only has a mediocre grasp of how to use a glue gun properly.”
Inventing things and proper use of a glue gun truly is the mark superior human achievement. If there’s one thing Regretsy has taught me, it’s that.
Who needs Regretsy when there’s crap that needs gluing (properly) to other crap?
August 5, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Yes it’s mean and stupid, but I did LOL at “April also never invented anything and only has a mediocre grasp of how to use a glue gun properly.”
That actually sounds like something April would say herself.
August 5, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I don’t see how disagreeing with someone’s choice of a wedding theme is worthy of threats. This whole situation is ridiculous.
August 5, 2011 at 7:09 pm
I thought that was just cruel as opposed to being at all insightful or funny. Talk about low hanging fruit.
August 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm
What a bunch of fuckwits. When you are displaying the same amount of class as Vincent Gallo did in his back-and-forth with Roger Ebert over “The Brown Bunny”, you are failing at life. ED fails at snark because have all of the mean, none of the funny.
August 5, 2011 at 6:52 pm
…even with the Cancer HK found the humor and made glow-in-the-dark wristbands so we could “glow” along with her during treAtment. I treasure this wristband and the courage to laugh in the face of adversity!!!
August 5, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Damn…that’s ugly.
.
.
.
*saves that one for later…*
August 5, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Okay, so I looked up your cancer. Turns out, Mrs. ‘Sock was recently diagnosed with the same cancer; we are gearing up for the same treatment you endured, and she’s making jokes about glowing and stuff, sort of like you did with the wristbands. But for the rectal belches at Encyclopedia Dramatica to actually say “She had cancer, but unfortunately she survived”…Wow. Just, Wow. DarkSock finds that offensive, which is sort of like a porn shop jizz-mop finding something stinky. They should be made to eat used truck stop glory-hole doilies.
.
I am a pure and kind soul that wishes the best to all. But those screeching mudhorns need to fall into a raging tire fire.
.
And their moms fellate mailboxes.
August 5, 2011 at 8:36 pm
All the best to the Missus; my own husband is 3 years cancer-free this summer. (Had a testicle removed, but still has more balls than those ED folks.)
August 5, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Mrs. Sock’s sense of humor will be a valuable weapon in her fight with cancer. That sounds like some trite crap, but it’s really the truth. I’ve known an unfortunately large number of cancer patients, and the ones who laugh the loudest tolerate the treatments the best. Keep laughing, both of you. I wish you all the best.
August 6, 2011 at 12:17 am
Speaking of xkcd brought this to mind:
http://xkcd.com/933/
Until now, I didn’t recognize Helen without the flip-flop/mustache combo.
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
ED’s also pretty much defunct at this point…
August 5, 2011 at 5:10 pm
I feel like this is entirely due to the amount of butthurt people got over some of the articles, though. I read ED for a long time (generally as a way to brush up on my internet culture without lurking on /b/ for hours), and I noticed that it went seriously downhill after the site managers flounced. Now that it’s “back,” it’s like their whole goal for the site is to be as offensive as possible as a stab at those who no longer wished to run a site like that.
I try to live my life without being offended by anything. It’s impossible to know exactly where someone else is coming from because your morals will never overlap. You have no idea what it’s like to be someone else, and you never will; go with the flow. Keep Calm and Regret Nothing.
August 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm
It’d be nice, but what really happened was the person in charge got offered more money to make it “family friendly.” Someone tried re-opening the old ED on another site, but their hosting was insufficient and they can’t afford a better deal without donations… which are hard to get, because the original site’s “owner” is claiming copyright infringement.
August 5, 2011 at 6:32 pm
I keep reading ED as Erectile Dysfunction and then I figure it can’t be THAT bad a case of ED if it can still cause butthurt.
August 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
This, so much. Honestly, I’m more offended that you would take ED seriously than I am that you actually have a thinking, feeling heart that’s big enough to recognize when you’re wrong underneath your fat, jealous, lonely facade.
August 5, 2011 at 4:51 pm
“new fag” is actually one of the milder terms they use.
I’d advise avoiding any page that concerns black people or Jews.
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
It’s one word, newfag. -fag is a suffix that you add on to any group that the group doesn’t respect. Summerfags, Hetaliafags, KHfags, fucking fags… It’s a catch-all term!
(And for talking about 4chan off of 4chan, I richly deserve the thumbs-down I’ll most likely get.)
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
And don’t EVER click on the word “offended.”
August 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm
I’m gay and just turned 35. I’d kill to be considered a new fag again.
August 5, 2011 at 6:39 pm
You’re new to me, Getoffmylawn.
August 5, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Getoffmylawn: Happy birthday, and AWESOME NICK!
August 6, 2011 at 1:22 am
I am so fucking offended that anyone would consider 35 “old.”
August 5, 2011 at 9:17 pm
It’s virtually impossible to be funny when you have such strong negative feelings towards what you’re making fun of.
That and sticking “fuck” and “dick” in every single sentence doesn’t constitute good humor.
August 5, 2011 at 4:37 pm
The great thing about screencaps is that there’s absolutely no way to fake them. That shit is real.
Look at this embarrassing article about Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek! I bet she’d like to forget this ever happened.
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I love you, Chaz.
August 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm
You two are adorable.
August 5, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Totes ador!
August 5, 2011 at 5:01 pm
That can’t really be her body, by the way. You photoshopped that. Nobody is that beautiful.
August 5, 2011 at 10:44 pm
You’re sort of right, it’s kind of 25% Photoshop’s body technically!
August 6, 2011 at 1:26 am
Oh, it’s all her. She really does have a head the size of a Mardi Gras float.
August 5, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Screencapped.
August 5, 2011 at 5:16 pm
WTF your avatar is phony?!
August 5, 2011 at 5:37 pm
It is. I look like Clint Howard in real life.
August 5, 2011 at 5:59 pm
HAWT!!
August 5, 2011 at 10:11 pm
You look like Balok? That’s kinda awesome.
August 6, 2011 at 10:43 am
“Corbomite Maneuver” references get me right *here.*
August 5, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Alright, fine, I’ll name Bronc and Salma’s first kid: Mustang Diamondplate Drywall. I better get invited to the Bris.
August 5, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Diamondplate rules.
August 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm
I love it! I used to know a guy who had every single countertop in his kitchen COVERED in diamond plate. It was the most impratical thing on the planet, but damn it looked cool.
August 6, 2011 at 2:20 am
Diamondplate (or chequerplate as I know it) is pretty impractical in any situation, imo. I used to work on boats, and I always slipped worse on that stuff than on the flat deck. I never understood why they used it.
August 5, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Next will be Colt Stucco Drywall.
August 5, 2011 at 8:27 pm
I was briefly acquainted with someone who named their kids Mustang, Porsche and Destiny (as in Kaisar Destiny – the motorcycle).
Unfortunately, I can’t make fun – before they were married to various people, all four of my aunts and uncles had the same initials (I.E. Bronc Albert Drywall, Betty Alice Drywall, Bob Arnold Drywall….) so that my grandparents could hand down monogrammed clothing, toys, and items.Even worse… the housepets all had the same initial in their first names. Always.
August 5, 2011 at 9:19 pm
I thought President Johnson only had two daughters.
August 5, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Ha! = )
August 6, 2011 at 6:19 pm
My oldest is named Shevanna Rose-we call her Shevy…When I was pregnant with my youngest, we were convinced I was having a boy. We picked a boy’s name, and then about a month before my due date, decided we should choose a girl’s name, just in case.
Battled endlessly about it (NOT naming a baby Mabel-who am I? Paul and Jamie from “Mad About You”?) and finally settled on Corinne Yvette. About a week before she was born, a friend “kindly” pointed out that that made her “Corvette.” Yes, the ex outsmarted me, and no, at a billion weeks pregnant I had zero interest in coming up with a new name. The baby was a girl, and is Corinne Yvette. I “own” a Shevy and a Corvette. lol
Oh, and April and Bronc-keep doing what you do. Haters gonna hate,
August 5, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Why’d you put Salma’s face on April’s body?
August 5, 2011 at 8:05 pm
I tried and lost the battle with Mrs. ‘Sock on giving our 4 kids kick-ass names such as…
- Blake Carbide
- Nick Pig-Iron
- Moon J. Bracket
- Dirk Tungsten
-Isosceles Butt-Action
- Torque MuleBrow
- Foon J. Cracker
.
At least I snuck in “Zakke”, which is of course Ozzy’s guitarist. Zakke will high-five me one day.
.
Unless he rebels and joins the Tea Party.
August 5, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Bronc will love this… my brother’s friend wanted to name his kid Thor, to which his wife said “no way in hell”, so his next suggestion was Logan. She said yes. He didn’t tell her until later that that was Wolverine’s “real” name.
August 6, 2011 at 12:16 am
I knew a kid named Thor in high school. For reals.
He was about 5’2″ and 110 pounds. It was like his parents WANTED him to become a serial killer.
August 6, 2011 at 1:16 pm
…told the relatives my son was going to be named “Thorvald Utar” (because it was no one’s business what he was going to be named.) My side of the family got it. My husband’s side of the family thought we were serious…
We spend holidays with my side of the family.
August 6, 2011 at 1:30 am
My husband and I went through a phase where we wanted to name our first-born either Jack Daniel or Harley Davidson.
Thank Goddess that phase ended long before I actually got pregnant. Our son, Strawberry Yoplait, agrees.
August 6, 2011 at 3:13 am
Try one of these next time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHlJ2voJHY
August 5, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Another badass name for your offspring: Bolt Bigplank (for the fellow MSTies out there).
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Well said.
That last part was the what came to my mind first when this whole fiasco started. If you’re afraid of peoples’ opinions lest they differ from your own, then DON’T POST YOUR PERSONAL LIFE ON
TEH INTERWEBSthe internet. People will like it, and other people will not like it.But it’s still funny.
August 5, 2011 at 5:39 pm
NOW the comment shows up. I posted this forever ago and thought I lost it.
August 5, 2011 at 6:31 pm
To be fair, it takes a little while for Bronc to edit.
August 5, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Especially when Selma keeps sexting him every two minutes and IM’g him in between! He’s such a gentleman that he can’t ignore her.
August 5, 2011 at 7:28 pm
SALMA not Selma. I had read “Diamondplate” and somehow had Selma Diamond on my mind. Now if SHE were cyberstalking Bronc, that would be scary, ’cause she’s been dead for 26 years and there was no internet at that point, but then maybe she’s come back from the dead and it’s a ghost-in-the-machine thing and I’m very tired. I’ll go away now. Good night, April and Bronc! Good night, Salma! And good night, Selma!
August 5, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Apparently Selma Diamond was a bit of a looked back in the day.
August 5, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Ugh… LOOKER. I originally typed “sorry about the tiny image,” but I hit preview and saw it was not in fact tiny, and I retyped the whole thing and hit “post.”
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Years ago, I was mocked on Awful Site of the Day. I must admit it hurt. What has hurt more is that people have since done what I did to get on there and have made money doing it. But what really hurt most about it was they drove all these people to my website and I had to pay over $300 in server overage charges. And they kept coming and I kept getting charged and I finally had to make the site go away. Not because of the butthurt (though that was part of it) but because it came down to keeping this site or feeding the kid. But I had put what I put out there and that means it can be mocked. Not everyone on the internet is going to be your friend. They are going to do cruel and costly things to you and spend time to figure out how to do it. But we all have to accept that going in. And then we must remember that we also make dear, dear friends on the internet, too. And somehow that balances it all out. Though I’m still pissed about the money.
August 5, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Wow. It’s one thing to be mocked but it’s another thing to actually have to pay money for it.
August 5, 2011 at 6:32 pm
You’d think there would be a way to recoup the losses they caused….
August 6, 2011 at 1:34 am
I’ve experienced something similar. That’s why I now make sure any web host I use simply cuts off access when the bandwidth limit has been reached.
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm
So much truth in this post. I really, really like and respect you, April.
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Very good piece. I think we all can get defensive when we’re called out on the internet, it’s just human nature. If nothing else, I’m taking this message from this whole Flouncemaggedon: In these situations it’s best to just say “I’m sorry if it offended you, that wasn’t my intention. I still wouldn’t change the day, situation, etc., as I had a great time, but will try to keep this in mind in the future.”
Great post, once again. I for one, am glad to see this situation wind down. It was fun while it lasted, but I’m burnt out.
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
warmouth90, that only works if the butthurt-ee is a logical person. I speak from experience. It can just enrage them more. Remember, you’re the ass who started it. They can think your apology is fake and doctored to create sympathy.
The only way to stop it is to act like it doesn’t exist, even when other people point out “hey, did you see what these people are saying about you over at this site?” To quote The Simpsons, “Just don’t look, just don’t look.”
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
True, I should amend that to add in: “And then just drop the subject because people get bored on the internet and eventually wander off to watch cat videos.”
August 5, 2011 at 5:26 pm
It’s totally true. I still get caught up in crazy Internet shenanigans from time to time, because I’m an angry person with few to no outlets for it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Regretsy it’s to not get so tied up in things. I’m still ashamed that I was one of the Mammygate rabble rousers but I learned damn well from that to think before you post once someone’s gone apeshit. This faux-bo thing had some real justified criticism, but a lot of it escalated to lunatic heights on both their side, and on the side of some of the criticisers. Comments went from being critical of the idea and sheer ignorance of it to unwarranted personal attacks, which doesn’t help things at all.
Thanks for posting, April. It kind of sucks to be sobered, cause you realise that you’ve unwittingly made yourself out to be an asshole, but it is also great to learn from it.
TL;DR version: Learn from the internet, young grasshopper.
August 5, 2011 at 6:58 pm
The actual, honest-to-Jebus shame of it all is that they let this get to them, and they’ll remember that when they think about their wedding, probably forever.
I had a stupid internet argument with someone about 10 years ago over a song, and I still remember how I was SO ANGRY when I hear the damn thing.
Twice a Regretsy post really pissed me off, so I didn’t come here for a few days after. If I had looked at the comments and joined in, I probably would have flounced months ago.
The moral of the story is: how does future you want to remember this?
August 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
One of the greatest things I have learned in life is to never apologize for your opinions, only the way that you expressed them.
August 6, 2011 at 2:30 am
What if you realise your opinions were wrong, though?
This is all much more complicated than I ever thought.
August 6, 2011 at 5:52 am
Doesn’t matter to the butthurt-ee. You started it and they will finish it. If you apologize, they’ll rip you to shreds if your page doesn’t format right the first time because of a missing closing tag.
August 5, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I was called a “skank” and a “whore” for apologizing I can’t remember saying OFF of the internet. Yeah, people get butthurt from hearsay. So fuck the fauxbos, let them get laughed all the way out of the New York Times.
“Oh yeah, we’ll write an article on a tacky, homeless wedding. Yeah right.”
August 5, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Oh fail, I meant to say I was apologizing for something can’t remember saying of off the internet. LOL.
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm
I don’t know if that’s going to work. I’m pretty sure that neither Time nor NYT have a Butthurt column.
August 5, 2011 at 5:01 pm
They clearly should.
August 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm
That would be the kind of thing that a local newspaper would dish out. When I was a reporter my editor had me write some article about some butthurt parents whose kids didn’t make it into the school’s talent show. Their talent? Sining along with Hilary and Hailey Duff’s cover of “Our Lips Are Sealed.” The kids’ reaction? “Oh well, we were sad at first but we’ll try again next year.”
The parents? “How DARE the school reject our precious little snowflakes! This is the biggest injustice that has ever occurred in the course of human history!”
My editor? Put this piece of bullshit story on the front page. I was humiliated to have my byline on it, as much as I loved front page exposure, but my job was on the line so I said nothing and hoped I wouldn’t be thought of as the person who found that nothing story to be so important.
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
*singing along. Hit the beer early with nothing to eat. Oops.
August 5, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Two girls would be cosining with the song, but I’ve gone off on a tangent.
August 5, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Oh, dear God, as much as I despise math, I think I will forever love you for that comment.
August 5, 2011 at 8:41 pm
mugsy doodle + immediasres:
me too.
{i just hope i put this in the right place}
August 6, 2011 at 1:36 pm
At least if any potential employer in the future saw it, they know that staff writers don’t get to pick their topics and they don’t choose what goes on the front page.
August 5, 2011 at 6:10 pm
yes they do. It’s called “Letters to the Editor”
August 5, 2011 at 9:28 pm
The New York Times Butthurt Column: Complaint Box on the City Room Blog.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/complaint-box-water-wasters/?scp=1&sq=complaint%20box&st=cse
The most recent column sort of fits this discussion. It was written by a man who’s lived in drought-stricken impoverished countries, and he wrote a five-hundred-word essay that got published on the New York Times web site about how offended he is when he sees people at his gym leaving the water running while they shave.
August 5, 2011 at 10:18 pm
How have I never seen this column? Haha, I stand corrected.
August 6, 2011 at 2:36 am
I never know what to think about “wasting water”. I live in a very wet place where there are never water shortages. I’m aware how lucky I am and how many people are desperately short of water; however, my letting the water run makes not a shred of difference one way or the other, as the waste water goes straight back into the water cycle and falls again as part of our very copious rain. Would that I could make it fall in dry places, but I can’t, and scrimping and saving water as a gesture of solidarity seems pointless. It’s not like wasting food.
But then I wonder if I am wrong about that somehow.
August 9, 2011 at 9:58 am
I think it depends on how much you care about the municipality’s cost to treat the water. In most areas, household waste water goes to the same place whether it ran through your sink or the toilet, and it all has to be treated the same way. That obviously costs money. IMO it doesn’t hurt to be conscious of your water use but I wouldn’t beat yourself up about waste. Unless you live in a drought stricken area, in whcih case wasting water makes you a douche.
August 9, 2011 at 6:05 pm
No butthurt here, but not all of us use municipally treated water. So, the only obvious thing is that it might cost money to pump out of the ground – or wait, even that is not obvious if the water is collected in a rainwater cachement system. Great big internet in a great big world. Nothing is “obvious”.
Well, except that a person wasting water in a drought stricken area is a douche.
August 6, 2011 at 2:50 am
A Butthurt column sounds like something The Onion should have.
August 5, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I too have been harangued for causing butthurt on the internet, which makes me wonder if social media is merely to serve as a festering bowl of suffering and angst.
I highly doubt a halloween costume, a joke about a hobo wedding, or whatever butthurt the rest of us caused would create such public outrage had it been done face-to-face with real people. It is rather sad.
I do hope to see you in the New York Times, though. I might actually read it then.
August 5, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Clearly it is. Isn’t that why MySpace was invented? Then when that got wiped out by Zuckerberg’s evil empire, the emo kids and other sad, fragile creatures migrated. Then all kinds of other communities opened up. It’s all just a pattern.
August 5, 2011 at 9:31 pm
It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I was misidentified as someone who thinks that Lady Gaga would be great as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl.”
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/curtain-down-heads-up-readers-cast-funny-girl/
August 5, 2011 at 11:01 pm
When this was first posted I was reminded of some comic (can’t remember who) who had a bit about face-to-face interaction vs. driving. If someone cuts you off while driving there are horns blared and uncouth words shouted and, possibly, birds flown. If someone were to step out in front of you while walking down the sidewalk,they would apologize and say they were sorry and you would say “Oh, no problem, have a good one,” and be on your merry way (granted both parties are being polite).
Cars and the internet make it way easier for everyone to not see a human behind the windshield or monitor.
I made fun of the Uncle’s band in response to someone else saying that he was on the radio so he was an angel or whatever(highly paraphrased). Which wasn’t cool because he didn’t post that himself. And I’m sure my musical taste would turn a lot of people off – I frequently have all-day Metallica binges like I was 15 in 1989 all over again…
Thanks for posting, April.
August 6, 2011 at 6:37 am
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/minor_differences
August 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
i think this was an amazingly mature and well-thought-out post, and it reminds me why I love you.
self-reflection is important, and it’s rare.
thanks for posting this.
August 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
I’m new to commenting on Regretsy, but familiar to butthurt internet-dwellers.
What I’ve learned from everything is that you can’t make EVERYONE happy. No matter what you do, post, or make, SOMEONE will say “That’s not funny, I am offended, blah blah.”
It’s different if you’re pulled in involuntarily. I feel like Regretsians handle the butthurt well. And the costume was funny, people are too politically-correct these days.
Thank the flying spaghetti monster you don’t only look for positive criticism!!!
August 5, 2011 at 5:44 pm
The costume was cute, though I can definitely see why some people would be offended, and for good reason, really. And it’s great that April was able to see how people were upset by it and apologize/try to make amends. That is, unfortunately, where the comparison ends between her and the hobo wedding. There were some legitimate things people found offensive and hurtful, and they were unable to acknowledge it. One odd thing was the sharing the single bean – granted, I wasn’t around back then but I doubt a couple who would have had only that at their wedding would have been super celebratory about it, especially since that era was also marked by considerable pride in trying to not appear as bad off as they were.
Oh well. I’ll stop yammering.
August 5, 2011 at 7:01 pm
If only they had celebrated it as a *cartoon* hobo wedding. Cows playing washboards, et cetera!
August 5, 2011 at 7:27 pm
I would pay money to see that.
And by money, I mean as much as I can grab out of my Monopoly set.
August 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Keeping it real. Long live no censorship although someone always gets (or pretends) to be hurt. Vagina art forever etc.
August 5, 2011 at 5:18 pm
But there was censorship, several posts were removed by Facebook. However, I too thought some comments were very hateful towards the hobo couple.
Hate takes a lot of energy and effort, so best to use it wisely. Why on earth waste this power on silly, uneducated, tasteless people you don’t even know. They’re the ones that entertain us….. There are far more important things to hate, like censorship.
August 5, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Posts were removed from here as well, I believe, that were making attacks on the physical appearance of the couple and friends/family, and so on – basically, when it went beyond the calling out of a flawed concept. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
August 5, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Actually I removed the posts from Facebook. I just thought it was out of hand. The uncle’s friend is telling everyone that Facebook did it. They did not. Facebook doesn’t give a shit.
August 5, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Appreciate the correction! I guess I got confused by the mention in the comments here about … whatever that person’s name was and explaining why some comments may seem to be aimed at a non-existent person.
August 5, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Thanks for clearing that up. Even I had a hard time believing it.
August 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Oh yeah. Google forgives, but that bitch never forgets. Not nearly long enough ago, I went through a very crazy period in my life. Not fun crazy, actual crazy. And part of that crazy was some major butthurt my (ironically, considering what I’m replying to) transgendered partner and I caused in a certain fandom that shall remain nameless (unless I get drunk). It’s still out there, also lovingly memorialized on the Encyclopedia Dramatica, with its own entry on Fandom Wanks greatest hits. I feel for ya. And I know the social justice warriors are especially sensitive in the trans community. Which puts a damper on all my material about my ex (who I sometimes call the transwreck, a portmanteau of “tranny train wreck”)
Fun stuff. Anyway, you put it perfectly. “YOUR context doesn’t matter.” Fucking genius, helps put the people who are still pissed in perspective. Won’t stop me from mocking it for the rest of my life either.
August 5, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Dude! I remember all of that!
Hell, that spawned a book, if it’s the same thing I’m thinking of. I would say that’s a higher class of crazy and butthurt than this too.
Although, if they know someone in the media, it might get just as exciting. Somehow I doubt that.
August 7, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Oh dear, have I been identified? Was it my hairy feet?
August 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm
wow… that was YOU? Hi there!!!
That was some serious waves of butthurt on all sides, if it’s what I think it is.
August 6, 2011 at 12:05 am
Please drink, I’m now achingly curious!
August 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Honestly, you’re my hero.
You’re like the Mary Poppins of the snarky, practically perfect in every way.
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
You know what? For what it’s worth, April, this was a fantastic piece of writing. Very classy.
And, as a gay man, I can tell you I found those costumes to be a fantastic idea. Would people have been offended, I wonder, if you DID do it as drag? Hmmm.
Anyway – keep on keeping on, and I’ll keep reading and commenting (and laughing). You rock.
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Well said.
The last bit of this is the first thing that came to my mind when this whole fiasco started. If you’re afraid of other peoples’ opinions lest they differ from your own, then DON’T post your personal life on the internet. Some people will like it, others will not.
But it’s still funny.
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Good for you April! You have to have a really thick skin to post things for public consumption. It can be a hard lesson for people to learn and many never learn it. Kudos to you for having so much integrity and not being afraid to tell it like it is. I think the people who get so damn outraged need to put things into perspective: its the internet. You don’t know these people and they don’t know you. Why do they matter if you’re happy with yourself?
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Exactly, that’s a good point. The fact that regretsy made fun of their wedding does not retroactively go back in time and ruin their day. The wedding was beautiful and everyone there loved it, so who cares?
August 5, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Honestly, if you’re going for memorable, isn’t this one hell of a memory? I’d be *thrilled* if my wedding generated this much attention!
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
I just want to say this post shows a lot of chutzpah. (At least I can pronounce the word.)
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
You can’t spell “Chutzpah” without “Chaz”…
August 5, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Pffft.
The internet is the worlds biggest sandbox.
These hobo people need to lighten the fuck up.
August 5, 2011 at 5:35 pm
You mean it’s full of the most flouncecat poop? That the most people ever have pissed in it? That you can find drugs buried there quite easily?
August 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Is it wrong that I kinda hulked out when I read this? I got really mad that someone would want to hurt April >: | I’ve been in that position – on our forums even – and it really never stops hurting. You say a couple words wrong and the world falls on your face.
It’s not that bad though – the internet is the internet and as long as it stays that way, we’ll all be fine!
August 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm
If anyone can deal with it, it’s April!
August 5, 2011 at 4:53 pm
But should anyone have to deal with it?
August 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm
I…don’t know o_O;
August 5, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 6:09 pm
It sucks, but so does anything that “builds character.”
August 5, 2011 at 6:14 pm
@username123, do not paint with a broad brush.
August 5, 2011 at 6:36 pm
@username 123
I can’t speak for everyone here, but I know whenever I disagree with someone it isn’t a personal attack.
August 5, 2011 at 7:37 pm
We disagreed with an idea they had and followed through with. We were not insulting the people specifically, just their lack of sensitivity toward poor people.
August 5, 2011 at 7:50 pm
When I said this community, I should have said OUR community. I, too, know that when I personally disagree with something, it isn’t a personal attack and I believe that about most people here. I did, however, see some people that did not follow that, and wanted to point it out. Calling someone a racist cartoonist with no talent that is probably retarded because you don’t like the theme of their wedding is insensitive doesn’t make sense to me.
And either does claiming to back up April no matter what she does in the future (she could colonize Mars with baby Hitlers with nukes or something equally as unlikely). Because that is when the internet warz start. My face is waiting for the world, and I’m okay with that/
August 5, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I believe they were calling him a racist cartoonist with no talent because he comes across as a racist cartoonist with no talent on Tweeter and in his comics. Those things came after he had already attacked April personally and not just because of her blog.
August 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
I scanned my wiener in 1995. I e-mailed it to my friends. One shopped a cowboy hat onto it and some beautiful hair. I’m not sure what this has to do with anything, but there was mention of pictures, or something, and I’m easily distracted. Every once in a while someone will e-mail it to me, though. Memories.
August 5, 2011 at 4:59 pm
You should totally share that photo with us.
August 5, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Would the image of your wiener fit on paper that was letter size or legal?
August 5, 2011 at 6:16 pm
You’re assuming it won’t be a closely cropped pic to give the illusion of gigantitude.
August 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm
I’m not picky. Wiener is wiener.
August 5, 2011 at 8:21 pm
I was a pioneer in this field; I successfully mimeographed my wiener in 1978.
I pee through a tube now.
August 5, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Oh my cod, I laughed so hard that my sides hurt and I may or may not have peed a little in my undies.
Thank you DarkSock, thank you ♥
August 5, 2011 at 8:49 pm
One of my friends was fired from an English conversation school we were both teaching in in Japan. With the help of his girlfriend, the secretary, he snuck back in after hours and xeroxed his bare, hairy gaijin butt, made a bunch of copies and stashed them *everywhere* in the school: in filing cabinets, behind posters on the walls (so they’d fall out when the posters were periodically changed), under the evil racist American-hating boss’s desk blotter… it was the gift that kept on giving. Not everyone can moon someone in absentia for years!
August 9, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Jay, is that you? Oh, wait, that was a samurai outfit, not a cowboy hat. Never mind.
August 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Thanks for posting this. I know you’d rather be done with the whole thing, but, clearly, the Faux-bos are A Very Special Episode of Regretsy for a lot of people, me included. I’m not tired of it yet!
Don’t worry about apparent contradictions. You are large; you contain multitudes.
August 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
For some reason, my comment’s not posting?
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I appreciate this. I’ve been online for about nine years now, and one thing that I’ve noticed repeatedly over the years is the way people can easily fall into the trap of assuming that their little corner of the internet is (a) typical, and (b) invite-only.
The first one gets you when you wander onto another site that has a different culture and a different set of social rules; the second when you are suddenly confronted with the realization that the naked dance you were doing in the privacy of your own home was also being performed in front of a large plate-glass window that opens onto a really busy street.
August 6, 2011 at 2:45 am
Was that metaphor, or painful experience?
August 6, 2011 at 9:16 am
I know what answer would get more thumbs…
August 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm
In the case of the faux-bo crowd, I think that not only did they forget both (in assuming that Etsy-cupcake praise is the only legitimate way to respond, and in assuming that only Etsy-cupcakes would see it), but they then went one step further into the doomed-to-failure zone: getting angry that the internet isn’t identical to their familiar safe zone, and demanding it comply.
August 5, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Yeah, it really doesn’t help when Etsy encourages everything to be happy-fluffy-bunny-vanilla-cream in the first place… I think the only reason most of the negative comments got through was that they came too fast to be deleted, and once enough of them were up there, they couldn’t've gotten rid of them without looking very… 1984, I guess?
Etsy: Willing to take your money, if you leave your opinions at the door.
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
At least you and Bronc were man (er… woman?) enough to admit your human frailty. Would the faux-bo folks do the same? Truly classy people admit their mistakes, so I guess that makes you in a class by itself!
August 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm
I agree. It takes class to understand when/why you’ve offended someone and to make a truly genuine apology.
Had this couple done the same, it would most likely not have gotten so out of hand. I can only speak for myself, but for me, it wasn’t so much the aesthetic of the wedding itself. It was more the cutesy, overly romanticized spin they put on the whole thing, then their total lack of understanding as to why not everyone would love it. Or good heavens, be so bold as to be outright offended.
August 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm
this is totally unrelated but when i read “totally serious” i kinda wish it was “super serial”. common guys im super serial!
August 5, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Haha XD I do that too…I never say serious anymore, I always say “serial”
August 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Nicely said and nicely done! I appreciate your work.
August 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
btw, I was recently quoted in the NY times and they got two things in the interview wrong! I did not say I was part of the Rivington School, and the artwork they posted of mine did not pertain to the time period mentioned in the article. Be sure to speak SLOOOWLY and CLEARLY to those people if you accept an interview!
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/end-of-a-bar-and-its-surprisingly-artistic-life/
August 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Remember, if you’re arguing on the internet, you’ve already lost.
http://xkcd.com/386/
August 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
I wonder what news outlet they think gives a wet fart about their internet butthurt.
August 5, 2011 at 4:50 pm
The New York Times. They honestly think they’re going to get a story out of this.
Fingers crossed!
August 5, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Oh goody I can’t wait =D
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Good lord, people, stop digging.
August 5, 2011 at 5:19 pm
No need to dig when the shit is being dumped on top.
August 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm
I meant the FauxBo people. For people who are complaining about negative attention, they’re certainly expending a lot of energy soliciting more.
August 5, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Ah, well, perhaps there is nothing more in their lives. You know, the after-wedding crash.
This must have been quite the perk me up!
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
So what you’re saying is they still haven’t learned their lesson? They want to publicize their stupidity even more?
August 5, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Yes, HK’s in trouble now, because THEY’RE GOING TO THE NEWSPAPERS! STOP THE PRESSES!!! We need a new layout for BUTTHURT ON PAGE ONE!
…you know, I’m beginning to wonder if these people really DO think it’s 1935.
August 5, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Could you imagine the fuckery that would happen? The letters to the editor alone would be epic.
August 5, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Given some of the shit I’ve seen in the NYT, like hard-hitting exposes of Park Slope mommy bullies, and how it’s just not done for upper-middle-class women to get divorced, I wouldn’t be surprised if it does show up somewhere over there. Stories about being mean to people who MAKE THINGS! WITH THEIR VERY OWN HANDS! OR BUY THINGS OTHER PEOPLE HAVE MADE WITH THEIR HANDS! would be right up NYT’s alley these days.
August 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
And the article will be shot down as soon as they contact April and find out about the charity shop and how much the Regretsy community does for artists who couldn’t dream of spending $15000 to play po’ folks for an evening.
August 5, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Not enough Portland, OR.
August 5, 2011 at 5:22 pm
The NYT can also go on Etsy and read the comment section under the wedding.
As much as we criticize Etsy, they have left a lot of the comments as they were. Yes, they wrapped it up and I know they removed some of the ones they deemed more harmful. But there are 427 comments still there.
Not all of them peaches and cupcakes.
August 6, 2011 at 12:16 am
You’ve obviously never worked at a shop in Park Slope. “Bullies” is an understatement. They run that place like the mafia.
August 5, 2011 at 5:10 pm
No press is bad press, right? Oh wait, if only the faux-bos felt the same way.
August 6, 2011 at 2:10 am
http://www.amazon.com/April-Winchell/e/B003A58BVC/
Does anyone have a link to the butthurt fauxbos’, or the uncles’, Amazon site? I can’t seem to find it through Amazon’s search feature.
August 5, 2011 at 5:28 pm
That would be fantastic. Think of the hits you will get from everyone that sadly has not seen the site wondering what Regretsy is. They may find some people to rub Preparation H on their butthurt, but I think you would come out the winner in finding at least a few new readers.
August 6, 2011 at 7:54 am
So they want the world to know that they’re clueless enough to think that spending $15k on a wedding where they pretend to be poor shouldn’t be remotely offensive to anyone?
I suspect that they’re just running with “the only bad publicity is no publicity” hoping that even promoting their ignorance and asshattery will promote their respective businesses.
August 9, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Well, they did manage a mention in The Guardian website. The point there was less about the hypocrisy of spending $15k to “celebrate” a “hobo” wedding & more about how the wedding industrial complex (love that phrase!) suckers people into spending waaay too much money.
August 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
And I could never be brave enough to do what you do. I get my feelers hurt when I list something on eBay and it doesn’t sell. (…Can’t they see how really cool it is? Why don’t they see what I see in this old dish? How could they NOT like it? Where did I go wrong?…)
August 5, 2011 at 5:48 pm
haha, that’s ME when I get a red thumb! I am almost ready to call the suicide hotline.
(hey, now stop it! don’t do it!)
August 5, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I admit, I live for the validation of green thumbs
But that’s because my life is pretty pathetic in the first place with not much going for it*.
*Lots going for it, but still, approval issues.
August 5, 2011 at 10:58 pm
August 6, 2011 at 1:58 am
stick it on etsy.
say you were having a picnic w/ a sweet hobo who just ambled by yr humble hut. note that you were dining on yr upcycled earth table, made from dried mushrooms &, yes, barn wood when a teeny wae fae fox wandered along w/ his friends owl & otter. {make sure none of the animals would really have anything much to do w/ each other. make sure theyre all cute. definitely include owl.}
charge $200.
{i’m tired, i’m sure you can do better. but it’s a start.}
August 5, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Despite things taking a turn for the worse sometimes, you’re always strong enough to keep taking the shit from hate mail, flouncers and threats head on.
You’re always willing to give us all a big laugh every day, and to continue the awesome things you do after the worst, it proves what an amazing person you really are, April, and it’s not just because you keep the site going. It’s cause you also stand your ground and make sure to look at both sides of things, like you are in this post right here.
Your actions of being a super cool person in so many ways besides the Regretsy site is what makes you a hero to me.
Also; fuck ED.
August 5, 2011 at 4:49 pm
By the way, “write me a check for several thousand dollars or I’ll continue talking shit about you on SF Livejournal” is basically the lamest threat in the world.
August 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm
There is no moral pain that a check for several thousand dollars can not – if not heal – at least soothe a little.
August 5, 2011 at 5:08 pm
I would like a check for the pain caused by the actual goatse picture I looked at. I will never be able to look at my mother-in-law the same again.
August 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm
I could retire if I could get a few thousand dollars from everyone that’s ever called me a soul-sucking bitch. Or similar pet name.
August 5, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Not if it is said with pinky-to-mouth, followed by evil guffawing.
August 5, 2011 at 4:49 pm
And this, besides the April’s Army posts, is what I will now point to when someone whines about how Regretsy is just a bunch of fat, jealous loser meanie-bo-beenies; a beautifully articulate, honest, and open post where you show that you may be only human in the case of sometimes making choices not everyone is comfortable with, then becoming defensive about those choices, and then bring yourself right back up to goddesshood by the genius of the statement “YOUR context doesn’t matter”-a statement that, I think, we now need on a sampler. Well played, madame, well played indeed.
August 5, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
That’s kind of the OPPOSITE of what I just wrote.
August 5, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Yes, I also dislike “retarded” as a casual insult. It’s more insulting to the actual retarded people than to the target of the insult: XYZLoser is a retard!” No. Nope. People with severe learning disabilities are (in general) making honest mistakes with the thinking powers they’ve got. XYZLoser is (in general) being awful on purpose or out of carelessness or laziness. You know what I mean?
I am not great at being delicate with words, but I choose not to use that word as an insult.
August 5, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Thumbing this up. It’s hard to object to the word “retarded” without coming off as a killjoy, but it and similar terms (especially “retard” as a noun on its own) really bother me.
August 5, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Agreed on both points. I also thought of that article…
August 5, 2011 at 5:40 pm
… and the “intent is not magical” article, which is another good one for things like this. Regardless of good/’funny’ intentions, sometimes things are just plain offensive. We don’t like to be faced with examples of our own privilege, and that’s generally what causes a lot of the butthurt, this wedding fiasco included. The two of them have filled a few Bingo cards with their classist and otherwise ignorant responses to this, when they could have made it all go away and hit all the major points with something like: “Holy shit, we had no idea it would be offensive and we’re really sorry to those we offended. While we had no intention to make light of a very serious tragedy, we realize now that’s how it came off to a lot of people and we apologize for any pain we may have caused. Regardless, it’s our wedding day, and it’s a day that we’d like to remember positively for the rest of our lives. So we respectfully ask for some privacy, & will take the articles down.”
August 6, 2011 at 2:22 am
Everything except the final sentence you wrote might have saved everyone a lot of dramatosis. The wedding couple gave up any right to “ask for some privacy” when THEY made their wedding a public Internet spectacle from the first planning stages.
August 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm
I’ll thumb it up too, if only to point out that “retard” is what 9 year-olds call each other before they graduate up to “faggot.” It’s not so much offensive (to me, anyhow) as it is lazy and unoriginal.
August 5, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Totally agree. Boys use it as a term of endearment amongst themselves, while girls use it to describe every boy they know.
August 5, 2011 at 4:51 pm
For a while I helped run a local music website (a zine, for all intents and purposes) and it’s amazing how vicious people will be over pretty trivial shit. I didn’t like the band you like… quick, start with the death threats! It’s a child’s logic too, to think that it’s fine to insult someone on Twitter but if they’re insulting you, it’s lawsuit time.
Personally, I’d LOVE to see a piece on CNN about the poor couple who only wanted to have their HOBO wedding in peace! I bet that would do a lot for their cause and definitely wouldn’t attract nation-wide ridicule.
August 9, 2011 at 11:46 pm
How about The Daily Show?
August 5, 2011 at 4:53 pm
CF4L, bitches.
August 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Wow… One reason a lot of my stuff is private, and thank you for reminding me to keep it that way.
So, just to get this straight: cross-dressing is offensive to the LGBT community? Because, I know a whole lot of gay men who dress in women’s clothing. And a couple of straight men who also dress in women’s clothing.
I’m confused. And butt-hurt, but that’s because I’ve been sitting on a hard wooden chair for too long.
August 5, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Sorry ’bout your butt.
I’m slightly confused as well about the cross-dressing thing, I don’t think I would have interpreted it as offensive.
August 5, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Perhaps people thought April was being mean-spirited about the costume choice…which shows a lot about THEIR contexts: that they’re moving about in groups of people who would do that costume out of mockery rather than novelty.
August 5, 2011 at 9:25 pm
While April says that “YOUR context doesn’t matter” I would also say that “THEIR context doesn’t matter”. Everything is subjective. Some people live to find offense in everything. They should stay off the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 5:18 pm
I can’t speak for the people who actually were offended by the Bono costumes, but I would imagine the offensive element is the idea of dressing up as/implicitly mocking someone who (as far as I know) is a fairly well-respected public voice of the LGBT movement, particularly as a publically-visible transman. I don’t think cross-dressing has anything to do with it.
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Er, to clarify, since my comment probably didn’t come off properly:
I’m not saying Bronc and April were actually mocking Chaz Bono or that they were in the wrong for going with those costumes. I’m just trying to explain the context in which those who were offended may have taken the costumes.
August 6, 2011 at 2:35 pm
I wonder, too, if some of the offense was caused by depicting a trans person in their pre-transition state.
My understanding is that most trans people have some amount of body dysmorphia and hate that people perceive them as a different sex than they really are; transwoman Calpernia Addams says (I paraphrase) that asking to see a pre-transition pic of a trans person is like asking them, “Can I see a photo of you on the worst day of your life? A photo of you when you felt ugly and horrible and disgusting? I’m just soooo curious!” (Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOjeZnjKlp0)
So dressing as Chastity Bono is arguably like making light of someone who’s depressed and hates their body. It’s sort of like getting made up to look all emaciated and going to a costume party as Karen Carpenter.
I’m not saying that mockery was the intention behind the costumes; just that I can see how they might hit close to home for some people.
August 5, 2011 at 5:44 pm
In general, crossdressing isn’t frowned on by the gay community. At least not anyone I’ve talked to. Trans people, or people who consider themselves sympathetic, tend to be sensitive toward depictions of transsexual/transgenders/nongenders because so much of it IS mean-spirited, ignorant, fearful, and hate-filled. That being said, a lot of them tend to see hate or fear in EVERY depiction by someone who doesn’t identify as trans, which isn’t true. As someone both in the trans community AND Regretsy, I don’t see anything hateful about it. I think it’s a brilliant costume, really.
There are some people who see mocking and hatred in every depiction, not just LGBT. And they’re offended by nearly everything. You have to factor those people in on the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 7:56 pm
That’s ANYTHING. If you have a, oh let’s say, fence post enthusiast. They’ll get offended if someone’s painting little hearts on their fencepost. “It’s a SERIOUS CRAFT! You can’t do that!”
What they’re seeing doesn’t match with their idea of how it should be, and that makes them angry. Want a real life example? Watch a Star Wars enthusiast’s face as another one does a REALLY bad re-enactment and flubs a line.
THEN tell the re-enactment guy his performance was a tad off…
It’s the same expression… “This is MINE! How DARE you sully it!?”
The offense comes from someone seeming to make light, or an embarrassing mockery of something dear to you. And when that something dear is a part of who you are, the anger can be pretty severe.
Also, I AM NOT comparing the GLBT community to Star Wars enthusiasts. All of my gay friends prefer Battlestar Galactica.
August 5, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Exactly. You said it much better than I did. And once one person finds something to be offended about, they go to their fencepost enthusiast friends and present it in the worst light possible and then they all think you’re a fence-o-phobic or making fun of fence post enthusiasts.
You have to assume when you put something on the internet that someone is going to be upset about it, because someone probably will. It’s an issue of whether you apologize and fix it, ignore it, or split the difference and make a cursory apology and ignore it otherwise. The fun of an internet lynch mob is when you’re completely wrong and adamantly defend yourself, so that’s rarely the right decision (as the hobowedding clan will probably now admit).
August 5, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Sometimes you just have to say “I can see how my urinating on a fencepost may have offended you, and I was wrong.” Be an adult, suck it up. and move on. That’s how we learn. ; )
August 6, 2011 at 7:39 am
To quote Alan Partridge, “STOP GETTING BOND WRONG!”
August 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Somebody has somalia sand in their internet vagine. Maybe you could like, save a kitten instead of giving us YOUR useless opinion? yeah, alright. STFU is about right.
August 5, 2011 at 6:40 pm
I’m not agreeing with Johnny Boy here Monique, but I don’t think you make a good case for the freedom of opinion by telling someone else where to stick theirs.
August 5, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Does Johnnyboy’s statement actually count as an opinion? All we know is that he read through hundreds of comments and decided to tell us to stop talking about it.
It’s like the people who read entertainment stories online then comment “why is this news?”
August 5, 2011 at 6:30 pm
The “children are starving in Europe/Asia/Africa” thing only works when you’re trying to get kid’s to eat their vegetables.
No, wait, it doesn’t work for that either as I always offered to mail my vegetables to them.
August 6, 2011 at 2:59 am
It doesn’t work. However it does lead to hilarity if your mother makes a quip at the Christmas dinner table about how you have to finish your pudding because of the “starving Chinese”, and your half-Chinese cousin responds by saying “pass it over here, then, I’ll finish it.”
August 6, 2011 at 3:08 am
I knew a guy who did. I always wondered about the mail carrier who pulled a soggy envelope labeled “Africa” out of the mailbox.
August 5, 2011 at 6:44 pm
johnnyboy the only people I’ve seen discussing their “wounded” feelings are the hobo couple. Everyone else is just sharing their reaction. If you’re bored, there’s no need to make it an international incident, just change the channel.
August 5, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Heading out to copyright my newest line of dried Somalian baby corpse steampunk fascinators…
August 5, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Or better still, you could go there, with a sack of sammiches.
.
Send us pics.
August 5, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Man, I’ll tell ya. It’s so hot here you could fry a baby on the sidewalk.
August 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm
As a drunk person who cares about absolutely nothing, I think your costume is fucking hilarious. I also think that there is a long line of people waiting in line for someone to bunch up thier big girl/boy/trangender/transexual/hermaphrodite/breast fed/ circumcized panties. These people give us all someone to make fun of while we drink.
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Nicely stated. LOVE
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
They say you have about 20 seconds to make a good “first” impression. However, if the first thing that pops up on my computer screen is a picture of you and you husband throwing a “Hobo” themed wedding, well then my first impression is going to be something along the lines of “What the hell are these dumbasses thinking?” Because, well, just because it was my first impression. But now that I’ve had time to think about it… No, no, it is still the stupidest of any of the themed weddings I have had the misfortune of seeing. So, just remember this: “Everyone on the internet hates you; especially people who tell you your wedding ideas are ‘Yummy!’”
Perhaps a nice sampler for the happy couple?
August 6, 2011 at 4:17 pm
How about a 1930′s “country fair” wedding theme without alluding to poverty, “hobos,” or the Depression. You can have the same charming clothing, drink out of mason jars, wear overalls and have a fire-pit cookout without being tacky.
“Partying like it’s 1929″ – the year of the Great Wall Street Crash – not such a great idea.
August 5, 2011 at 4:55 pm
From The Atlantic:
The bride and groom also responded to the hoopla. “My ‘hobo’ wedding is featured on @Etsy blog and all of the Internet is being a dick.
” tweeted Sarah.
This angers me. It is not ‘the internet’ that is insulted. It is individual people that are insulted. The internet is not being a dick. Hundreds of individuals are responding to something that offend them.
I say: People who can spend $15K on a party that makes light of poverty, then publicly share the details w/ a community that includes many artists who are financially struggling (trying to make their kids’ lives better, pay bills, buy food, help other needy people) – that makes light of my poverty. That hurts. I feel the people behind the event are ignorant, insensitive and surely do not act like they know what it is to poor.
If people, in hudreds, agree and respond w/ similar outrage, that is not “the internet.” That is humanity, and reality.
August 5, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Well said.
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Here’s the link: “Yes, A Hobo-Themed Wedding Is Offensive”
August 5, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Thanks. I meant to include the link.
August 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm
I wonder if this came to the attention of the Atlantic because of the butthurt couple, thinking they would find a sympathetic ear? If so, that rather backfired, I think.
August 5, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Thank you. The Atlantic’s search feature sucks.
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Beautifully said.
August 5, 2011 at 8:26 pm
They spent… how much? Fifteen THOUSAND? Okay. Sorry. That changes my opinion from ‘wow, that’s kind of insulting of them to do’ to ‘holy shit, that is outright dickish’.
As someone who has living family members who suffered pretty hard through the depression, fuck them, and fuck them even more for getting butthurt that people didn’t like their ‘clever’ little wedding idea.
August 5, 2011 at 9:21 pm
They didn’t just spend $15k. They SPENT $15k WHILE INSISTING THEY WERE BEING FRUGAL.
August 6, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I could pay my mortgage for a year and STILL have enough money left over to pay bills with $15K.
August 5, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Hey. Let’s not go pulling dicks into this.
.
.
.
O…If I had a dollar for every time I was told that chestnut…
August 6, 2011 at 6:40 am
Right the fuck on, LB.
CF4L!!
August 5, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Speaking of Google Never Forgetting, and the New York Times…
If you do a search for my full name, you’ll find an article in the NYT I was interviewed for.
I was seven. My twenty eighth birthday is next month.
August 5, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Did you have a faux bo themed birthday party at 7?
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Actually, I think it was about the sudden influx of recently-graduated teachers into New York’s educational system at the time.
I dunno. It was recess. I had very important Freeze Tag to get back to.
August 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Anyone who stops a game of freeze tag should be taken out to the street and shot. Unless it’s Dror.
August 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm
For every butthurt there is out there, you have all of us devils to return to here in Hell, remember that.
August 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Can they just get the fuck over it and dab some Preparation H on that big, red butthurt already?
Every post I read makes me like you more, April. This one, however, earned you a lot of respect. Regretsy-on, my dear. The day you give it up will be a sad one. Just remember that the majority of people who read Regretsy, LOVE IT. Like me.
CF4L!
August 5, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Your username is epic epicness.
August 5, 2011 at 9:41 pm
And the picture – the creeeeeepy picture – makes this name all the more epic.
August 5, 2011 at 7:00 pm
AHHHH your username! I loves it!
August 5, 2011 at 5:00 pm
I wonder if they will ever realize that the bride had an entire blog post to explain her context and it was exactly that context that was so offensive.
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
The blog made it worse. It showed how clueless they were in researching this theme and joking about the time period and subject matter. Loving tribute my butt.
August 5, 2011 at 5:59 pm
The blog made it a lot worse. Well, blogS. First she had a whole blog to gush about wedding details and show pictures of all of the yummy Etsy things she bought/made for the event, then she had the Etsy blog to show the finished product and link back to her shop… where some of the items from her wedding blog were for sale.
August 5, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Yeah, I have to admit that’s what tipped it over for me. I thought the original concept was in poor taste (but innocent (if that makes sense)).
Using your own wedding as a marketing gimmick… now, that’s tacky.
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
The costume idea was pure brilliance, despite the reactions to it. You did a great job explaining yourself, and I totally feel your pain. I think it takes class to apologize, even when you meant no harm. So, despite what so many of the hobo wedding people, or breastfeeding fanatics, or whoever else feels as if they’re better than the people here say, you have some serious balls and are an overall awesome person.
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
It’s posts like this that make me proud to stick around and be a lurking Regretsian. I confess I don’t agree with your posts 100% of the time, but that’s okay. That’s life. If you find someone you constantly agree with then you should probably kill them because they’re almost certainly an alien who is reading your mind and only pretending to be your friend so they can use you to take down the government.
And I think this post explains beautifully why it’s all okay.
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
will someone please think of the dead bird!?
August 5, 2011 at 6:48 pm
I am. I’m thinking of gluing some watch parts and octopi legs to it and making a lovely fascinator.
August 5, 2011 at 5:02 pm
People have entirely TOO much time on their hands to 1) Spend hours and hours planning a crappy wedding 2) Trying to get everyone to see THEIR point of view that the wedding was tastefully done …
Look, wedding party, it was a totally distasteful wedding theme, admit it, get on with your life and go volunteer to teach poor kids how to appreciate rich people’s art.
CF4L!!!!!
August 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm
This stranger right here loves you April. It is lovely to see so many philanthropic assholes, I feel so much less alone. Really. I know it sounds stupid, it is pretty stupid, but oh well. Aaaaaaand those are my feelings that nobody cares about.
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Also- I will be here forever. Anything that people want to take so seriously needs to be made fun of.
LIFE IS FUCKING HILARIOUS
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I have just read your post on Regretsy and I have so many thoughs. While I do not know you personally I know I personally enjoy your humor. Yet your letter (to me) seemed apologetic. Was it for your humor? Offending someone? I have worked in the entertainment field for while and one thing I learned is. People are going to get hurt and pissed, others will laugh and clap.
However, even if it is the internet, there is a bit of a celeb status that you earned. Yes there are two sides however conflict does entertain. I do commend you for asking your fans to tone it down on the insults. Especially when it was just dragging without resolution.
Long post made short, you are an entertainer, the ‘consumer reports of Etsy’ and a damn wonderful writer. Please do not apologise for making people think.
August 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I’m not apologizing for the costume, because my intention was never to hurt anyone. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not transphobic or homophobic.
My apology is for being so fucking arrogant that I expected people who don’t know me to understand that. And then for being defensive and dickish when people tried to explain how it appeared.
August 5, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Again the burden of being a Celeb. Every move and view blasted out in whatever way they choose to label you. Not everyone gets the same picture when they read Robert Frost’s The Road Less Traveled.
August 5, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Your horn, I think it needs some more tooting.
August 5, 2011 at 8:54 pm
April,
I am still a newbie to Regretsy and had that moment of looking up your name. I apologise for my ignorance. Especially for lack on knowledge of your career in the Entertainment biz. However I do stand by what I said. Yet I understand even more why you wrote your letter. Gonna have to admit I was a Wardrobe Mistress, real job, for over twelve years for professional houses and seen similar situations. Again, do not apologise for making people think. Your art is what makes people escape from reality. Now I’m going back to my wine.
August 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I’m curious if Chaz saw the pic and if he felt it was funny or mean. Not in a “Serves you right for making fun” kind of way but in a “People rush to defend someone from insult and that someone actually has a brain and a sense of humor and doesn’t need defending” kind of way.
I only have 2 post op and 3 pre op friends, but they all have the sort of sense of humor that would find this fantastic (two of them are actually on here somewhere) Now clearly they are my friends because we have similar senses of humor, so it’s not surprising or a property of being transgender that they would find this amusing, and 4 of them are fellow costumers, so there is that in the mix as well.
But my point is this; a small segment of a certain group cannot speak for the group as a whole. There all kinds of outlooks and senses of humor and decency and such in every populace no matter how you group them up.
It takes all sorts of butthurt to make the world go ’round.
August 5, 2011 at 8:08 pm
i agree w/ you.
i’m wondering if it was actually transfolk who were offended or, instead, people who choose to get offended who got offended. virtually everyone i know who is actually from a marginalized community is sensitive enough to what creates marginalization to be able to tell the difference between the old laughed at & laughed w/.
August 5, 2011 at 11:16 pm
It would be rather ironic if Chaz just shrugged the costume idea off– or better yet, thought it was actually pretty funny.
(I’m thinking of the Gary Larson/Jane Goodall Institute kerfuffle here. Apparently the Institute never bothered to check with Jane Goodall herself before being offended on her behalf.)
August 6, 2011 at 3:02 pm
A lot of those SocialJusticeWarrior types spend a lot of their day getting offended on behalf of others, which I personally find diminishing, patronizing and disrespectful. If I’m going to get mad about something I can do it all by my goddamn self.
August 5, 2011 at 5:07 pm
“Etsy used to be his wife’s safe place, where she could go and talk about crafting and vintage clothes…”
I thought they were talking about their hobo wedding…? That’s a far less innocent topic than mere crafts and clothing.
We’ve all done stupid shit on the ‘net. The problem is knowing when to stop and that applies to both sides. I’m sure humanity has gone to war for less than this and that’s sad.
August 5, 2011 at 8:18 pm
i’m sorry to ask this, & i will probably get screamed at in one way or another, but:
why does someone who has at least the support of the family & friends surrounding the wedding need a giant commerce website to be her “safe place”?
August 5, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Not to mention… she’s a crafter, a seller, and works for an art school. They tryina tell me she’s never been forced to accept criticism for something she’s done before? As an artist, the LAST place I would expect (or want) to be my “safe place” is an art site.
August 5, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Can I scream at you?
WHY HASN’T SOMEONE ASKED THIS BEFORE?
August 5, 2011 at 5:08 pm
I’ve typed and erased a few different things so far… my comment is this- I’m glad that you can see both sides of it, but I’m glad you’re rational enough to realize that others objections and criticisms don’t define you. The internet is a place where people jabber away without consequence. At least you can stand up for yourself and you are honest. Fuck the bastards who are too fragile for the real world. I’m fairly active in the atheist community, and the death threats and personal attacks are not fun. I feel for you on that… Keep doing what you are doing, and don’t let the idiots bring you down because you invaded their “safe place.” There is no “safe place” on the internet… you know that, I know that… it is the ones with the thick skin that can hang. . Hang in there, and lets move on to some more fuckery…
August 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Oh, and please quote me (it is the ones with the thick skin that can hang) with a picture of Mike to the side. Thanks.
August 5, 2011 at 5:15 pm
My dad wrote a book urging people to look at the bible as a historical document, without accepting the idea of God.
He got death threats.
August 5, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Your dad is a genius. This is coming from someone who believes in God.
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if someone were to try to publish the Jefferson Bible today… probably the same thing.
August 5, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Shitty, huh? Sorry you’ve gotten the reaction from people that you have. We’re here waiting on you to get back to business. Take your time.
On a different note, I clicked on the Encyclopedia-thing-link you posted… that is pretty wretched. But I did learn who your dad was, and my husband will be holding his Tigger coffee cup in the morning grinning from ear to ear when I tell him. I will absolutely look up other things he has done, including the book you’ve mentioned. Thanks for mentioning it.
August 5, 2011 at 6:00 pm
My dad was an ordained minister, and he said the same thing
August 5, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I would like to read this book.
August 5, 2011 at 8:46 pm
It amazes me that the immediate common reaction of people who claim to prize empathy and peace above all else is “He makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Let’s KILL HIM!”
August 6, 2011 at 3:07 am
I once referred to The Bible as “the ultimate anthology” in a published…
Oops. TMI.
Anyway, too many reviews took that statement out of context and branded me an atheist, when, in fact, I was Methodist at the time.
August 6, 2011 at 3:10 am
Wow, I just did a search on the phrase, and it turns out I did it long before it was cool!
August 5, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Oh dear. The shit is gonna hit the fan now. When you admit that you might not be perfect, the self-righteous haters go “AH HA!!! See? See? The evil bitch ADMITTED she’s a soulless whore who never did anything but make fun of others.” I can feel the collective smugness coming like a summer storm.
There are many thousands of us that may not KNOW you, April, but we know enough to know we’d love to keep knowing you. Just remember… the more good you do, the more people will hate you. Look what they did to Jesus.
OMG! Can you imagine the First Church of Fuckery? I’m gonna go buy one of those rosaries with a vagina instead of a cross, RIGHT NOW!
August 5, 2011 at 5:18 pm
The First Church of Fuckery! Brilliant! I’ll be a charter member! I’ll be an Elder! No! A deacon! Oh, please, let me be in your church!
August 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm
All are welcome in the FCoF, but you must dedicate your life to harsh truth and tireless charity, for these are our core values.
August 5, 2011 at 7:45 pm
and booze.
August 5, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Okay, who the hell thumbs-downed this?! You make an excellent point, I think. Even if you try to show you have a conscience, the self-righteousness will abound. There’s no good way to argue on the internet, and there isn’t even a good way to stop arguing on the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Please don’t be harsh on those who thumb down. I accidentally thumbed down the awesome abe lincoln pic someone posted after me, and I really wanted to thumb up it, but the darn thing doesn’t let you go back and fix your mistakes.
August 5, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I want to join the church of fuckery!
August 5, 2011 at 6:06 pm
I think there’s something valid in this. If I ever get married, it will have to be to a man who understands and loves Regretsy. I guess that’s kinda like dating someone of the same faith.
August 5, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Please be our first FCoF wedding!
August 5, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Gladly. But, you know, since I’m a fat, ugly, jealous loser (and lonely, so very lonely) I need help finding my Regretsy love match. We need a dating service. Like eharmony or Christian Singles. But with more fuckery.
I imagine the ad would read something like: SFCF4L-er seeks SMCF4L-er. Must love laughing at vagina art and flounces. I’ll be your HK if you’ll be my Bronc.
August 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
April, I love you.
August 5, 2011 at 5:13 pm
If you post something on the internet, especially in a public forum (i.e. Etsy), you have to prepare yourself for not-so-nice comments from those that may not like it…or be offended by it.
And I truly think there is a big difference between doing something that unintentionally causes hurt feelings, and then being the bigger person by learning from said experience–and owning up to it without being a jerk–then behaving the way some members of this family/friends of the faux-bo wedding have been. A simple and genuine, “While we understand now that our theme could be construed in a negative way, this was never our intention. We sincerely did not mean to be offensive and are truly sorry for any hurt feelings our wedding theme caused anyone,” at the outset of the backlash would have probably nipped this in the bud.
August 5, 2011 at 5:36 pm
We have an excellent example right here.
Colonial Wedding:
-Gasp!
–Oops. Sorry, that really looked bad didn’t it. (delete page)
Hobo Wedding:
-Ha-ha!
–DIE FUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!
August 6, 2011 at 4:09 am
And yet, people are still circulating the original article about the Colonial wedding and getting outraged at it.
I’m not saying that the apology wasn’t the right response – of course it was – but I doubt that it would have nipped anything in the bud. It might not have got quite as bad as it has, but it wouldn’t make the reaction go away. That’s not how the Internet works.
August 9, 2011 at 10:19 am
Meh, I wouldn’t use people who stay super-pissed even after a genuine discussion and apology as my measurement for how to behave. Apologizing for causing offense, whether intentional or not, is the right thing to do.August 5, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I really don’t get the attack on your halloween costumes, really. Dressing up as Chaz & Chastity Bono is prolly as insensitive as dressing up as O.J. Simpson the year of the trial, or as M.J. after his death, or this year’s Casey Anthony mask.
If people invested as much energy in helping starving orphans in Somalia as they do getting their panties in a twist over a halloween costume or someone’s superbowl costume malfunction, we’d be better off.
April – I totally agree, Keep Calm & Regretsy On.
August 6, 2011 at 4:15 am
You say that, but in this current fiasco, Regretsians are the ons getting their panties in a twist.
I think part of the point of April’s article was to point up how this looks from *both* sides. Saying that nobody should get offended about anything ever again isn’t any kind of solution.
Perhaps we should all moderate our responses and get a sense of perspective. But then again, moderate responses make poor comedy. I’ll stick with perspective. Perspective is good.
August 5, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I finally made an account just so I could say that I am also a forever regretsy fan! What could have been smoothed over by the bride and groom only got 1000 times worse when they tried to defend themselves. The internet is a public and anonymous place, and anyone who posts any personal story should realize this.
August 5, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I was going to babble on about this and that regarding the irony and hypocrisy of internet butthurt, but instead I’ll just leave this here for you April:
August 5, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Very good, very good, April/Helen. You are brave and strong! I really do admire you, and I think people get upset about the stupidest things. Please don’t ever stop doing what you do, because you make me laugh and I’m the only one who matters.
August 5, 2011 at 5:17 pm
It does really hurt the first time you get flamed online, but I kind of think it’s necessary for really learning to socialize in the online community. I made the same mistake — I thought my blog was pretty much my own (I have two followers, both friends) and that people who didn’t like me just wouldn’t look. Of course not, and I know that now, so I have a better idea of what I can post and what to expect and how to respond to the flaming. I bet that in time, the bride will realize the truth — the internet is a mean, nasty place, and if you can’t beat them, join them!
August 5, 2011 at 5:24 pm
I think Facebook, with the way you choose your “friends” and all, sort of encourages this illusion of a “safe place”. Kind of a mystification of what the internet actually is.
August 5, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I missed the Chaz/Chastity thing, which makes me a bit sad because I completely love it. I understand why some people don’t (okay, not really). And I don’t think I love it just because I’m trans; I love it because it so neatly dovetails with some research I’m doing regarding multiple genders being seen as multiple identities, and thus as multiple people even when it is one person with more than one gender. I won’t bore people with the details, although circus freaks are involved, so maybe people want to be bored. I don’t know.
But you’ve made me so very excited for, I think, all the wrong reasons.
August 6, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Your research sounds like the polar opposite of boring, for what it’s worth.
August 5, 2011 at 5:21 pm
For what it’s worth (a single złoty and a detached coat button), I think the Chaz/Chastity costume combo is heeeeeeeelarious, but I know that isn’t the point.
I am so very tired of this whole kerfuffle. Someone, please find a bajingo-shaped piece of driftwood, glue a bottle cap to it, and sell it on Etsy for $100.00 so we have something to distract us.
August 5, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Right on April! So true. I always say, drama (not love), makes the world go round. I’ve chilled out, but pretty much been flaming people online since about 96. My internet skin is leather, baby. Straight armor. (and I don’t post many personal pics lol)
August 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm
When will these wankers give it up? As if attempted extortion isn’t bad enough, they have “media connections?” While I’m enjoying how they get worse with every passing minute, I just wish they would take out a loan and buy a clue. Unbelievable.
August 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm
I live by a few rules, one of which is: Never underestimate stupid people in large groups. I think I need to substitute the word ‘stupid’ for ‘like-minded’. It sincerely bothers me that the faux-bo people think that putting something in the public eye on a site that is filled with kool-aid drinking lemmings, exempts them from ridicule or comment. You can hide under the covers all you want, but the boogie man still knows you are there. I have no idea if that makes any sense. I’m out of vodka and coffee, so I’m not firing on all 3 cylinders. CF4L bitches. Unless ‘bitches’ offends you… If that’s the case then you’re all assholes. See how nice I am?
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
P.s. April Chaz and Chastity… FUCKING HILARIOUS IDEA!
August 5, 2011 at 5:56 pm
“kool-aid drinking lemmings” hehehe… you know the lemmings were tricked into jumping off of the cliff, right? Thanks, Disney (we can make fun of Disney here, right?)
August 5, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Yes, but just Walt. Not Roy.
August 5, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Dude, I don’t know you, but I am starting to like you. My husband -a professor – had for several years a bumper sticker on his office door that said “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”.
August 6, 2011 at 4:18 am
Can you just clear this up for me: in the scenario with the Kool-Aid and the Lemmings, which was drinking who?
August 6, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Your life rules, username and icon combined are most pleasing. I kind of want ‘Get Off My Lawn’ on my gravestone.
August 5, 2011 at 5:27 pm
I love what you wrote. I love what you have done with Regretsy – the community here is amazing – and it reflects the soul of its founder.
Don’t let it go to your head, though.
But damn, this is awesome.
Thanks for writing and sharing this with us all – I needed to read that for personal reasons since I experienced a micro mini teeny tiny version of that and could barely handle it!(butt for the people I met here, and you knows who you are).
August 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
A lot of my time on the
internetshas been spent in the lolita fashion communities. I’m sure, along the way (aside from that one “Fairy Kei” piece posted not long ago), there have been many lulz had at this extended community’s expense. And I totally get it, we’re probably seen as real weird to most of you.But it’s okay. The lolis I know are my best friends and the thickest skinned bitches ever. You can laugh at us, because we do it all the time. I’ve made a ton of lolita (etc) crafts and lol’d at how they won’t ever sell. And two days later, lol’d at how they did.
This is tl;dr, so I have to cut this in half
August 5, 2011 at 5:30 pm
THANK THE GODS THAT SOMEONE HAS SOME SENSE!
Holy crap I hate it when people get all upset and offended by things on the internet, especially when they’re just jokes, like your costume.
August 5, 2011 at 5:51 pm
August 5, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Well.
.
“YOUR GAY FACE DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE” = my headstone.
August 5, 2011 at 9:13 pm
“Dickfinity” best word ever.
August 6, 2011 at 3:17 am
I hope someone on Etsy will make replicas of that trophy. I need a few dozen to commemorate my past.
August 6, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Okay.
After missing all of the fauxbo wedding fuckery the first time around and reading many, many comments in a considerably short time to catch up, my own ass is aching from all the butthurt.
I think the whole idea was stupid and tasteless and the quilt thing bothers me more than I would have ever expected. I don’t really have anything else to add that hasn’t already been said at least a hundred times already so I’ll just offer to make sandwiches for anyone that needs to chill the fuck out.
I’d also like to present Uncle PedoHobo with the trophy For Excellence in Dickery for it seems to be hard earned and well deserved.
August 7, 2011 at 5:22 pm
I think the uncle is a Papa Bear who went overboard in protecting his niece and nephew (as many of us would if our loved ones were attacked) and made a bold, risky attempt at addressing child molestation in the song he wrote. To accuse him of being a weak lyricist is OK, but to accuse him of being pedo is way out of line, IMO.
August 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Let’s see if a shorter post will work since I’ve tried a dozen times…
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Your little slice of the internet has become a haven for me. It has inspired me, caused me to laugh, helped me find friendships, joy, and strength. Right now, it has moved me to tears.
The fact is that regardless of the jokes. Regardless of the snark. Regardless what anyone else out there says, does, or thinks about this site and those of us that use it, there are amazing, wonderful, kind people here who inspire me every day to “keep calm and carrion” so to speak.
August 5, 2011 at 5:34 pm
I can’t thank you enough for all you do for us by providing a “safe space” for us to vent, laugh, and meet. I can’t thank you enough for putting your opinion out there, bravely, joyfully, drunkenly, brazenly challenging us to LOOK, LISTEN, SEE what’s around us.
I carry the people I’ve met and the joy I find here each and every day. It has made me a better, happier, saner person for it (goatse and all) and I would hate to see a day when this isn’t here. So thank you, you fat jealous loser, from the bottom of my cold jealous <3
Also, I'm butthurt because it took two posts to make this bitch go through.
CF4L
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Wonderful. What you have shown is beyond class and genuine heart. Self-reflection and honesty will always rise above. The internet’s dick could learn a lesson. Wait…no…um…yeah, I’ll stick with that one.
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Wow – when I read the original post about the Hobo wedding, I never imagined the fall-out either. I do love what you wrote about context, the internet as a community that we make up, and that really, there is nothing safe from criticism, warranted or not online. I disagreed with Our Beloved Leader about the wedding, as it reminded me of my brother-in-law’s Medieval wedding (no plague or Right of Kings was to be seen that day), but disagreeing with one opinion held by someone who’s blog I read daily is no reason to engage in ridiculous flouncing et al.
Thank you April. I intend to use your post as a part of my ongoing explaintion to my kids about the always-public internet, and the potential dangers when posting anything.
So if they get destroyed online someday – I’m coming after you!
August 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm
My context is I have this memory of someone doing an AIDS Walk LA about a decade ago (in fact I think I have it on Video Tape) breaking off in the middle to go yell at the “GOD HATES FAGS” people by herself, before it was newsworthy. And I thought “She’s for real” which I already knew. I also remember thinking the Chazz and Chastity costumes were hysterically funny, as are all your Halloween Costumes…Some people just get it…Some people never will…and those people can bite me.
August 5, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Oh my God, I forgot about that.
“GOD MUST BE SO PROUD OF YOU RIGHT NOW!”
August 5, 2011 at 6:06 pm
I mistakenly posted this twice so instead giving everyone deja vu, you can just remove the other one
August 5, 2011 at 5:53 pm
(God hates FAGs?)
August 5, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Damn those genealogists and historians!
August 5, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Every time I see some a-hole with a “God Hates Fags” sign, I assume they are Brittish and I go up and thank them for their continued support of smoking cessation and the fight against lung cancer.
August 6, 2011 at 4:23 am
That took me a moment. I’ve got it now. Thank you for that.
August 5, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 5:36 pm
April Winchell is my hero. Time after time she handles situations with grace and respect. I realize that if I were in those situations, I would not have the self-control or tact to handle myself in that way. And yet, while she shows herself to be a decent, wonderful human being, she doesn’t back down from a tough spot when the other party is clearly an idiot.
By God, she’s like an angel sent from heaven. Right up there with Roseanne Barr on my list of female idols. But don’t take that the wrong way, I really like Roseanne.
August 5, 2011 at 5:37 pm
August 5, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Sweet… another geek! Venn diagrams help everything (I want that cross-stitched on something)!
August 5, 2011 at 5:39 pm
ANYWAY.
It takes a lot to offend me. It is only when you attack my very heart and soul, am I truly offended. Good thing the internet doesn’t give a shit about that.
I still have morals, but also have a sense of humour. Hobo wedding, wasn’t even that funny, let alone clever.
But April, that Chastity/Chaz costume was clever. I can see what you were doing, and I can see the offence it would cause. I still had a little chuckle to myself, because it was clever.
You are clever and can see when you’re wrong. A lot of people don’t do this. For you to do so, and reiterate to several thousand fat, jealous losers is a really admirable thing. It was far beyond a “Whoops, sorry!” to your best mate or something.
I love you April, I hope when I grow up (i.e. move out) that I am even only half as awesome as you.
Also I may have had a semi-erotic dream about you the other night.August 5, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Sarah Silverman’s book Bedwetter has a great chapter on this sort of thing – context and people’s feelings. I love reading comic’s meta thoughts on stuff like this, as I imagine being fresh and funny is relentlessly risky and requires a tremendous amount of self-assurance, faith in your audience, and dedication to the fact that there is humor at the core of everything and it’s always worth teasing it out.
Thanks for sharing this, April.
August 5, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I can personally see why people thought your costume might have been offensive. Just like I see why people are offended by the “r” word and the hobo-themed wedding. I think the difference, for me, is that those three things can easily be interpreted as making fun of someone for who they are- it is not a conscious choice they made, and it’s something people have been made fun of over a lot. So I see where everyone is coming from, to be completely honest.
I think there’s a big difference between making fun of someone for something they likely had little to no control over, and making fun of someone who has made a conscious decision to post their “art” online for anyone to see, where criticizing is expected.
Hopefully that all makes sense without being hypocritical.
August 5, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Anyway- I think the difference between you and these people is that you were actually worried that your costume offended people, and they seem not to be bothered by that as of yet.
August 5, 2011 at 5:48 pm
“Winchell’s initial ambition was to become a doctor, but the Depression wiped out any chance of his family being able to afford medical school tuition.” re: April’s Dad from Wikipedia (I know, not the most trusted site in the world, but easily quotable).
Fuck the hobo wedding. You have every right in the world to poke and prod them until their lips turn blue.
August 5, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Ok- I was more thoughtful in my previous posts because the beer hadn’t kicked in. It has now officially kicked in. Thank you Firefox for your spell-check. Thank you Internet for your dictionary (Firefox just told me to capitalize “firefox” and that “internet” starts with a capital “I” and plural was just fine). I just like the wavy red lines in my post, personally…
August 5, 2011 at 5:50 pm
(and just because)
August 6, 2011 at 4:26 am
Great! That’s a pretty cool “bandwidth exceeded” graphic, right enough. Thanks for sharing.
August 5, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Well of course they have media connections. Their uncle was on the fucking radio!!
I really wanaa see them on Today or GMA or maybe even that show on CBS..the one with that hottie Chris Wragge.
August 5, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Chris Wragge would be hotter if he wasn’t so orange.
August 5, 2011 at 9:14 pm
And if he stopped smiling. I like his smarminess.
August 5, 2011 at 10:52 pm
I love The Saturday Early Show.
I really love it when a guest who’s from New York sees Chris Wragge and Lonnie Quinn and they think they’re doing something local on Channel 2. Bernadette Peters started giving out phone numbers for an animal rescue event before they told her the show was nationwide.
August 5, 2011 at 5:52 pm
This is what I love about Regretsy. Underneath it all, this is one of the classiest places on the internet. Seriously!
People often say that these comment threads are nothing but people trying to out-snark each other, and that’s way off the mark. I’ve actually seen sites like that, where the author is basically just throwing meat to the dogs. And the more ‘righteous’ the content, the uglier it gets.
Whether it’s snark or butthurt, a little sincerity goes a long way.
August 5, 2011 at 5:54 pm
I’ve come to the conclusion that life would be a lot easier if we all just died.
No matter what you do, it seems to offend someone. So you may as well die. But no doubt that’ll offend too. Oh well…
August 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Every night I fall asleep with that thought….
August 5, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Bravo, bravo.
You, dear Helen, are the voice of reason & sanity in this mental ward we call the
internets. Please please please, write your memoirs, or a novel for hell’s sake… your way with words is amazing — thought-provoking, reasoned & logical, sincere, and still true comedy.I know I’m lame for saying all that, but, I got out of work early, battled the 405 North, and am now enjoying my first of many cocktails this evening.
Yours truly,
O.T.
August 5, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Why aren’t you over here drinking with us?
August 5, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Gimme the word and me and my Bombay Sapphire will head on over, costume’d, and read to bitch about the gayz & lezzies.. and hobos!
August 5, 2011 at 6:03 pm
the 405 is a goddamn nightmare. fuckin’ blue angels.
August 5, 2011 at 8:38 pm
I think they were talking about the 405 in LA, but I am here with you in Seattle and share your sentiments exactly.
August 5, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Also, I swear to god that faux-pas… plural internet was a TRUE mistake. My fingers are just real hipstery, I guess.
August 5, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Bullshit, you’re just drunk like me.
August 5, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Dammit, I now have Captain Morgan sailing in my sinuses, you lush!
August 5, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I get a sense that these faux-bo kids have only ever been praised for their every thought, word, action, creation, and secretion.
Thank goodness my parents told me (kindly) as a kid when I wasn’t good at something. Made it a lot easier for me to not take myself too seriously and be able to accept/analyze criticism from others as an adult.
August 5, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Let’s try this again…
My context is this. I remember an Aids Walk LA about a decade ago and someone who shall remain April breaking off to go yell at the “God Hates Fags” people before it was fashionable and/or newsworthy ( Although I think I may have it on video somewhere). And I thought “She’s for real”, but then I already knew that and I thought that the Chaz and Chastity costumes were hysterical, as are all your Halloween costumes…
Some people get it…some people never will… I like to think I’m with the former.
August 5, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I winced to see “stolen from my facebook page” because it sounds a lot like Etsy sellers saying you “stole” their etsy images…though, I know it’s not the same thing, since your page was personal. It’s still the internet, where [ctrl-c] is mightier than [delete]
But unlike the 10000000 Etsy sellers who keep threatening to sue you, you got over your butthurt and yourself. I respect you more for learning from that, rather than less for doing it…and it’s very few people whose mistakes make me respect them more. Most people don’t handle such things well. Thanks, April, for making the world a little better by not being an arsehole, and recognizing other peoples’ feelings. Of course, this part of your personality won’t end up on ED because ED only likes to hate. This page and many other pages prove to anyone willing to give it a chance that Regretsy is NOT the ED of Etsy..and that’s why it’s worth reading.
August 5, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Yeah, I wince a little too when I see it. But I never filed a DMCA before and I felt like I needed to make it sound serious. It felt serious.
August 5, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Livejournal’s always serious.
August 5, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Some people practice drama as a vocation, a career. For them, it’s a fucking calling — and they always end up on LJ.
August 5, 2011 at 6:01 pm
I hate the phrase “it’s what I mean, not what I say.” That’s fucking horse shit. What you say is what you mean. When people get bent out of shape because people have misinterpreted them, the only response is “communicate more clearly in the future.” Did you fuck up with the halloween costume? Yes, but only because you didn’t communicate how clearly you heart’d the gays before you posted it. And on the internet, that’s not possible. Which is why I don’t give two shits about anything or anyone on the internet, because to be honest, like you said, I don’t know shit about them and I really don’t care. I assume everything on the internet is for the lulz, and if you can’t handle it, don’t post your retarded pictures of your hilarious “hobo-weddin’.” Fucks sake.
August 5, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Actually I think I fucked up by posting something only people who really know me would fully understand. I think that was arrogant.
August 5, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I liked the costumes. They were super cute, and all of my GLBT friends would have got the joke.
August 5, 2011 at 6:24 pm
No, it was trusting. You learn who you can trust.
August 5, 2011 at 9:23 pm
all they had to do was google yr name. they couldve learned in five seconds flat.
it’s hard for me to pull myself away from a context i already know, but i think the costumes were well made & funny. & i REALLY hate it when people mock something in a way that has real pain possibility for the mocked, ie: the hobo wedding.
August 5, 2011 at 6:05 pm
I’ve never actually commented before so this is a first here lol. Until now I never really wondered WHO April was – just that you are hella funny and make my day most days. I’m fucking blown away that you are Tigger’s daughter!!! Okay, got that out of my system lol.
You have definitely shown yourself to be the bigger person in all of this FauxBoGate thing but not fanning the flames. They are acting like dicks. Stay strong Helen.
August 5, 2011 at 6:07 pm
I hate how people always talk about expressing themselves and the right to hold your own opinions, yet fail to ever mention that these rights apply only in the case that your feelings reflect that of the majority in your direct vicinity or whatever is deemed to be politically correct. If you are willing to accept praise and admiration for your actions and words you should be willing to do so with the opposite. Pointing out the humor in a situation is not wrong.
However, publicly humiliating people and pushing a situation well beyond the point of exhaustion is not only wrong, but incredibly unnecessary.
That said, I admire your ability to look at the other side of a situation and truly emphasize with it. You have my respect for this. Thank you for proving once again that you are someone who can keep themselves together when in the public (ever if it is just writing – writing exposes what in your mind and revels what’s deeper inside each one of us).
Thank you.
August 5, 2011 at 6:18 pm
“Publicly humiliating people and pushing a situation well beyond the point of exhaustion is not only wrong, but incredibly unnecessary.”
I see your point, but I don’t think we can expect that from the internet. I think we have to play by its rules.
August 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm
The Internet has rules? Are they real rules or like the rules you make up when you’re playing a board game with a kid? You know, the rule that let’s you, but not her, jump like 8 squares in Candyland just so you can finish playing and watch the game.
August 5, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I, honestly, don’t think we can expect that from a vast majority of the human population period.
Also, I would like to point out I am incredibly excited that you just responded to my comment. It’s the first time you’ve written directly addressing me and something I have said and now I feel totally special and you’ve made my day. *happy dance*
August 6, 2011 at 4:32 am
She emailed me once. It was only responding to what must have been the 15 billionth question about the Members Only passwords, but I still reckon it makes me practically famous.
August 5, 2011 at 9:06 pm
my sons have shown me 4chan, and my first Goatse.
What rules?
August 6, 2011 at 3:43 am
http://ohinternet.com/Rules_of_the_Internet
August 5, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Yeah… Except I was a “called out” for quoting a line from Tropic Thunder. I did not use it to describe a developmentally disabled person. I did not use it as a pejorative.
And by the way, calling someone an asshole is a shitty term that hurts. You may not care about that, but I and many other people who quote movies do.
August 5, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 6:10 pm
I don’t usually comment on these post, because everything I want to say is almost always said by someone else, and in a better way… which is actually still true in this case, but fuck it.
The original post had a lot of valid points, and the reason this spun out of control is that the couple (and their supporters) wanted so badly to not only validate their position BUT TO BE THE RIGHTEST PEOPLE WHO WERE EVER RIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF BEING RIGHT. And most internet drama can be chalked up to that exact progression.
“Here is what I think.”
“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE YOU ARE WRONG.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s what I think.”
“YEAH YOU THINK THAT BECAUSE YOU LIVE IN WRONG TOWN, MISTER WRONG.”
“…YEAH, WELL, YOU SUCK.”
And their actions, even up to now, speak of people who just want everyone to tell them that they’re not WRONG. But everyone was a little wrong, and a little right. And you know what? For admitting that, April is the most right.
August 5, 2011 at 6:19 pm
PON PON PON
WEY WEY WEY
August 5, 2011 at 6:38 pm
You know you like it.
August 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm
“But everyone was a little wrong, and a little right. And you know what? For admitting that, April is the most right.”
This, 100%. It’s exactly what I was feeling, but wasn’t able to articulate properly.
August 5, 2011 at 11:12 pm
sounds like a sampler to me
August 5, 2011 at 9:01 pm
the mostest
August 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm
WHATEVS. I like the fact that you keep weeding out the easily offended crybabies. With each flounce WE GROW STRONGER!
August 5, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Your brutal honesty is one of the things I love the most about this site. The internet is a bitch and you are opening a Pandora’s box every time you post anything. I’ve been kicked out of a college dorm room, lost a friend, and had a guy break up with me all because of stuff I’ve posted on the internet. The faux bos and your story remind us all to be careful about what we do and say, because we don’t need big brother to watch us when we’re opening our own living room windows and walking around naked.
August 5, 2011 at 6:18 pm
All your screencaps are belong to us.
August 5, 2011 at 6:21 pm
I read the Encyclopedia Dramatica post carefully. I want to know more about the babies you have killed as Clarabelle the Cow.
August 5, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Well they might have had a point about that.
August 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm
My first grade music/theater campers last year loved your Clarabelle the Cow. Then again, they also liked me and I’m a sarcastic asshole who constantly tortured their counselors in front of them, so maybe my perspective is a bit off.
August 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Trying to think of something intellectual to say. Fuck that. Thank you for making me laugh.
August 5, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Positively beautifully said.
I can’t quite fathom why anyone would think that strangers MUST be nice to their public airing of their lives. Provided we both are following the laws of the land, I can’t stop anyone from sharing their offensively idiotic lives and they can’t stop me from being a jackass.
To turn ridicule from a stranger into a personal attack is an astounding act of hubris, even bigger than using the phrase “astounding act of hubris” when talking about morons who get defensive about their “special day.” Wasn’t MY special day, so kindly piss off.
August 5, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Now you’ve done it. I finally registered to invoke FINAL WORD on this issue:
ANYTHING you put on the internet is fair game. “Your skin, your eyes, your feelings….”
HK WUZ RIGHT!
1. Hobos, in concept or reality, are NOT funny.
2. YOU are the person in control of your self-esteem. No blogger can make you feel anything. Strangers should not have that kind of power of you.
Get over your ‘special day’ crap too. WAA WAA. Don’t put your dress, your flowers, your favors, or your fat bridesmaids on the ding dang innernets if you don’t expect a snigger from SOMEWHERE.
(Don’t flame me—I am talking hypothetical bridesmaids—I didn’t see any from the wedding in dispute here)
Everyone should just agree with what I type, so it can be over…deal?
August 5, 2011 at 6:30 pm
I don’t know where that bold came from…..sorry for yelling, I didn’t mean to. I am the Vera (Beth Howland) of computers).
August 5, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I just really like the phrase “ding dang innernets.” I think that will stick with me for a long time. It’s like putting a midwestern farmer from the early 20th century in a room with a computer and asking him how he feels afterward.
August 5, 2011 at 6:52 pm
And also, I agree with those other things you said.
August 5, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Final, final word!
Let’s not forget that there were plenty of negative comments on Etsy, and it’s highly unlikely that all of them saw it here first.
And since plenty of other blogs that are in no way affiliated with Regretsy have picked up the story, and have much the same opinion, HK is only guilty of calling it out first.
August 5, 2011 at 6:29 pm
I’m too lazy to go and read through the comments. I don’t post much these days either but I still visit. reading this, my first thought was, “Hey, I never saw that pic!” Maybe if I had seen it in context or something I’d feel different but, as a card-carrying lesbian (with plenty of TG friends) I found the idea of the costumes fucking brilliant.
I don’t pretend to know you, HK. But I can honestly say I have never once felt you were a hate-monger (except possibly for resellers).
August 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Ditto. Lifelong faghag/ fruit fly here myself. I was even a waitress for 15 years. I think it’s brilliant costuming too.
Chaz Bono is a public figure and is well aware that he was a public figure when he was a woman also. The only way the costume could have been improved is for HK to dress up as the ‘little girly-girl’ Chastity we all remember from the end of Sonny & Cher.
August 6, 2011 at 4:36 am
Do you get a card? Are there discounts? How do you apply and do they ask for evidence?
So many questions.
August 6, 2011 at 1:43 pm
I dunno. I slept my way to the top.
August 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Wait, YOUR DAD invented the disposable razor?!?? Disposable razors and turning right on red are like the only things I can think of that have really changed in the last 1000 years! Wow!
August 5, 2011 at 6:49 pm
You wanna know what’s really messed up? I’ve been reading Regretsy for about a year, and I’ve been an admirer of her father since I was about 17. Never put two and two together… Also, I hate driving in Britain, fuck waiting for a green light to turn right!
August 5, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Dude,that’s huge. My husband is taking a lot of business classes right now, and for years he has cited the disposable razor as one of the best models of a necessary item that customers have to buy over and over — in his eyes, one of the best business ideas ever. Respect.
August 5, 2011 at 6:36 pm
I have a shirt that I call my “RED SHIRT” (I don’t shout it, but I pronounce it in caps.)
On this shirt, there is a man, elbow deep in another mans anus, jerking himself off while the catcher ejaculates on his own chest. In large penis shaped letters it reads “fuck your mother and don’t run after, punk.” On the rare occasions when I wear this shirt, it’s out to a punk show or some other event where a hardcore sodomy shirt is apropos. Rarely, I’m caught by someone who finds my shirt distasteful between my home (where I can wear whatever I want) and the appropriate location. When I encounter a shit stirrer who wants to talk about how offended they are by the shirt, I really only have two responses.
August 5, 2011 at 6:43 pm
For the love of all that’s holy, what are the responses? This is by far the most suspenseful story I have read all day, and I hate not knowing how stuff ends!
August 5, 2011 at 6:46 pm
1) Grow up, it’s a shirt.
or
2) I fail to see what you find so offensive about two men who love each other showing their affection, you homophobe!
That being said, I myself am a bit of a shit stirrer, but I rarely stop people on the street to talk about their goddamn shirts.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Life is goofy and shitty, and if you’re not in on the joke, it’s because you are a fucking joke.
August 5, 2011 at 6:53 pm
A good end to the story. Much obliged.
August 5, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Something about your use of anal-fisting and the word “shit-stirrer” makes me feel funny inside. I can’t put my finger on why though.
August 6, 2011 at 4:46 am
By contrast to the hobo wedding and HK’s debatable faux-pas, which are at worst insensitive, this shirt is clearly designed to be so offensive that seeing it is like being poked in the eyes with a pencil. You clearly know that or you wouldn’t reserve it for specific occasions where only others who appreciate your joke will see it.
In that case, wearing it on the street is like poking passers-by in the eyes with said pencil and then laughing when they scream. I don’t see how this is either big or clever. Why not wear a jacket?
August 5, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Not that this has anything to do with your main point, but it reminds me of a T-shirt I once had, which I loved dearly. It showed an image of Jesus on the cross, and beside that it said, all in caps, “JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR MY SINS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT”.
I wasn’t brave enough to wear it out and about more than once or twice before it got ruined in a dumb laundry accident. But goddamn I loved that shirt.
August 5, 2011 at 6:40 pm
As an actual trans person, I think this is hilarious, absolutely appropriate and brilliant. My only regret is that I missed it on facebook the first time.
August 5, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Extremely well written, April.
In regard to the hobo wedding…do I personally think it’s tacky? Yes. But if it made them happy, good for them, they’re entitled to it.
However, they put it all out on the internet for the world to see. Their mistake was apparently thinking everyone would coo and spew butterflies out of their ears as they read about it. Time for the real world to come calling.
August 5, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I agree, xx! I could care less that they had a hobo wedding. Personally, I do think it’s lame because they’re only thinking of hobos as cartoons and not really part of an incredibly trying time in our history. But the fact remains that just because you’ve been told your whole life by your family (or people who didn’t want to be real with you otherwise) that you’re the best thing since the polio vaccine that doesn’t mean that everyone else is entitled to make you feel special.
August 5, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 6:42 pm
as per the chaz costumes:
Prejudice wanes, ignorance grows, the world spins forward and backward.
it’s from an amazing article in about oscar wilde this week in the new yorker, of all places.
once upon a time were one considered a member of a community, one could make fun of that community, say, & it would be far fairer than fair use. it would be free.
the antithesis being the hobo wedding.
the absolute finest comment about which i didnt write either, it was written 30+ years ago by someone i’m certain uncle green et al idolize but do not understand & who, in truth, were we all contemporaries, they would hate & he’d hate them back. i can slap a guarantee on that one quicker than any dead person i knew then would kick them in the head.
a cheap holiday in other peoples misery
as an analyst’s daughter, my final answer is that theyre defensive cos they know, deep down, what they did was unconscionable.
& thats that.
August 5, 2011 at 6:45 pm
As an actual trans person who also happens to be gay, I think your costume idea was hilarious, absolutely appropriate and brilliant. My only regret is that I missed it on facebook the first time.
August 5, 2011 at 6:52 pm
As previously stated (about 100 times) you’re awesome HK, bravo, this is so graceful, I’m jealous.
I wish our good Fauxbo “friends” would just get over their butt hurt and just get on with loving each other and being happy with their wedding. (Because regardless of what we say, they’re still going to think they’re in the right and happy with their wedding.) They’re married now, and in love – who gives a fuck what a bunch of fat jealous losers on the internet think.
And that was my soap box.
I love this place. (in an internet kind of way)
August 5, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I don’t understand, what are these cunts bitching about? If you google “hobo wedding” these are the links you’ll get:
#1: a Blogspot set up by the happy couple about their wedding.
#2: an Etsy blog set up by the bride to talk about her wedding.
#3: you adorable heartless bastard.
#4: the photographer to the hobo stars and her blog post about this wedding.
#5: motherfucking youtube videos of the wedding.
So that means 4 out of the top 5 incidents of internet exposure on these fucktards are their own fucking fault. Why the hell should anyone be listening to their whining now? They got exactly what they obviously wanted: attention. Now they’re pissed because someone is calling them out on it and they can’t handle the criticism.
Fuck them, you should tell them to go right ahead and whine all they want to their “media connections”, you will benefit from the publicity!
August 5, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Wow.. thanks for pointing it out. Under the “news” link, it’s interesting to see how many blogs commented the faux-bo weddin’!
August 5, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Oh shit, number 8′s mine. Wild.
August 5, 2011 at 6:58 pm
Nice essay, and good analysis.
August 5, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Now I could care less that everyone’s crapping their pants in response to your post about the wedding. Aren’t these people supposed to be going about their business, all strong-minded and not caring about what people think? You didn’t make fun of the way they looked, you commented on how you thought their wedding was tacky. Seriously, people like that are the biggest thought Nazis and they haven’t got a clue that they’re even that way. “You can only say something if it’s nice.”?? What now she’s going to stay away from Etsy forever because one person who could care less that she likes vintage shoes said her wedding sucked? Nut up and get over it. No one is going to like everything you do and that doesn’t make them “a meanie” that makes they have personal taste.
August 5, 2011 at 7:01 pm
We all have cringe worthy incidents in our pasts that make us look like assholes, I know I sure do. I really respect the fact that you own your mistakes. It is really hard to be self aware. I don’t think either of these people are horrible or evil, they just didn’t think before they acted. The problem is the fact that they refuse to step outside themselves and examine their actions in a critical manner. If they just were to admit they were insensitive and have a laugh about it this whole thing wouldn’t have blown up like it did. I’m sure they are incredibly humiliated and as you said being defensive is what happens when we are embarrassed.
I actually feel bad for them because the memory of their wedding is probably tainted forever and that is sort of sad.
August 5, 2011 at 7:14 pm
here is what I don’t understand – if you have a wedding that is exactly what you want attended by family and friends — a wedding that is over and done – then how can its memory be tainted by the reactions of people whose opinions mean nothing to you?
August 5, 2011 at 7:24 pm
If our reactions meant nothing they wouldn’t have gotten so upset. All the frothing anger indicates to me that they care a lot about what people think.
August 5, 2011 at 8:18 pm
She has the best wedding story ever. People are going to be fawning over her for the rest of her life. I’m a little jealous, actually. She’s gonna get so much sympathy and love over this.
August 6, 2011 at 4:57 am
I still don’t think they care what we think. They’re more concerned that we as a group might have an influence on what other people think of them.
My problem is with the idea that we in any way were able to taint their memory of their wedding. The bride has been implying that in her tweets. We are not that powerful. They are not that weak.
That claim that we tainted their memories plays into the uncle’s claim that we are mindless followers of queen bully HK, mean girls in the play ground. It is the victim versus abuser defense. We took something away from the innocents.
Their memories of their wedding aren’t stained, corrupted, ruined. What was tainted was their expectation of 100% pure acceptance in their moment of Etsy fame. What they think is lost is their reputation, what other people think of them. If the reactions they got to that piece ever make them rethink their wedding theme, their memories will still remain untainted. Just viewed under a new light.
August 5, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Damn HK, I didn’t think I could love you any harder than I already do, but here we are. You broke my Love-O-Meter.
You are a much stronger fat, jealous loser than I ever could hope to be.
I will be drinking each of tonight’s rum & cokes in your honour! Cheers!
August 5, 2011 at 7:25 pm
You know what is really good? Grapefruit juice and rum, mmmm. Dang I wish I didn’t have to leave the county to buy liquor, I’ll just have to stick to beer.
August 6, 2011 at 9:48 am
Is it weird that every time I see “HK” in a comment – inside my head I’m thinking why are they talking to/about Hello Kitty?
Is it too early to start drinking?
August 6, 2011 at 12:39 pm
NEVER.
August 5, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Great lesson.
The Internet is a tool, like a hammer–you can choose to use it wisely (hit a nail), or not (hit a puppy). One thing is for sure, though–you can’t control how others will use it. You shouldn’t expect others to use it the way you want them to; expecting others to behave in certain ways will only result in disappointment.
Mr. and Mrs. Faux-bo expected others to shower them with praise, not expecting that not everyone would like what they had done. I doubt they will learn a lesson from this, because their reactions and those of their defenders are indicative of a sense of entitlement that is deeply ingrained.
August 5, 2011 at 7:10 pm
The real problem is that back last June when he and she decided on their “hobo themed wedding” because they’re all about DIY and crazy quilts and canning at home, not one person came along to say “ummm, there’s a difference between a whole thematic event where you pretend to be dirt poor but also register for china, and collecting Alan Lomax recordings” and then the story of this romantic (because poverty always is …) setting made its way through the Etsy editorial process and not one person said “is this not just too far?”
As a result, the first time she hears that possibly someone out there might take issue with the whole theme, especially as memorialized in a glowing “isn’t this clever” Etsy post, is on Regretsy, where nothing is ever put gently. That has to sting, but their friends let them down by not saying anything. And Etsy let them down by not saying “this is actually weird and oblivious and not cute.”
August 5, 2011 at 10:29 pm
And again when Etsy’s apology essentially amounted to “We’re not sorry we promoted this, but here’s a paragraph to placate you.”
August 5, 2011 at 11:04 pm
I liked the way the Atlantic descibed that “apology” – they say they could have done it better, but they don’t really tell you what they mean by that. Should they not have run the piece? Or should they have been more diligent about deleting criticism?
August 5, 2011 at 7:12 pm
I think the hobocle has reached the television. I just saw a Walmart commercial where the woman asked if she could spell hobo on the calculator she was buying.
August 5, 2011 at 7:29 pm
LMAO! I SAW that this morning!!
August 6, 2011 at 3:56 am
THANK YOU! I was going to mention that, but I was so astonished by “spelling ‘hobo’ on the calculator,” I forgot what the commercial was advertising.
August 5, 2011 at 7:12 pm
This hobo wedding made me think about my old college roommate’s behavior when the movie Borat came out. A white trust-fund baby who had dreadlocks and sold her corvette for a dollar because it was a tool of western evil, to her anything that made fun of America was fucking hysterical. When I pointed out that yes, Cohen was making fun of America, but an equal and probably shittier (even if unintentional)amount of parody was aimed at devastatingly poor third world countries, her reply was “I’ll get a Kazakhstani pen pal and send them a dollar every week.”
Yeah.
These people simply don’t understand that they can be taken out of context. They still live in a world of lollipops shaped like handle bar mustaches and gumdrops shit out by Rivers Cuomo. They don’t understand that there even is such a thing as context, or a world where they are not awesome, adorable and loved for their quirkiness by all. They’d better buy some hemorrhoid cream, because life is gonna get hard.
August 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Anyone who called you homophobic because of that is clearly an idiot because Chaz Bono isn’t gay. Transexuals aren’t mandatorily gay, you silly internet people of months past.
August 5, 2011 at 7:22 pm
this is a great post. i really hope that the butthurt people get it.
but, the most interesting part is that your dad was tigger! how much cooler could you be?
August 5, 2011 at 7:26 pm
I know that is so cool. He did the voice of Tigger and Gargamel from the Smurfs.
April did a few Disney Character voices as well the best one being Cruella De Ville (101 Dalmations tv show, not the movie)
August 5, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Ok. Ok. I’m crying over the dead bird now.
August 5, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Fuck the dead bird.
August 5, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I don’t have the right equipment
August 5, 2011 at 8:04 pm
What? Right here … in front of everyone?
August 5, 2011 at 8:35 pm
That got me in trouble…
August 5, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Oh yeah I forgot to add Fuck those Faux Bo’s.
They aren’t the first and they won’t be the last couple to have a fucked up wedding theme.
August 5, 2011 at 7:30 pm
My thoughts on the whole mess.
I was willing to give the Hobo Wedding couple the benefit of the doubt in that they didn’t intend to offend anyone. If they had just said “We did not mean to offend, that was not our intent” and left it at that I may have even been able to sympathize and even respect them.
However the reaction to the post here, the destruction of vintage quilts (not something that would have been true to the period), the crying poor and spending 15k to look poor and the obvious attention whoring by posting it on Etsy and whining everywhere after things didn’t go their way lost any sympathy I had for them. Also, I can’t help but feel that the need to come up with a “first ever” wedding theme that they could post all over the net may have been their motivation for the theme in the first place.
August 5, 2011 at 7:37 pm
That said, I didn’t see the posts but I understand there were some posts here that made fun of the couple’s appearance and encouraged people to go to their personal sites and snark. That is not cool. That only fueled the Hobo couple and their defenders righteousness because obviously, in their minds, the people here are bullies being incited by April.
We can snark without being outright cruel. Kudos to April and Bronc for removing those posts. In the future, let’s be the ones who are superior in every conceivable way and keep the snark where it belongs.
August 5, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Oh, this times a thousand.
I ran my mouth (er… my hands?) here and on my blog, but I wouldn’t go to their blogs or other ‘net spaces to cause trouble… I like to vent. I don’t need trouble.
Even when I commented on Etsy’s blog, I congratulated them on their marriage, but said I felt the theme was in poor taste (not that it mattered, the cupcakes axed the comment after awhile anyway).
August 5, 2011 at 11:54 pm
There’s a reason a different site I used to go to where people commented on/mocked the bizarre sites of the web (it was taken down recently but its name rhymed with Mortal of Weevil) had a “Prime Directive” which was, basically, “Don’t go and mock them on their website. Keep the discussion here– and if they come here and join the discussion, that’s a whole another matter.”
August 5, 2011 at 7:32 pm
There are no safe places in this life. Life is hard and then you die. By trying to do things the way others would have you do them is a dive into a sea of futility, and purposefully making life even harder for yourself. Political correctness is turning everyone into uninformed, mediocre wusses. Like I said on the original post, you have the right to do what ever you like to do, no matter how wrong it may be. You have just as much right, to ignore and do your own thing if you don’t like what others are doing. Tolerance goes both ways, or should anyway, if that is truly what the “PC’s” are after. Personally, I think it is control. Thumb me down all you want,(because I know how boring I can be) but even if I didn’t agree, I would still fight to the death for the right of the person I didn’t agree with to do whatever it was that I didn’t agree with in hopes they would do the same for me. If you don’t stand up, who will? I say Go April and CF4L!
August 5, 2011 at 11:56 pm
I’d agree with you more if I didn’t get the vibe that entirely too many people who pride themselves on being “politically incorrect” really mean “I want to call a spade an uppity n*gger (especially that Kenyan stealth Muslim usurper!) and not get called out on it”…
August 8, 2011 at 7:32 am
Nobody said they couldn’t have this wedding. Not one person that I’ve read so far.
People can have a nazi themed wedding for all I care. However, if you put your personal business out there on the internetz for the public to see, you should not expect a 100% positive reaction, or at the very least you should not freak the fuck out about any and all negative comments.
These idiots can have any wedding they goddamn please, they can post it on the internet, and people who see it have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about it.
That’s the American way.
August 5, 2011 at 7:36 pm
If these people had the big-time media connections they claim, not only would they be able to spend more than their (self-described) paltry 15k on their twee little exercise in hipster fauxbaux douchery, but Uncle Aqualung would have a record deal, and the Andrea Dworkin lookalike groom would have a major publishing contract for his dopey little webcomic.
In other words, I don’t think the Grey Lady is gonna feature them in the Style or Tech sections any time soon.
August 5, 2011 at 7:47 pm
“Uncle Aqualung” makes me think the dude’s stage act involves piss-poor imitations of Ron Burgundy’s jazz flute scene.
August 5, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Well, the guy did write a song about diddling little girls. No, I ain’t gonna link to it, because it was THAT TERRIBLE. If I want to hear a song about child abuse I’ll go listen to Lisa’s Father by Alice Donut, because it’s skewering Jack Chick at the same time.
August 5, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Geez, I don’t know why I’m defending this guy…
The uncle’s band had a minor-label contract then did one album for Atlantic. So yes, he was a legitimate musician. And he wasn’t the one who tied his music career to his credibility.
That said, he came across as an arrogant jerk in the e-mails to April. He calmed down a good bit by the time he posted on offbeatbrides.com, but he still thinks that all Regretsy posters are female and bitter.
August 6, 2011 at 10:59 am
Well fuck! I AM female and bitter! But at least I’m not a douchebag!
August 5, 2011 at 7:38 pm
The only thing I really don’t understand is the flounces that come as a result of some of these posts. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading a good flounce, they are sometimes the highlight of my day. But to storm off in a huff, especially the kind that says “OMG I LOVED YOU AND NOW YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE YOU CALLOUS BITCH I HATE YOU!” make so little sense.
Do I agree with everything that’s posted here? Of course not. Do some comments, whether by April or by others, make me uncomfortable or maybe piss me off? I’d have to be some kind of freaky Regretsy automaton to find absolutely everything here wonderful. But when something irks me here, I generally tend to suck it up and wait for the funnies to return. What’s the point in storming off in a huff, especially on a site that loves, LOVES, to have a giggle at the expense of such behaviour?
August 5, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Exactly. Some people just can’t read the temperature of the room.
August 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm
April has been my goddess ever since I read that she and I were born in the same year and she can do no wrong in my eyes. If she writes something that I don’t like here in my safe place (the internet), I just ignore it and go on following her to hell. Thanks April!
August 5, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Good on ya for realizing where your error was and where it wasn’t. I think those costumes kick ass and if I didn’t suck at all things craft, might consider them for the other half and I this year. Whoever made that post can suck your dick. I have never even heard of their lame-ass Wikipedia rip-off. We love you and we’re who matter.
August 5, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Wise words we should all take to heart.
August 5, 2011 at 7:44 pm
I…I just kinda want to hug you. Is that weird? I’m sorry, that’s weird. I promise to keep it to one of those “opposite-sex-family-member” hugs, where we stick our asses out so our pelvises don’t bump.
I know. Still weird.
August 5, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Yeah good luck with that Times article, faux-bos. It’s not even an original theme, for pete’s sake!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50818602@N03/5199617283/
Although I have to say the 1936 party clothes look very costume-y, the faux-bos did a way better job.
August 5, 2011 at 7:45 pm
April, thanks for such an honest and perfectly-worded (as always) post. It pretty much summed up my whole take on this thing: the lesson isn’t “be careful picking your wedding theme,” it’s “be careful blogging about your themed wedding.
August 5, 2011 at 7:49 pm
This is the first time Regretsy made me cry when it wasn’t laughed-so-hard-I-cried tears. It amazes me how people continue to understand you and what us Regretsians are about (being snarky fat ugly jealous charitable losers, among other things). But people don’t see what they don’t want to see. Is there any way we can get the entry taken down? Some glittery steampunk sabotage, anyone?
August 5, 2011 at 7:50 pm
*misunderstand
August 5, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Not really. I decided instead to just stop being ashamed of it, and now I don’t care anymore.
August 6, 2011 at 12:01 am
Sounds like you are ready to move on to more stuff. I had read some time ago that you may be thinking about doing a men of Regretsy calendar. My husband loves your site too and would love to be considered for that. If not, this photo is for you to enjoy.
August 6, 2011 at 1:26 am
Although that is EXACTLY the kind of photo we are looking for, I’m afraid that we can’t accept it. We’re trying to keep the calendar to regular commentors or forum members. Who wants a Men of Regretsy calendar full of people they don’t feel they know? And we just need guy’s faces and girl’s bodies, so unless he’s smuggling a chick in those bicycle shorts, we’d just be taking the serial killer grin. I think it would be a waste of a brilliant photo.
August 6, 2011 at 4:07 am
He has BEAUTIFUL teeth! ♥♥♥
August 6, 2011 at 9:52 am
Your husband is awesome.
August 5, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Logic dictates that that course of action would only reinforce and underscore their opinions, AND make it less likely they’d listen to any future reasonable requests.
Any attempt at skulduggery would only prove to them in their mind that they were right about everything.
The idea is tantalizing – like Lewis Black’s candy corn. It looks so great. Every time. Then the taste hits your tongue. “SON-OF-A-BITCH!”
August 5, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Thanks for that, you’re awesome! Personally, I think the costumes are kind of in poor taste, but as someone who gets drunk and says stupid and/or offensive shit on a fairly regular basis, I have to respect your self-awareness and honesty. Because sometimes being an adult is knowing when to apologize.
August 5, 2011 at 8:00 pm
re: ED page. Who is *******? Is that the same person who called you a coward?
August 5, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I don’t know if anyone has posted this already, but here’s an post on the site “Off Beat Bride” that neutrally discusses the hobo wedding. I especially like the part about recognizing your own privilege, because that’s where this couple failed.
http://offbeatbride.com/2011/08/hobo-wedding
August 5, 2011 at 8:26 pm
I do like that article – and it makes some very very interesting points that perhaps these people should havethought about. I think next week’s article on the same forum should be read by them as well –
“7 tips for how to deal if your wedding goes viral and everyone hates it”
August 5, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Matt Brown has a partially good piece in the responses. He makes more sense there than he did in his tweets. But he also has some things wrong. Still worth a read.
August 5, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Perhaps he needs to consider this another teachable moment.
August 5, 2011 at 9:32 pm
I ended up just skimming his long-winded essays on the evils of Regretsy and how he “awaits the day regretsy apologizes for what they’ve done.” He still sounds like a pompous ass.
August 5, 2011 at 10:36 pm
He’s gonna have a hell of a wait.
August 6, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Yeah. Grab a Snickers, Matt, ’cause you won’t be going anywhere for a while.
August 6, 2011 at 4:16 am
My personal favorite was “I later learned that Regretsy has a secret, password-only forum, in which users can go SPECIFICALLY to mock people who take offense to being posted on Regretsy”.
because I did not know that. I have been EDucated.
August 5, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Long time reader, first time poster.
You rock for making this post.
August 5, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Well said. Very well said.
August 5, 2011 at 8:05 pm
I think the faux bo wedding was tacky.
Whats next getting married painted in Black face and defending it b/c you have black friends.
What era would that be?
August 5, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Thing is, ED is mean to everyone. There’s a reason it’s Dramatica. Much of the stuff on there, like the -fag suffix comes from 4chan and specifically /b/, which is ‘a hive of scum and villainy’, so to speak. And the thing is, the suffix there is practically equated to ‘people’ (not saying I agree with it, just explaining).
ED has no sacred cows, and giving them any attention when they’re bothering you is just like chumming the waters.
Frankly, I’ve missed this huge explosion of… whatever over the hobo wedding. Must be happening on Facebook or something. But really, it *was* kind of insulting. My grandfather’s family lost literally everything in the Great Depression, including my grandpa’s father and older brother. It’s kind of insulting to see the era glorified.
That being said – if you put something out on the internet, on a highly viewed site, and you know it could be offensive then you are just inviting trouble. (cont)
August 5, 2011 at 8:10 pm
This whole debacle has inspired me to comment for the first time. I feel compelled to share this bit of wisdom from a fuck buddy who ended up in prison after his third strike: “Don’t sweat the petty shit, and don’t pet the sweaty shit.”
August 5, 2011 at 11:16 pm
I love the screen name. How’s your kid sister?
August 5, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I’ll admit ot having scanned the last 50 or so posts, so I could get my thought out before I lost it. I’ve always been a member of communities that encourage free thought and openmindedness. I didn’t mind their wedding theme, even if they were massively insenstive with it. I mind that they defend their insensitvity, cannot see the hypocricy – especially the uncle (come on man, think about it) and I’m offended at the continuing mockery of people here by said some folk because they’re wearing their butthurt on their sleeves.
I’ve accepted over the years that if someone chooses to hate me because of content I’ve posted on the internet, I cannot change their minds. And to try to do so only makes the situation worse. I’ve seen threats of lawsuits as well – I highly doubt they’ll get anywhere with it, because a judge is going to see they willing put that material out there, and that they continue to instigate.
August 5, 2011 at 8:15 pm
And since I cannot help but ne verbose, I’ll finish.
Toss out one more “yeah, well your uncle sings about molesting his neice.” and walk away. Document their tirades, don’t engage. They’ll likely never understand why people were and are offended by their wedding, and were long before you posted a damn thing about them.
Being an honest person may make you seem an asshole at time, but it doesn’t mean you actually are one.
That being said – I’m staying here in this group of very wonderful people – yourself and Bronc included in that – who can use their minds to think and their hands to create, and I’m honored to be part of this group until the day it dies its natural internet death.
Don’t stop being yourself just because the closeminded and purposefully ignorant think you should.
August 6, 2011 at 6:41 am
In several places, he referred to his nephew’s wife as his “niece.”
Niece – I do not think it means what you think it means.
August 5, 2011 at 8:10 pm
The people who thought a hobo themed wedding need to suck it up and take their internet lumps and learn the lesson that flailing about it and threatening people is only going to make more people jump on their ass.
This is the internet. If you’re active on the internet and haven’t yet learned that this can be a vicious, mean place when you open yourself up for criticism then – Hello, you must be new here.
August 5, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Coming out of lurkerdom to say YOU GO, HK! You have courage. You are funny. Your couple’s costume was funny, and I don’t see how it is offensive to the LGBT community. It was funny! And so is a hobo wedding. VIVA REGRETSY!
August 5, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Never mind. I found them.
August 5, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Go back into the last page or so, read the “this is what poverty looks like” post, and move forward from there.
That’s usually a good rule of thumb when confused, anyway. I say this kindly, but, really, that’s something you ought to have figured out on your own. Consider this a freebie.
August 5, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I’m kind of shocked that April took down the costume pic. What kind of mail did she get that actually made her back down? I personally think the idea was genius!!
August 5, 2011 at 8:30 pm
I’m pretty over the whole wedding snafu. I’m really offended over the theme but I think those people have enough problems without people continuing to rub their faces in it… which is mostly the grooms own uncle at this point, but whatever. What they did was shitty, some things we do in the name of humour and our beloved HK is shitty too. Sadly, we understand the context of the mockery we produce here and others don’t. And it’s like HK says, YOUR context yaddah yaddah.
The person who is making my time online a living nightmare has no idea that the information he’s got on me is nothing to what I’ve got on him. Google Street Viewed motherfucker. But just letting something go can really help things die a lot better than continuing to “fight the good fight”.
August 5, 2011 at 8:35 pm
When i was reading this post, I got that sinking, achy feeling in my chest because I honestly thought you were going to say you were closing this website because you were tired of all the bullshit. When you didn’t, and instead delivered this moving post, which in my opinion ranks up there with Churchill and Patrick Henry with a touch of Shakespearean soliloquy, I was nearly moved to tears.
Also, I love you.
August 5, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I’m gonna say kudos for the above, and thanks. I had some moments of discomfort over the whole thing, even tried to jump in, but regretted doing so almost the moment I clicked “Post Comment” Finally I expressed that discomfort in a reply for doing so and got quite a few thumbs down for it, but also a few thumbs up came. I wasn’t the only one. I just didn’t feel I was judging it by the right context, and even got mad at myself for wondering how I thought I even needed to. BUT, I NEVER felt you were deliberately doing anything to “get” anybody.
Anyway, April, I love you….we’re only human, and that’s how it just is sometimes. You were being entirely human. Feeling conflicted over it after reflecting on it, and sometimes we all need breathing room for that refection. And what you wrote above made me remember why I’ve found this place so much a home. This place can be brutally honest, but I’ve never found it brutally operated.
August 5, 2011 at 8:57 pm
BTW….I don’t want to ever think of you censoring yourself!
But its kinda nice to see this reflective side of you…almost…dare I say….sexy?
No really, don’t go changin’
August 5, 2011 at 8:38 pm
But…McDonald’s DID make me fat…
August 5, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Bee’s Chinese Restaurant made me fat….fucking buffet Lunches for only $7.99!
August 5, 2011 at 8:43 pm
April….chill out baby…your mistake was not using your nom de guerre “Hellen Killer” as a powerful shield for your normal name…and I should not even be calling you “April”…but that is in the past now and what’s really important here….let me think…hmmm…dressing up as Chaz Bono and Chastity is something called “Funny”…posting photos of things on Etsy that look like turds is funny…as a matter of fact Regretsy is funny…Regretsy is not mean or insensetive…war is mean and insenstive….Regretsy tells the truth…an important point many slugs on the internet don’t understand and will never get….so April…don’t let the bastards grind you down…keep showing us, your loving fans, the truth….
August 5, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Just wanted to thank you for using “nom de guerre”. Great term. Not only because it has the word “nom” in it.
It’s weird because I just signed the back of a piece of art I finished today with a rhyme and I used this term in the rhyme. Before today, I’d never seen it written anywhere else. Bravo.
August 5, 2011 at 8:49 pm
I don’t see why you felt the need to take down the Halloween picture. If people over-react and get their feelings hurt they can leave. You weren’t being offensive and it was definitely a clever idea. No doubt people get genuinely hurt by what you are posting on Regretsy – but you don’t care about their feelings -so you just have a problem with crafters?
There are too many people out there who think everyone else is responsible for making sure their feelings aren’t hurt – and this definitely includes the LGBT folks. If you want to add them to the “no pushing MY buttons” group on you site go for it. But people shouldn’t have to censor themselves because someone might decide their feelings are hurt.
August 5, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I didn’t read anyone else’s comments yet because I wanted to get this out before my train of thought loses me at the station.
1) It is damn near impossible to guage someone’s intent or emotional state when you are reading their words as pixels on a screen. Many, many times I have either misinterpreted something someone wrote or had something I wrote misinterpreted by someone else.
2) Context be damned, I’m still pissed as hell about those damned quilts. That was the selfish act of a thoughtless, careless child. Quote me.
August 5, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Indeed. For people who claim to care so much about the asthetics of the time period they were portraying, the destruction of historical artifacts that hold as much if not more value than any written document gets my goat.
Historical quilts tell of the time period in which they were made, the area in which the were made, the culture and social structure of the person who made them. IT’s all there, if you know to look for it.
Destruction of historical items, and items of sociological and cultural value, always gest my goat.
August 5, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Oh, I know! I keep thinking about how carefully those women kept the tiniest scraps of fabric and turned them into beautiful works of art. I thought, even if they are damaged, aren’t they still important? Don’t they tell a story? This is probably the one thing on which I wax sentimental: beautiful, well-executed crafts that exemplify the skill and love a crafter can put into them.
August 5, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Does…this mean I can dress up as April for halloween because I think she’s awesome and it would be the best damnest costume ever? Or would I have to expect a shit storm for that? =c
August 5, 2011 at 11:50 pm
Flip-flp hats for everyone!
August 5, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Fuck em. I go to trans events all the time, I’m a huge supporter, and most of the folks I know would think your costume was funny. I think Chaz would find it funny – he seemed pretty chill when I met him. I don’t even see how it’s offensive.
August 5, 2011 at 9:01 pm
April…chill out baby…your mistake was not using your nom de guerre “Helen Killer” as a shield for your normal name…but that’s in the past…what’s important now is…hmmm…let me think…how about dressing up as Chaz and Chastity Bono…now that’s funny…posting photos of things (certainly not crafts) on Etsy that look like turds is funny…as a matter of fact, Regretsy is funny…war is mean and insensitive…not Regretsy, who’s purpose is to tell the truth…an important point many slugs on the internet don’t understand and will never get…so April…don’t let the bastards grind you down…keep fighting the good fight, if only for your loving fans (me for one)…
August 5, 2011 at 9:05 pm
As someone who was bullied a lot when I was younger for things I couldn’t help I think these people need to stop fucking whinging. People didn’t like their idea, big whoop. We aren’t sitting here making fun of something you were born with, we are making fun of a decision you made.
People can shit on my decisions all they want. I have a huge Harry Potter tattoo, when people don’t like it do I start a Twitter war? No, I say oh well, not my problem. I crochet, if people don’t like my stuff do I cry? No, I say, you don’t have to buy it.
If you put shit on the Internet grow some skin before you do, the world doesn’t have the same opinion as you.
I would feel privileged if Helen put anything of mine up and you wonderful people shit all over it. <3
August 6, 2011 at 1:48 pm
This, a million times over. Make fun of my hair or my makeup of my clothes, but I can’t help my bad teeth. I choose to wear my “Harry is my Homeboy” (jealous of your tattoo, by the way) shirt; it’s not my fault I can’t afford braces.
August 5, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Considering the poverty, war, famine, and genocide going on in the world, I really find the ferocity with which people attack things that “offend them”(or their sensibilities) ridiculous. Don’t like it? Don’t associate with whatever it is. Turn that energy towards something tangible, rather than just someone else’s differing opinion. Geesh.
August 5, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Very creative costume idea, wouldn’t have offended me at all. Then again, something will always offend someone.
But oh my, you MUST be so insanely tired of this whole faux-bo drama. Please offended family, get off your high horses, away from your computers, and back to your lives.
It’s time to be snarky about better things.
August 5, 2011 at 9:12 pm
I know you may not get to this comment, but April you are so honest and the world needs more honesty and less bullshit. So thank you for telling the truth all of the time!!!! It makes you a good person, not a bad one. These people hating just don’t want to look at the truth…or they just want to be offended and they totally misunderstand you and make shit up. Both of these instances you were totally misunderstood. Fuck them dude.
August 5, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 10:49 pm
! can only apologize again for having offended you.
August 6, 2011 at 12:40 am
*hugs it out*
August 6, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Chaz’s life is hard enough having to go through life with a silly-ass name like “Bono”. I mean, seriously, I can’t thing of a single other human on earth with that ridiculous………..wait.
.
Um, nevermind.
August 5, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Sweet Jesus. I’m too many beers in (it’s Friday, for fuck’s sake!) to say anything clever, but this is bullshit and I love, love, love what you do here. Don’t. Stop. (<< that's orgasm talk right thurr!) This is some of the most brilliant shit on the internet.
August 5, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Hobo weddings make my dick hurt.
August 5, 2011 at 9:44 pm
It’s times like these when I am reminded of the subtle wisdom of the late, great ScruffyLookingNerfHerder Sr. whose gentle words should be a comfort to us all: “Piss on ‘em.” My father was an eloquent man.
August 5, 2011 at 9:54 pm
There’s nothing I love more than a bit of self-reflective criticism.
Applause, applause!
August 5, 2011 at 9:56 pm
April, I have to say you were not the first to call them out and while you were not; it makes me happy to know that you did. It hurt to see that article because they think it is in the past then it is not a big deal but truth is; it still occurs. I have had period in my life where we ate nothing but beans and couldn’t afford the normal clothes they can wear. I don’t expect people to feel sorry or tell me “You poor thing”. I do expect them however to treat everyone with respect and give equal consideration. I don’t have a big voice on the internet but you do and you give people like me a voice that can be heard and recognized. I thank you so much for that. You are not all biased you are very fair and anyone who says different can go suck a giant donkey cock.
August 5, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 10:55 pm
According to that one commenter on that article, apparently not. NVM that several people knowledgeably discussed hobos while still finding the whole deal offensive.
August 6, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 5, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Brava! Very well said.
Love the costume idea!
And, as it is written, “Shun ye, all those whom God hath rendered Tasteless; For he hath rendered them humorless as well”
Although, just think of one of their descendants researching the family geneology in 100 years!
August 6, 2011 at 1:23 am
B. Kliban was the best.
August 5, 2011 at 10:06 pm
I sincerely hoped there would be a post like this. I pretty much have no limits when it comes to comedy, but instead of poking fun, it turned into a hate spewing shit fest, and it wasn’t funny anymore.
August 5, 2011 at 10:07 pm
What I don’t understand is this: if they truly enjoyed themselves at this wedding, and thought it was precious as all get out, then WHO GIVES A FUCK?! If I had a RoboCop themed wedding, and people were like “dude, police officers are maimed in the line of duty every day, and sometimes in a way that makes them robo” I’d be all “I don’t give a shit, it was fucking glorious. Sorry if I offended, but it was my wedding, so set your own taint on fire.” And then I would laugh, and laugh, AND LAUGH SOME MORE because fuck them I found somebody I care about enough to ceremonialize (word?) and people I associate with bothered to show up and eat spinach puffs. AND my uncle was there and doesn’t even have a fucking computer SO HE’LL NEVER KNOW.
August 5, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Sooooooo want to have Robocop Party! I want to be the guy who played Dr. Romano on ER after he got douched with the toxic waste! “I’d buy that for a dollar!”
August 5, 2011 at 10:35 pm
You can officiate my Robowedding. That is how seriously a wedding should be taken ON A WEBSITE…ON THE INTERNET…
But for reals I’m not going to be talking about anything but RoboCop for maybe the next 48 hours.
August 6, 2011 at 1:11 am
Oh, this must be in Detroit at the site of the new Robocop statue, supposedly coming in the spring!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/17/us-robocob-statue-odd-idUSTRE71G4WD20110217
August 5, 2011 at 11:12 pm
Just give me my fuckin’ phone call.
August 6, 2011 at 9:30 am
Just look for my handmade invites on the next RoboCop treasury. RSVP PLEASE (The “R” stand for Robospond).
August 5, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Remember the times when the internet was a “dangerous place”? Being the ripe old age of 19, I grew up on the internet, but it was new and scary and parents always told us to be careful what we put online. We had to be super careful about giving out personal information and letting people know too much about our real lives. Obviously those were for safety reasons as a child, but I don’t think once someone hits adulthood they should completely disregard the idea. Your personal life should still stay your personal life, because the internet is still emotionally unsafe.
August 5, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Every now and then someone publishes an article about how employers look online to see what they can find out about you. Why don’t people understand that this can be done?
The most scandalous thing in a Google search of my name is that I once made a good bit of money standing in line on my lunch break buying Beanie Babies and reselling them to co-workers.
A former co-worker has been out of work for a year. He dismisses the suggestion that it’s because a Google search on his name brings up media coverage of the spectacularly stupid thing he did that got him fired from his last job.
August 6, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Google my name and receive approximately 6 million movie reviews on IMDb. In my 5 years of employment, 2 were at the theatre and 2 were (and still are) at a video store. Perfect!
August 5, 2011 at 10:29 pm
I like you people.
August 5, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Also, I love the idea of a Robocop themed wedding.
August 5, 2011 at 10:47 pm
You’re invited. Bring a dish to pass, I’m going POTLUCK on this shit.
August 5, 2011 at 11:01 pm
In that case, I’ll bring cupcakes.
August 6, 2011 at 11:04 am
I’ll bring the crap Robocop eats. “mm! this tastes like baby food!”
August 5, 2011 at 10:39 pm
I just pooped so I honestly can’t give a shit about these people, but I love you April. (I washed my hands, don’t worry)
August 5, 2011 at 10:50 pm
No one has the right to never be offended.
Dear faux-bos, your hysterical flailing about is far more entertaining and ridiculous than your wedding theme could ever have been.
August 6, 2011 at 12:10 am
And to think we caused it.
-tears up-
August 5, 2011 at 10:54 pm
At least it’s not as bad as Penny Arcade’s dickwolf debacle
http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline
August 6, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Aaah, I loved that dickwolf comic!
Penny Arcade done goofed on their “apology” though; that seems to be the part that really sent people through the roof more than the original joke. Glad April isn’t messing around trying to half-assedly say sorry because even tacking yourself (or your vagina) to a cross won’t suffice at that point. :p
August 5, 2011 at 10:54 pm
I still love you.
August 5, 2011 at 11:08 pm
@HK – well I for one, clap manically @ your choice of Costumes. – The way I see it – most people will never understand that type of humor. It’s the kind of humor that goes over big in SoCal. Especially @ the WeHo Halloween shin-ding… but doesn’t play so hot elsewhere. Fuck – I can remember my old Hollywood Halloween days of seeing people running around as the crew and passengers from the VALU-JET crash.. or as Whitney Houston, dropping bags of “coke” everywhere. That shit was funny.
People just need to learn to shake the sand outta their cootches.. or grind it until they make pearls.
August 5, 2011 at 11:19 pm
I disliked that Encyclopedia Dramatica post so I deleted most of it. It won’t last long and I’ll probably be permabanned for it but it is a stupid site anyway.
August 5, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Damn. It is already changed back. It appears to have been written by a bitter person who couldn’t take being made fun of.
August 6, 2011 at 1:20 am
i thought ED was dead. Didn’t they try to close it and open a new site? “oh, internet” or something?
August 6, 2011 at 7:50 pm
The current ED.ch is not run by the originators. It’s run by a bunch of butthurt /b/tards and goons that got into a frothing rage when Sherrod shut the real ED.com down and started ohinternet.com in its place.
Also, FREE WEEV!
August 5, 2011 at 11:32 pm
I’m glad to see this post. I’ve been a bit bothered by some of the follow up “members only” posts because I can easily see myself in this couple’s shoes even though I also kind of agree with your assessment of the situation.
I don’t quite share your harsh internet philosophy, but this post makes me feel better about your approach.
August 5, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Hi April,
Long time reader, first time poster. Actually I created this account just so I could post this. All I have to say is (if slightly dated) a “you go, girl”. I love this website and snark. What would do as a world without snark? If we were all like the Etsy world you could post that you killed your grandma in a meth rage and everyone would be like “Aww….Grandma was 98! Time for her to go! XOXO”
Great post.
August 5, 2011 at 11:55 pm
i don’t get it. chaz bono is a public figure who made a personal change in the public eye. so…what? you dressed as a before and after. it’s fun. you weren’t making fun of him. you didn’t put a rubber knife in your chest or a big red x on your shirt. people dress as michael jackson before and afters and it’s funny. it’s not making fun, it’s just the way it is. is it insulting to black people? white people? is dressing as chaz insulting to transsexuals? we can dress as george bush and sarah palin and intentionally make fun of them, and that’s ok. but we can’t put on a purple velvet jacket and a faux mustache and be prince for halloween because it might offend some purple people society? a vegetarian saves a cow but pisses off an omaha steak delivery truck driver. seriously, context DOES matter. if you accidentally stomp on my foot, of course it hurts, but if i punch you in the face for it, i’m the one who’s a dick.
August 6, 2011 at 1:58 pm
. if you accidentally stomp on my foot, of course it hurts, but if i punch you in the face for it, i’m the one who’s a dick.
Eloquently put. Well, to me anyway
August 6, 2011 at 12:03 am
Beautiful post, bravo. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to self-reflect like this. For me, this articulates what stuck in my craw most about the Faux-bos: their reactions stayed purely at defensive level and at no point were/are they willing to do this kind of self-reflection.
August 6, 2011 at 12:05 am
Fuck you Helen. It’s 3am and I’ve been reading this thread for 3 hours. I need to sleep dammit.
JK, love you. Keep up the good snark.
CF4L
August 6, 2011 at 4:27 am
Hand me a beer, wouldja?
August 6, 2011 at 12:09 am
The internet, where if you’re really offended by something; you’re a moron.
Who here was totally torn apart by the hobo wedding?
Not me, and most of my life i’ve been dirt poor.
Did we act offended to prove a point? Yes.
Were we right in ridiculing the wedding? Yes, because it was fucking funny to do so and it was ridiculous in the first place.
But nothing, and I mean nothing, should offend you on the internet.
Anybody can do anything, its hell’s playground, save being nice for the real world.
August 6, 2011 at 1:01 am
I firmly believe that being offended is a choice; and why should other people’s choices affect my actions? Your emotional response to a thing doesn’t alter its nature; something is not offencive simply because you were offended. If I have a phobia of kittens, does that mean that it is in a kitten’s nature to be a frightening thing? No. Billions of people go around happily petting kittens and in my hypothetical situation I just need to get my shit together and learn to love kittens too.
August 6, 2011 at 12:34 am
I never heard of Encyclopedia Dramatica before this post. After spending an hour looking around I see it’s just a bunch of opinionated assholes whom espouse their opinions as if they were scripture…
I of course realize by stating this I’m doing the same fucking thing. Oh-the fuck-well…
By-product of our sentience; we all have our own opinions. So long as they’re aligned with our peers we can reinforce them and feel groovy about ourselves, our opinions seem validated cuz someone else shares them. Soon as the opinions are in conflict, you get shit like scraping persons from the bottom of fine ass shoes or an excess of straws on camel’s backs and then we can’t all be friends anymore :.(
April is awesome, her sense of humor and those of many of the repeat posters make this site worth viewing, to hell with with anyone too wrapped up in their own opinions to take a fucking joke.
August 6, 2011 at 1:04 am
It’s funny that in the last sentence of your post you pretty much sum up the whole point of Encyclopedia Dramatica. That, and the fact that it’s a finely crafted satire of the famously unreliable collection of opinions that is Wikipedia.
August 6, 2011 at 12:58 am
None of my best friends are black, and that’s how you can tell I’m not racist.
August 6, 2011 at 1:06 am
I’ve now dubbed this all… HOBO-GATE!!
August 6, 2011 at 1:49 am
DEAR HELEN,
I did not read any of the other comments. There’s like 600 of them and it’s 2 AM. Fuck that.
There are two things you should know. One, I am trans. Two, that costume is both hilarious and clever. Three, trannies on the internet are the most indignant, butthurt motherfuckers I have ever met.
Being transgender can be really shitty. You deal with body issues and depression and discrimination and that kind of stuff like, every day. Forever. But I have never known a group of people that are more insane and more offendable. I’ve hung out with LGB groups, pagans, hardcore nerds, crazy as shit dog and horse show people.
Nothing. No one. Anywhere. Tops. Trannies.
So you and Bronc work those double costumes. You own the SHIT out of that butthurt. Let no one clip your wings.
And I will invite you to my super secret internet space and we can be real friends.
August 6, 2011 at 1:53 am
Um. That’s three things you should know I guess.
August 6, 2011 at 6:48 am
I used to participate in an LGBT forum. It was impossible to say anything of any kind about transgendered people without someone posting flaming butthurt.
If they couldn’t twist your words into something anti-trans, they’d jump on you for not using their particular combination of gender identification vocabulary.
(For example, I referred to a movie about three people going through the medical procedures to physically change genders as “three transgenders.” One person said that it dehumanized them to refer to them as “transgenders,” while another person said I must be referring to the process, not the people.)
And no one who gets butthurt over vocabulary should say “transphobic.” They’re not describing any kind of phobia, and “homophobia” is the fear of BEING or being perceived as gay, not the fear of gay people.
August 6, 2011 at 10:53 am
Hang on, lemme see if I can do this right:
You are just using your CISGENDER PRIVILEGE to hold us down! You don’t know what it’s like to be us therefore there is NO WAY you can comment about anything related to transgender issues without being an offensive cuntwaffle! HOW DARE YOU YOU TRANSPHOBE.
There. I think that’s how it works. I don’t know, I was always bad at this part of being trans. :C
August 6, 2011 at 3:23 pm
You sounded pretty convincing!
My favourite personal encounter with this kind of attitude involved an internet community I used to be part of where biological women were banned from discussing having periods, pregnancy/fertility/infertility, or anything else that happens to most bio-chicks, all deemed by the mods to be ‘transphobic’. For real. Even after the majority of trans members said they weren’t in the least bit offended by the fact that bodies born as female tend to do different things than bodies made female. But hey, got to put those ciswimminz in their place, you know?
August 6, 2011 at 6:39 pm
It’s like you’re reading my personal e-mails…
August 6, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Oh. I have been, Bronc. I have been.
August 6, 2011 at 2:33 am
I’m not offended by hobo weddings. But I’m also not offended by taking the piss out of hobo weddings. I’m inclined to laugh at everything.
Additionally, I have a good trans-gendered friend with a sense of humor who (I think) would say that getting offended over petty/jokey issues can actually harm the community more than having a good laugh. In fact, spending time being offended about these issues can distract from real problems – she was fired from her job as a bank teller for no particular reason other than the management thought she made customers uncomfortable.
And that’s not funny at all.
August 6, 2011 at 2:48 am
Dammit, woman! If I were a man and you weren’t already engaged to the hunka-hunka Bronc Drywall, I’ll propose right here and now.
(You’re my [internet] hero!)
August 6, 2011 at 2:52 am
Uh, “I’d” not “I’ll.” Whoops.
I’d use the excuse of inebriation, but sadly, I’m not.
August 6, 2011 at 4:33 am
This made me spit on my monitor, so thought I’d share.
August 6, 2011 at 4:35 am
Clarification: Saw that on the way OUT (attempted exit, at least), and I spit when I laugh.
August 6, 2011 at 7:00 am
Oh no, HK! They have screencaps! Whatever will you do? Don’t you know that screencaps hold the same power as, for example, a secret personal name in some Native American cultures, where if the other person has it, they have power over you? Clearly there is no escape from their justice now.
August 6, 2011 at 7:25 am
” He said, “If you stepped on my foot and you did it by accident, it would not hurt less than if you did it on purpose.”
Clearly this person does not have kids… My son steps on my feet all the time. I quell the rage and don’t slap him upside the face.
April I think you are pretty fair… you let nothing go un-mocked, weather it’s faux pas or not.
August 6, 2011 at 7:47 am
See their article on “pro-ana” and you will see just what kind of intelligent, distinguished, sensitive folks the people at ED are.
I’ve been following Regretsy for over a year, and it’s brought me neverending laughs and good times. I won’t let some butthurt douchenozzle’s resentful rant ruin that.
As for their comment about your age, April – I am not trying to kiss ass, honestly – I thought you and Bronc were both in your thirties or so until I knew. I’m a poor judge of age, though, so maybe all I’m doing by telling you that is confusing you.
Fuck those fucking fuckers. Thank you for being awesome.
August 7, 2011 at 6:09 pm
I am in my thirties! For another few months, at any rate.
August 6, 2011 at 10:12 am
Can I just say how much I friggin’ respect you, April? When I grow up, I want to be you.
August 6, 2011 at 10:45 am
Villainizing the internet is like blaming McDonalds for making you fat.
Can I put that on a t-shirt? LOL!
August 6, 2011 at 10:50 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 7, 2011 at 1:10 pm
I think I made it pretty plain that I’m a fool. I also said that I started this mess, and that I am a fucking hypocrite.
I’m agreeing with you. Your argument is invalid.
August 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 6, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Someone on the internet did a thing AND I AM HURT. BUTT-HURT.
August 6, 2011 at 11:45 am
I know this is old crap now and I finally have had a chance to sleep and think. I knowingly post ridiculous shit that I have done and I deserve every good and bad comment I get. Same goes for everyone that posts their personal business.
April, you have no reason to have any regrets! The halloween costume is pretty tame compared to others I have witnessed. How about two radio personalities dressing as Sigfreid and Roy right after the tiger attack? What about Daniel Tosh’s every utterance? I do feel kinda bad about dressing my husband as Prince one year. He didn’t really know who he was supposed to be. I just didn’t want to waste the really good tan he had that year.
I’m tired of being beat over the head with political correctness! I don’t care that I laughed so hard I almost lost an eye over my coworker running in and yelling “Somebody give me something to drink so I can get this Mexican outta my mouth!” She wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. Her food was spicy.
August 6, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Well I see the groom (@boxbrown) has tweeted an apology:
“In regards to our wedding: Our intentions were never to offend or mock anyone and if you were offended by our choice of theme. We apologize.”
A bit late, but maybe it’ll die a natural death now…
August 6, 2011 at 3:25 pm
I like how they add the ‘if you were offended by our choice’ instead of admitting that their choice was pretty much generally offensive.
August 6, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Pardon me if I still think that he’s a dick. A sincere apology does not include the words “but” or “if” (or so my depression-surviving grandmother taught me.)
I kinda want to make a faux-apology/ faux-bo crack, but I started drinking early tonight and this V&T isn’t going to refill itself. Priorities.
August 6, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Yeah, I’m not real fond of the “I’m sorry you’re so sensitive” faux-pology either.
Either you’re genuinely sorry for your behavior, in which case just say that, and shut up, – and if you can’t honestly do it, don’t even bother. Doing it this way adds an insult to the injury.
August 6, 2011 at 7:52 pm
I’m sure that was just so hard for him to do, inbetween doodles of goddesses getting raped by their fathers.
August 6, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Tardy to the party, but regardless: I love you, April. I come for the snark and the fuckery, but I stay because when shit like this happens, you reflect. You own your mistakes, you apologize to the people you upset, and you follow through to educate yourself.
Plus, you and the rest of the whimsicle bitches on this site are some of the funniest people in the world.
August 6, 2011 at 9:38 pm
I had to add this: ETSY themselves are apologizing for the Hobo wedding post. It is a half-assed, sideways apology in that they make an oblique reference to people being pissed about OTHER sites (read: Regretsy), but the upshot is that people in the ETSY COMMUNITY were pissed about the blog post as well, and NOT by Regretsy. I realize that April had a Moment of Clarity, but frankly her post is perfectly reasonable (and funny, at least to me). It is an opinion that other people share (myself included). Snark is a good thing. So is self awareness. Now I am going to chill the fuck out and have a sandwich.
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/handmade-weddings-depression-era-hobo/
August 6, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Hey Helen. It’s been a couple of days and there are 734 other comments that say exactly what I want to, the complete opposite, or something in between. But still, I feel like I need to add my two cents.
I’ve been following the whole shitteree and it’s been interesting enough or whatever, but what moves me to comment is how incredibly eloquent and human this post of yours is. There have been several other times I have thought to myself, “This April is a lot more than just hilarious” but this one really impressed me. I have tried to explain why, but every time I write out a sentence it sounds trite and insincere. For example: You have demonstrated well the kind of self-reflection necessary for growth as a person – reviewing and adapting your views without backing down in the name of politeness when you feel strongly about a belief you hold(and, impressively, for which you can present a strong, well-reasoned argument.)
My dead bird fascinator is off to you, ma’am.
August 6, 2011 at 9:56 pm
To those stricken with a severe case of cryabeetus:
HK has more tact in her left nut than you have in your whole totes adorbs upcycled vegan shabby-chic life.
So fuck you.
August 6, 2011 at 10:15 pm
This post is pretty and smells nice.
August 6, 2011 at 10:41 pm
As someone who is currently unemployed and had relatives I was close to who had pretty bad experiences during the Depression, wasn’t digging the hobo wedding.
I remember when you posted the Chaz/Chastity pics…was having such a bad day at work (prior to being laid off due to the economy after 4 years at that job). This dyke cracked the fuck up and it made it easier to get through my crappy day.
August 7, 2011 at 2:42 am
“my safe place, is the 2nd most popular site in the world!”
I have never laughed out loud more with any other sentence on regretsy, ever.
(Sampler! Sampler!)
August 7, 2011 at 10:32 am
Hi April. It’s qweerdo. I was really pleased to read how much you’ve turned a corner, but then I got to this part:
“But let me be really clear here. I am not sorry for the costume I chose, because I know who I am, and I know what is in my heart, and in no way did I mean to cause any suffering for an already marginalized segment of our society. And I can see that Mr. and Mrs. Faux-Bo also don’t feel sorry for the choice they made, and I don’t judge them for that at all. We both have our contexts.”
Intent doesn’t matter. When we hurt people, it doesn’t matter whether we meant it of not. It doesn’t matter what was in our heart.
August 7, 2011 at 1:04 pm
You know Qweerdo, I apologized for the part I understood. If I just apologized without knowing why – to make it go away – it would have been meaningless.
I fully admit that I was ignorant. Punishing me was not making me smarter. It was not until this morning, almost a year later, that anyone clearly explained to me why this might be hurtful to a transgendered person (and I only say “might”, because his reasons may not be anyone else’s). It was like a lightbulb turning on. And now that someone has helped me understand, I can honestly say I’m sorry for all of it.
As for your last comment, I can’t help thinking it should go both ways. If we’re only to be judged by the pain we inflict on others, then an activist can be just as irresponsible as a comedian.
But I am glad to see you here, and glad to understand you better today.
August 7, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Good for you. I mean that. I know how much self-work it takes to get to where you are. And we don’t always get pats on the back for it. I’m not even sure we deserve them because all we’re doing is being a little less shittier. But still, I’ll give you a pat on the back or a cookie or whatever because it’s not easy to change the way we think.
August 7, 2011 at 11:59 pm
April, your bravery, honesty and self-awareness rock my world and inspire me. Thank you.
Also, Goatse.
August 8, 2011 at 1:51 am
“Intent doesn’t matter. When we hurt people, it doesn’t matter whether we meant it of not. It doesn’t matter what was in our heart.”
No Jimmmy, you can’t compare physical pain with insult!
Intention might not matter when stepping on toes, but it makes all the difference when it comes to insult. It might be just me, but I used to think that insult or mocking include the intention to hurt someone in their very definition. And when the intention isn’t there insult ceases to exist and one has to reconsider any feelings of pain he might have felt. But then again it might just be me.
August 8, 2011 at 10:29 am
Pain is pain. Be it physical or emotional. The stepping on toes analogy works for all kinds of injury, not just physical. And we all do it. We all have instances where we’ve hurt people and didn’t mean to. I’m not trying to fight here, but, it seems like you’re saying that people don’t have the right to feel insulted if the insult-er didn’t mean it.
August 7, 2011 at 12:16 pm
April! Your site is still one of the funniest, well-written, enjoyable sites on the internets, and don’t you forget it. I even read your wedding blog! You have a great, amusing voice, which is terrifically difficult. Haters gonna hate-just please, whatever you do, don’t change a thing. I am consistently surprised by the quality of your writing, and am always sending friends to your site. This is utter bullshit-Chaz Bono is not off limits, simply by dint of his choices, and it’s incredibly patronizing to be ‘offended’ by your costume. It was pretty funny.
Please, keep writing, keep your eye on all the crafters out there, they need to be kept in check, and you do it so, so well.
August 7, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Sadly, you can’t win with some people.
They get angry because you snark at things, yet they rip you to shreds on a site like Encyclopedia Dramatica. Pot calling kettle, line two!
The problem is that this is an increasingly PC world, and it’s a sorry state of affairs. That’s not to say it’s ok to go around and pick on people for certain things, like handicaps and the like, but if you want to get right down to it, all of us can be categorized as “disadvantaged”. I’m diabetic – that makes me disabled in the eyes of the government, and therefore you can’t make fun. And because everything is also a lawsuit nowadays, you’ll get sued on top of it. Pretty much all you can do anymore is sit around and drool.
But drooling offends me, so I’ll see you in court over that.
August 7, 2011 at 5:07 pm
oh man, that sounds like a genius choice of costumes! i don’t see it any different as going as any other famous person. You weren’t wearing shirts that said ‘before the dick’ and ‘after the dick’ or anything that might pass judgement on who you were portraying. It was simply a clever famous couple choice.
meanwhile, spending loads of money to have a ‘quaint hobo’ wedding is insulting.
August 7, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Not a single fuck was given at my end regarding either your costume or this hobo-wedding malarkey. I managed to see them both for what they are: THINGS TO AMUSE ME. You are the person who collates the fuckery to amuse me – this is good; I do not need to do it myself. That’s why I keep coming here. I am lazy for my lulz.
The thing about people and the internet is that it’s anonymous, for what it’s worth. Whatevs. People take this shit WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. I feel like telling people, are you serious? You are never going to meet this person who just called you a name. How can that impact your life in any meaningful way? And then I realise all they have in their lives IS THE INTERNET. And, full circle, I do not have a single fuck to give if they can’t function in the physical, 3D world.
And also. YOUR DAD WAS TIGGER? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!
August 7, 2011 at 8:26 pm
OK wow, I just got back from camping and have no fucking idea what all this is about. But I am a dyke with a trans-ish partner and I thought your costume was hilarious. Fuck ‘em.
August 8, 2011 at 8:00 am
I love you. That is all.
August 8, 2011 at 9:47 am
Helen Killer, the respect I already had for you has gone up a thousandfold. Anybody can make a mistake, but it takes courage to own that mistake.
August 8, 2011 at 10:34 am
Oh man. I think your Chastity/Chaz costumes were awesome. I’m so sorry that hurt anyone’s feelings. My mom is gay and I think she would think it was funny too. But good on ya for realizing we’re all different and react differently. And anyone who doesn’t think Regretsy is funny as anything out there on the net is no one I would have anything in common with anyway. CF4L
August 8, 2011 at 3:45 pm
After catching up on these various controversies…
First of all, what is with the ”wedding theme?” Isn’t the act of getting married a theme in itself? I swear to God…I think too many people were somehow traumatized by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinatas or something…
Second, on one hand, I understand how the costumes could bring out sensitivity among some people. On the other hand…has anyone ever been to the Gay Pride parade in NYC? I have. Let me put it this way…HK and Bronc’s costumes were pretty tame…
August 8, 2011 at 7:16 pm
If I had any heroes, you would be one of them.
August 14, 2011 at 9:50 pm
This thread inspired me to register as an official Regretsy member. I’ve stalked for a few months but never had the balls to say anything.
3 years ago, I went as Amy Winehouse for Halloween. Not the beautiful, talented singer/songwriter I’ll remember her as, but the tattooed, coked out, hot mess that everybody else will remember her to be (for the record, I don’t do cocaine).
When I found out she died, I made one of those photos my Facebook profile picture but took it down after a few jackwagons thought I was being disrespectful. No doubt these were the same people who LOL-ed all over the place when I went as her 3 YEARS AGO.
The point I’m trying to make is, if you don’t want to be somebody else’s Halloween costume, then don’t do things that will inspire them to make you their Halloween costume.
Also, hobo weddings are dumb.
CF4L
August 23, 2011 at 8:43 pm
Also on the “registered just to comment” bandwagon, and way late. But I have to say – while I understand why people might be offended, I’m a transguy (like Chaz) and I think the costume pair is pretty funny. I existed as someone else before I transitioned. I wasn’t a public figure, so there won’t be costumes, but someone else did exist before boy-me became official. It’s still funny when it is a celeb.
August 27, 2011 at 8:20 pm
I’ve got three words for everyone involved in both these ridiculous situations: lighten up, fuckers!
I already expressed my opinion (that the hobo wedding was not offensive) on that page so I’ll skip that. But by the same token, the Chastity/boy Chastity costumes were not offensive. If anything they were an amusing TRIBUTE to the transgender community!
Hobo weddings and transgender pair costumes are both inoffensive. But Hobo weddings are not enjoyable, whereas April’s antics were. Frankly I kind of want to do a transgender pair costume now just to get people to lighten up.
However… I can see how flipping out trying to get images posted to the public domain could be considered a bit hypocritical. I have nothing against April’s costume, but I can see how other people might find using her pictures perfectly fair game, especially considering how she uses pictures. I am sorry April, I don’t mean to offend at all, I am just saying I can understand their perspective.
October 15, 2011 at 1:49 pm
The opening paragraph and accompanying picture just absolutely made my afternoon. Thanks you guys.