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Hats Off To Mickey Mantle & Sid ViciousAug 23 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line A "Hall of Fame" should recognize members who have made a positive difference to the epinions COMMUNITY; not the members most favored by Brisbane.
. INTRODUCTION When I pause to consider which epinions members have had the most positive influence, both on me, and the community at large, two names come to mind before any others. THE CRITERIA Epinions offers three criteria for making HoF selections: 1)"writing excellence," 2) "most impact" and 3) "personally inspiring." I have one or two additional criteria I believe are important for forming a Hall of Fame selection basis which I will discuss further ahead. Additionally, I think it's important to note that in defining the concept of "Hall of Fame," epinions cites two very specific and distinctive "Hall of Fame" examples: 1) "The Baseball Hall of Fame or 2) Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame." BASEBALL STARS Society needs both its base runners and its bass players. Baseball stars provide us with shy, unassuming, soft-spoken roll models; straight-shooters who say "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" and who generally let their bats do their talking for them. They symbolize everything society aspires to be; vice-free, upstanding, Apollonian heroes and Wonderbread role models for children, apolitical nice guys who everyone loves. They marry their childhood sweethearts and remain faithful to them. They bring diverse, antagonistic elements of society together to cheer on their pursuit of records and make people forget about their worldly problems by hitting timely home runs. Hard_To_Please (Mark Arnold) was epinions' "Mickey Mantle." ROCK N' ROLL STARS While the traditional Baseball Hall of Famers are "golden boys;" jukebox heroes are invariably "bad boys." They're society's leather-clad, night-time heroes. They don't get invitations to share home-cooked meals and meet the family. Parents fear the influence their music has on junior because they remember the influence their rock heroes had on them; the challenges to authority, the sense of liberation, the Promethean truth revelations. Intuitively, they understand that rock idol worship is as much a part of their teenage children's social growth as the baseball hero worship had been during their children's pre-adolescent years. We don't just love rock heroes DESPITE the fact they're bad; we love'em BECAUSE they're bad. So what's so good about "bad?" Bad means "real." Bad means "no-holds-barred honesty;" telling it like it is without putting on any airs. Bad boys tell us the "ugly" truth. They say the things people are afraid to say, yet which need to be said. You may not agree with them or necessarily even like them, but you respect the hell out of them because you recall how many smiling liars with which you're daily social interaction forces you to contend. You realize that if the world was only populated by baseball heroes, we'd have no one to test the bounds of the rational and the acceptable, nor question the double standards hidden by society's waxed fruit facade of morality. Ken the Sordid-1 was epinions' "Sid Vicious." Brisbane, by way of its rock star/baseball star criteria, acknowledges that not all of its community's heroes wear white hats, nor should all of its honorees be required to wear blue hats for Hall of Fame inclusion. I consider that a good thing because there are many writers at epinions who have made their mark on the community without the substantial visibility and weighting influence boost provided by advisor and CL hats. For some not very apparent reason, epinions and those in the community who have or have had a say on such matters, have conspicuously declined to honor some of its very finest and most worthy representatives with the offer of a "Top Reviewer" or "Advisor" hat. Thankfully, the noble character of these members was such that, for their entire membership tenures, they gracefully weathered the indignity of this shameful, routine snub. Instead of disempowering them, it only added to their stature in the eyes of their fellow members. Despite being blackballed, they stayed on and continued to lead the community by inspiring example, if not by superficial designation. As the community came to recognize HTP and S-1 as their de facto leaders, it began to feel a corresponding suspicion and distrust for a management hierarchy that would attempt to shift its weight against such respected members. Instead of taking away from their de facto leadership status, the ongoing snub made writers question the legitimacy of the hats. EPINIONS' "MICKEY MANTLE:" HARD_TO_PLEASE Like Mickey Mantle, Mark had great personal warmth and humanity. His easy-going, self-deprecating, folksy humor and disarming, graceful wit enabled his readers, not only to acknowledge their own human shortcomings, but in fact, to celebrate and rejoice in them. Like Mickey Mantle, Mark was a bit of a hell-raiser, but this is not what came through in his personality; it simply added to his humanity and his general unwillingness to judge or condemn other people. Mark's impact on the epinion's community has become epinions folklore. Aside from being, perhaps epinions' most popular member ever, he was one of only two members in epinions 3 plus year history to bring together the community's disparate, antagonistic factions over a common cause; Mark's terminal cancer. For the 3 months prior to his death on October 9th, 2001, epinions members rallied together to become the online community version of a Norman Rockwell "Saturday Evening Post" cover-plate in their outpouring of love, affection and concern for epinions' fallen community icon. It would be silly for me to attempt to detail the many and diverse ways that Mark personally inspired me during the course of our friendship, both on and offline. After Mark died, the epins communiy would never be the same neighborly neighborhood again. For further reference, feel free to visit my "HTP Lovefest" review: " The Hard To Please Epinioner's Personality-Development Primer: The H_T_P Love Fest." It's an impressive testament to Mark's social impact that people; members and non-members alike, still visit my HTP tribute review: " From The Bottom Of Mark's Heart...," and/or email me seeking to learn more about him, almost 2 years after he died. EPINIONS' "SID VICIOUS:" SORDID-1 Though the Sex Pistols (Sid Vicious' band,) developed a media image of rebellion and anarchy that was primarily a product of slick commercial packaging and hype, Sid himself, was no act. He was cruel, nasty, abusive and personified everything the Sex Pistols purported to represent. Sordid-1's uncompromising persona, like that of Sid Vicious, was not a product of hype either. Ken, though a genuinely warm and engaging person off-line, had virtually no tolerance for hypocrisy, dishonesty or insincerity. Nor was he inhibited about expressing his disdain for it during the many occasions he encountered it. It was this blunt aspect of Ken's personality; his unconditional willingness to "tell it like it is," that made him such an indispensable "watchdog" of the epinions community. You either loved him or you hated him, but you always respected him. He was an excellent writer, funny as all get-out and a superior intellect. His SCADS production was a bit anemic, but then nobody's perfect, right? We didn't agree on everything. Like all good friends, we attempted to rip out each other's Adam's apple when we disagreed on some point. The great thing was, we knew, even while we were exchanging blows, that we'd eventually arrive at some civil conclusion. Yep. It was boxing glove at first sight. Ken's personality was a big part of the community's personality. Though his day-to-day influence on epinions was certainly more than enough to merit his Hall of Fame installment, he catalyzed some very memorable, community-altering, epins-historical moments as well. In November of 2001, when the management, fearing a mass exodus from the site due to its unilateral decision to discontinue paying members for their work product, attempted to usurp the community's intellectual property rights in contravention of their user agreement, it became apparent that the management had woefully underestimated the community's ability to distinguish its real leaders from its management-dubbed counterparts. Outraged and unwilling to allow the management to get away with its shameless act of treachery without a fight, one of these "de facto" leaders decided he'd take on the management on behalf of himself and the community by organizing a sitewide revolt which came to be known as "the EBD." In doing so, he singlehandedly managed to pull off a miraculous feat that only one other site member had been able to do before him. He unionized the site's various mutually-antagonistic factions in pursuit of a common cause. The management, caught completely by surprise, was forced within three days to capitulate. For the first time, the management was forced to acknowledge that its community was not simply a farm of livestock that existed for its profitable manipulation. MICKEY MANTLE & SID VICIOUS So many of epinions product review writers kept making return trips to epinions because of Ken and Mark's entertaining posts, comments and antics, that I feel it's safe to say that epinions might not be here today, had it not been for the immeasurable drawing power of their magnetic personalities. Contrary to anything you've read or heard from the management, the "Most Helpful" review is NOT always the one that "...provides SCADS of helpful product info calculated to help the consumer make better buying decisions." Some ways of being "helpful" can't be so easily reduced to a simple definition or quantified by "how many SCADS" you can count in a review. A community is a living, breathing entity; not a business commodity. It has a heart, a soul and a personality. When the community dies, the SCADS production ceases; perhaps permanently. Brisbane would be wise to remember this indisputable fact. Despite Mark and Ken being the REAL leaders and "go to" entities at EP; the members the ep community turned to during the many, MANY times the epi-management's failure of leadership resulted in sitewide chaos, and who consistently came through for members time and again by "staying the course" with their humor and thoughtful discourse, they were never rewarded or acknowledged for their uncommon initiative and stalwart leadership with offers of hats or badges. Instead, they were blackballed; perennially snubbed, right up until the end, to the endless disgrace of those who are or were in a position to rectify this shameful injustice. Words cannot express the revulsion and disdain I feel for these petty blackballers and snubbers. While these space-wasting imbeciles were shining their worthless tin badges and epi-awards or flashing their epi-management credentials in front of their bathroom mirrors, the undecorated TRUE leaders quietly picked up their seemingly endless slack and maintained their otherwise untended burdens. The unworthy snubbers were the very people who should have been down on their hands and knees begging for permission to kiss the asses of the writers whom they've so fatuously presumed to snub. Sure, I may have a personal bias because Mark and Ken were my two closest friends here at epinions, but despite the presence of any warm and glowy sentiments generated by my personal feelings of friendship, I think when one looks back at each of their epins' histories, it becomes reasonably self-evident why each one of these writers should "have (his) footprints cast in concrete." As far as HTP or Sordid-1 being "...remembered forever," I feel confident this will happen whether or not either one is inducted into an Epinions Hall of Fame. Still, their "official" epins recognition is long overdue. Perhaps its time epins thought about making amends with the epinions community for the shameful way it has spurned the goose that has consistently provided it with its golden eggs. Epinions' unwillingness to curb the system-wrought arbitrary power abuse of one or two of its CLs has set an oppressive sitewide trend of mediocrity-worship and "power position" ass-kissery that seems certain to drive away the few individuals who still linger here. I fear that an epinions Hall of Fame will just turn into another another Brisbane "carrot-on-a-string" sham unless the community rallies behind it, the way it has done for both Mark and Ken in its colorful past. While they and the pathetic, overlooked group of social misfits and outcasts they represent were here, contributing, virtue sustained them as its own reward. The management never massaged their esteem with flattering opportunities to scornfully reject shiny egoboo badges, nor shed any tears when the door hit their unacknowledged asses on the way out. The least epinions could do to redeem itself in some small way, would be to acknowledge the unsung writers who carried them and their site by anchoring the epinions community with their dynamic personalities. GIVING CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE Epins member AggieBrett deserves massive credit for dreaming up this Hall of Fame idea, as does CL Pogomom for her unflinching support of the former in his quest to make it happen. I commend you both for your initiative and insanity. Let's honor them by honoring the people who deserve to be honored. An epi-Hall Of Fame should not just be a means of providing epinions and its blind allegiance yes-men another opportunity to snub the same "legends" it already snubs and blackballs. You epinions writers know who has made this community's clock tick; --STAND UP and BE HEARD. That said, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ken (Sordid-1) for 3 years of inspiring "...honored poverty (during which) his voice did weave/Songs consecrate to truth and liberty," like Hard_To_Please before you, the 3 years of award/badge-snubbing and blackballing you quietly endured, meant as much to me as anything either of you ever wrote. Your ability and willingness to "make a difference" will be sorely missed, --29th  |
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