"Find out what it means to me..."

Please raise you glasses and bid Tara a fond farewell. Sadly, she feels unable to continue blogging on 2old2play, and I don't blame her. I guess she's had enough of people being rude and disrepspectufl towards her, or taking her words and using them to make snap judgements about her. I've never spoken with her, or even commented on her blog an awful lot, but I was a regular reader, and not only will it be sad to see her go for that reason, but it's sad to see anyone feel no longer welcome in a community that they've been a member of for over a year. It's easy to say to someone that they should grow thicker skin, or that that's the way things are on the Internet, but I don't accept that - as Tara herself points out, it's not enough to say, "Not to be mean," or "No disrespect," and then go right ahead and be mean and disrespectful.

At what point did it become acceptable to take a pop at someone and think it's okay because you've claimed that you don't really mean it? I don't simply mean here on 2old2play, but in general. You know the saying that opinions are like assholes - everyone has them, and they're usually full of s**t? Well it's more true online than it is offline. While I love computers and I doubt that I could live life without ready access to the Internet, it's a sad state of affiars that the world had come the point where technology gives us the ability to ridicule and savage people simply for posting their thoughts and opinions in a supposedly neutral place. It's not enough to say, "It's the Internet, what do you expect?" I expect that people have some God-damn decency and a modicum of manners. Sadly though, that's hopelessly naive, and the fact that the Internet gives us the shield of anonymity means that people are always going to make use of it.

Just because we're member of 2old2play, it doesn't mean that we're free from idiots - plenty of old people are just as idiotic as younger people - but it might have been nice if one of our members didn't feel like they had to leave because of the welcome their thoughts and opinions were getting. I guess I can be thankful that I'm not getting as many readers as Tara was.