From: thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu (John Dorrance)
Subject: Re: ok, let me try this again
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 07:19:51 GMT

I know that some people see my contributions to soc.motss as
frivolous at best and completely without merit at worst, and
I know that there are even lots of people who would sing
praise to allah if I were to quit posting (in fact, I'm sure
I'll get a few 'hear, hear' postings to this section, if the
people I'm talking about haven't already put me in their kill
files). But there are lots of people here who like me (and,
one can further infer, what I post), too; I got buckets o'
e-mail to prove it!!! But anyway, I know that I'm one of the
much less stringent of adherents to the motss-content rule,
and that it bothers some people. But I guess the reason why I
post the way I do is because my attitude towards soc.motss is
different from the attitudes I guess people generally have
toward newsgroups.
Soc.motss is the only newsgroup I read. Well, there are a
couple of others I have added to my list lately; alt.sex.motss
and alt.fan.madonna. The latter I have since removed because
people fought a lot about petty things there. But soc.motss
is the only group I actively participate in, and the only one
I see myself staying with for an extended period of time.
This is because it's one of the major social outlets in my
life. It's not the only one; I have plenty of live interaction
with the people around me. But my only dealings with computers
are soc.motss-related; I'm either reading or posting to soc.
motss, reading or replying to (the latter not nearly enough to
fend off backlog, unfortunately) email from people on soc.
motss, or (occasionally) viewing gifs from the soc.motss
archive. That's it. If it weren't for soc.motss, I'd have no
interactions with computers at all, as I'm not in computers by
trade and am practically computer-illiterate (as Steve Dyer
can attest from the many times I've emailed him asking what
I'm doing wrong with my attempts at viewing gifs, or Jess
Anderson can attest from all the times I've bugged him about
working ftp for the quotes files, or how to make the anagram
program work (still doesn't, btw)). So whatever soc.motss is to
you, no matter how many improvements you see that can make it
a more useful forum for you, it's enough to make someone take
up computing just to have access to it (whether this reflects
positively on motss or negatively on my social skills is your
call).
And the reason why soc.motss is so important to me is because
there is so much variety in its offerings. It's my main source
of information about queers; their politics, their celebrities,
their arts. It's my main source of exposure to queer rage, queer
theory, and queer rights. I started reading and posting to
motss before I knew anything about pride, and it's through motss
that I've learned how to like being what I am and how to be social
in queer circles. And the not-necessarily-queer tangents are all
a part of that, because it gives a chance to really see the
people here interact on a level other than simple discussion.
It's through conversation and tangents thereof that we find out
what everyone is really like, and to pull back and go 'whoa, we
haven't mentioned queer sex lately' would really cramp the flow
of the conversation. And anyway, the group of people on motss is
so interesting in general that once one has heard everyone talk
about strictly queer things, one is so interested in the people
that one would not object to hearing them talk about other not-
necessarily straight things. I like so many people around here,
and like to talk to so many of them about different things, that
it would be inefficient to start 30 private emails about music
lyrics or whatever. I posted that because I expected I'd get a
big and widely-varied response from several different people,
who listen to mind-bogglingly different types of music. And that's
the reason I post lots of silly inconsequential things here;
because I know I'll get wildly varying (and pretty consistently
intriguing) responses. Soc.motss isn't just a newsgroup; it's a
group of people, and I'm interested in a lot of them and like to
talk to them all. If that's bad, I don't care. I like it. Pbbbbt.

John, sensing that extensive editing is in order

--
John Dorrance        * Sexyfunky Motherfuckerdiva *   thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu

		I bet if you threw that ass into the air
			It'd turn into sunshine!
Xref: sparky soc.motss:46251 talk.politics.misc:58374