Discordant
Oct. 24th, 2025 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI was on Discord for quite a while a few years ago, mainly for roleplaying; but I had a particularly close friend online (in fact, she was the person who persuaded me onto Discord in the first place), and she tragically died in her early twenties. Since Discord was how we had mostly communicated, I couldn't face it for a long time because I associated it so strongly with her. But in the summer I rejoined the SCA (having, again, been in it before, but on that occasion I had regretfully let my membership lapse because I was not able to get to any of the activities from where I was living at the time)... and the SCA now has a very strong presence on Discord. This primarily started up during lockdown, but it turns out that there are quite a lot of members who are geographically isolated, as I was, and so it's a brilliant way for them to remain in the loop.
So I duly created a new Discord account, under my SCA name (because what else was I going to use it for?), and signed up to my local SCA shire server. And then the national one. And the kingdom one (which is not the same thing in the SCA). And the Known World one. And a few other SCA-related servers such as the bardic one and the Iron Age Celtic one (my persona fitting into that area, just). After a little while, it occurred to me that some of my other interests might be represented; so I had a look. I couldn't find an early music server, to my astonishment, so I created one and it's doing quite well; but what I did find was plenty of craft servers. I'm on a few of those now too, since they all do slightly different things.
And it was on one of those craft servers that I had a bit of drama last night. I discovered that someone had blocked me.
Everyone, by default, tends to interpret other people's behaviour in terms of their own, absent any further context; and I'm no exception to that rule. Since I wouldn't block anyone unless they had done something pretty awful, I naturally assumed that I had; so I was obviously very upset that I'd hurt this person so badly without even realising it, and I posted that I wanted to apologise for whatever it was I'd done, but also I didn't know what it was. Several other people then came to my rescue and said I almost certainly hadn't. They told me there were people on the server who would block for no particular reason. I found that a little hard to swallow, but nonetheless I was somewhat reassured.
Now, Discord blocking is odd. When you block someone anywhere else, you can't see each other at all. But when you block someone on Discord, it turns out, they can still see everything you post, but you can't see their messages directly; you just get a sign saying "blocked message", but you can click on that to see it if you want. That meant that, when the person who had blocked me rejoined the conversation, I could see what they were saying; and what they were saying was a lengthy boast about how they block people liberally for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. They block people for "posting too many messages at once", for instance... so, if you explain anything in depth, you're blocked. They block people for "too many negative messages", which I would understand if it weren't for the fact that they post negative messages themselves most of the time. They block people for "making [them] feel stupid"... honestly, nobody is trying to do that; if they feel stupid because of something someone said, that's on them. And - this is the kicker - they boasted proudly that they once blocked someone for sending them a message which woke them up from a nap they were having. So, not reading minds well enough, then. Tch.
After reading all that, I thought... OK. The reassuring people were quite right. It's now clear that I have not, in fact, done anything wrong. And then I thought... hang on. This person has just given me carte blanche to make fun of them behind their back.
Oh dear.
I'm not in any way malicious, but I do have a sense of humour that occasionally gets the better of me. I'm not tempted to make disparaging comments or anything like that. I am, however, extremely tempted to do the online equivalent of walking up behind them and sticking a pair of donkey ears up behind their head when they say anything stupid... because I can. So I may very well find I need to block them back, if only for that reason. I don't particularly want to do that; they have issues, and even if I can't help with those issues directly, I can at least say things that other people who aren't blocked can repeat (the entire server knows exactly what happened, and it sounds as though there aren't that many people who aren't blocked, but they're there). Mainly they are horrendously insecure, and while I wouldn't call them exactly paranoid, they do have a tendency to assume other people are going to want to tear them down... which makes me suspect that's exactly what has happened to them in the past.
They also say they're writing a thesis; so they're clearly not as young as I originally read them (I'd initially have put them at 15-16, but they must be a bit older). It's on Tolkien. Ironically, I could be quite a lot of help with that.
I think I won't block the poor blighter. But I may need help to keep my sense of humour in check!
So I duly created a new Discord account, under my SCA name (because what else was I going to use it for?), and signed up to my local SCA shire server. And then the national one. And the kingdom one (which is not the same thing in the SCA). And the Known World one. And a few other SCA-related servers such as the bardic one and the Iron Age Celtic one (my persona fitting into that area, just). After a little while, it occurred to me that some of my other interests might be represented; so I had a look. I couldn't find an early music server, to my astonishment, so I created one and it's doing quite well; but what I did find was plenty of craft servers. I'm on a few of those now too, since they all do slightly different things.
And it was on one of those craft servers that I had a bit of drama last night. I discovered that someone had blocked me.
Everyone, by default, tends to interpret other people's behaviour in terms of their own, absent any further context; and I'm no exception to that rule. Since I wouldn't block anyone unless they had done something pretty awful, I naturally assumed that I had; so I was obviously very upset that I'd hurt this person so badly without even realising it, and I posted that I wanted to apologise for whatever it was I'd done, but also I didn't know what it was. Several other people then came to my rescue and said I almost certainly hadn't. They told me there were people on the server who would block for no particular reason. I found that a little hard to swallow, but nonetheless I was somewhat reassured.
Now, Discord blocking is odd. When you block someone anywhere else, you can't see each other at all. But when you block someone on Discord, it turns out, they can still see everything you post, but you can't see their messages directly; you just get a sign saying "blocked message", but you can click on that to see it if you want. That meant that, when the person who had blocked me rejoined the conversation, I could see what they were saying; and what they were saying was a lengthy boast about how they block people liberally for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. They block people for "posting too many messages at once", for instance... so, if you explain anything in depth, you're blocked. They block people for "too many negative messages", which I would understand if it weren't for the fact that they post negative messages themselves most of the time. They block people for "making [them] feel stupid"... honestly, nobody is trying to do that; if they feel stupid because of something someone said, that's on them. And - this is the kicker - they boasted proudly that they once blocked someone for sending them a message which woke them up from a nap they were having. So, not reading minds well enough, then. Tch.
After reading all that, I thought... OK. The reassuring people were quite right. It's now clear that I have not, in fact, done anything wrong. And then I thought... hang on. This person has just given me carte blanche to make fun of them behind their back.
Oh dear.
I'm not in any way malicious, but I do have a sense of humour that occasionally gets the better of me. I'm not tempted to make disparaging comments or anything like that. I am, however, extremely tempted to do the online equivalent of walking up behind them and sticking a pair of donkey ears up behind their head when they say anything stupid... because I can. So I may very well find I need to block them back, if only for that reason. I don't particularly want to do that; they have issues, and even if I can't help with those issues directly, I can at least say things that other people who aren't blocked can repeat (the entire server knows exactly what happened, and it sounds as though there aren't that many people who aren't blocked, but they're there). Mainly they are horrendously insecure, and while I wouldn't call them exactly paranoid, they do have a tendency to assume other people are going to want to tear them down... which makes me suspect that's exactly what has happened to them in the past.
They also say they're writing a thesis; so they're clearly not as young as I originally read them (I'd initially have put them at 15-16, but they must be a bit older). It's on Tolkien. Ironically, I could be quite a lot of help with that.
I think I won't block the poor blighter. But I may need help to keep my sense of humour in check!
