Some of you may be familiar with the website Fisheaters. It has actually got a lot of good resources for traditional Catholicism. But its discussion forum...is another question entirely. It may be the "most sane" trad forum on the internet, really I don't know as I've never spent much time on any others, but even that statement would of course be incredibly meaningless; trads are nuts!!!!
It is from the Fisheaters forums that I realized this fact about the insanity of trads, but also where I met some of my oldest "renegade trad" friends, readers, and allies. I haven't really visited there for years, since I started this blog really. Don't bother going digging (I used to be a bit more crazy too!) but I was actually the first person banned for "modernism" (in what is still one of their Top 10 most replied and most viewed threads!) because I suggested mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests should be opposed, and because I think I got on their nerves as a "renegade" gadfly generally.
Anyway, a friend invites me to visit the forum again this week because all sorts of crazy shit was going down. I think we should pray for all involved, of course, because it seems some real mental illness might be part of it (as well as all sorts of personal and relationship issues on the part of many parties). I can't claim to understand everything (fake deaths, backstabbing, denied annulments, multiple personalities, blackmail!?), because I (officially speaking) wasn't there to watch it all unfold. But from the bizarreness of even just these two threads...it seems Bedlam has finally been busted open. [Update: they actually got rid of that really juicy thread that officially shut things down the first time, but it's still on Google cache, and more official explanations have emerged.]
We'll see how long the "bring down" lasts; there are often resurrections of these sorts of things under reformed management or when everyone cools down, so I expect it to be up and running again soon enough. But I must say, I find this little coup fascinating, like a train wreck one can't keep one's eyes off. I sort of "wish" I had been there to watch it all play out rather than just being able to glean what I can from those final threads and the stories told by friends. (Or, if you like traddie conspiracy theories, maybe I actually was behind orchestrating the whole elaborate charade all along. "Maybe.")
It's all rather endearing. Everything sounds like a dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless, and if people have been able to invest that much time and emotion into an internet community and forum relationships...well, good for them. Though, from what I can tell, such dynamics really just become cesspools of uncharity, increasingly polarized extremism, and mischief (and, possibly, opportunities for manipulative revenge from modernists, served very cold indeed...)
Either way, Fisheaters was a major online incubator of trad identity, one way or the other, and was a major node in a web of related social networks among young traditionalists (including, as I said, the original "core" of this blog's following.) If any sociologist was bothering to study our subculture, the events there, I think, would be incredibly relevant. Or, at least, just good entertainment.
It is from the Fisheaters forums that I realized this fact about the insanity of trads, but also where I met some of my oldest "renegade trad" friends, readers, and allies. I haven't really visited there for years, since I started this blog really. Don't bother going digging (I used to be a bit more crazy too!) but I was actually the first person banned for "modernism" (in what is still one of their Top 10 most replied and most viewed threads!) because I suggested mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests should be opposed, and because I think I got on their nerves as a "renegade" gadfly generally.
Anyway, a friend invites me to visit the forum again this week because all sorts of crazy shit was going down. I think we should pray for all involved, of course, because it seems some real mental illness might be part of it (as well as all sorts of personal and relationship issues on the part of many parties). I can't claim to understand everything (fake deaths, backstabbing, denied annulments, multiple personalities, blackmail!?), because I (officially speaking) wasn't there to watch it all unfold. But from the bizarreness of even just these two threads...it seems Bedlam has finally been busted open. [Update: they actually got rid of that really juicy thread that officially shut things down the first time, but it's still on Google cache, and more official explanations have emerged.]
We'll see how long the "bring down" lasts; there are often resurrections of these sorts of things under reformed management or when everyone cools down, so I expect it to be up and running again soon enough. But I must say, I find this little coup fascinating, like a train wreck one can't keep one's eyes off. I sort of "wish" I had been there to watch it all play out rather than just being able to glean what I can from those final threads and the stories told by friends. (Or, if you like traddie conspiracy theories, maybe I actually was behind orchestrating the whole elaborate charade all along. "Maybe.")
It's all rather endearing. Everything sounds like a dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless, and if people have been able to invest that much time and emotion into an internet community and forum relationships...well, good for them. Though, from what I can tell, such dynamics really just become cesspools of uncharity, increasingly polarized extremism, and mischief (and, possibly, opportunities for manipulative revenge from modernists, served very cold indeed...)
Either way, Fisheaters was a major online incubator of trad identity, one way or the other, and was a major node in a web of related social networks among young traditionalists (including, as I said, the original "core" of this blog's following.) If any sociologist was bothering to study our subculture, the events there, I think, would be incredibly relevant. Or, at least, just good entertainment.
8 comments:
Good riddance.
Honestly, that place has been waiting to implode for quite some time now. I've been a lurker and occasional poster at the FE Forums for five years, and its descent to insanity has been nothing but a sad, sad spectacle. Racism, misogyny, snobbery, and the like seem to have taken a deep hold on the members there.
My prayers go to the members of that asylum; but if there is anything to be gleaned from this incident, it is that trads REALLY, DESPERATELY, URGENTLY need to escape the confines of their bubbles and face the real world.
Good to have seen you on FE in its last few days, fridayer.
Good riddance indeed anon i agree completely, i lurked forever there (i didnt think so many human beings could be so bizarre i just had to stare) though im amazed how it imploded, interesting the only person who is nice and sane and very intelligent (HK) is blamed! unbelievable... if what is said is true on the really strange "final post" wonder how many posters were actually the same person
I personally only glanced at a few of their traditional articles, but I heard enough to know between it being pro SSPX and allowing the adherent followers to post there, that this place was a cesspool of extreme traditionalism, the kind that ruins the cause and makes me want to not support those kind of traditional societies. I may support traditionalism, but I vowed never to go on their forums and to read their informational posts with a grain of salt.
When so much sin and filth plagues something, it eventually implodes on itself. This is but a microcausm of the very things happening in the Catholic Church today, with major examples being the Legionnaires of Christ and Life Teen (though the program still stands somehow). There is one additional factor though: from reading those few posts, Quis sounds very immature and contradictory to the nature of the site. Calling somebody an F(#*head? Really? A child in grade 3 could say that. I read those posts and this does not sounds like a traddie Catholic full of wisdom and the Love of the Lord. This sounds like a bitter angry child who never grew up.
Apparently there was a comment the blogger alerted me to, which confused he and I up.
I am fridayer/anthony from FE. A Sinner and I are not the same person. He lives in Chicago, and is celibate. I live in Montreal, and am married and have a son.
Just cause we sound alike sometimes doesn't mean we are one. Some people just make sense.
I too lurked and posted there ... ok, lurked way too much...too frequent exposure to those places are not good for one's soul (in my opinion)...hatred/lack of charity rules. I quit a while back and just happend to check in yest. Its too bad what new media can do sometimes. I learned a bunch, but ended up loosing any sympathy for sspx I may have had. Arrogance and hate filled the place.
Truth be told, there is enough blame to go around for ALL parties involved. It is an INTERNET forum for crying out loud, the fact that its members placed so much emphasis on their being banned, their pride, their personal life being on display etc. says that perhaps its time to take a break from it to begin with.
Just my 2 pence.
P.S: I'm not referring to "A Sinner"'s anecdote on having been banned.
If you want to trumpet about racism, you have the whole world to do it in. Why is it so essential that one little internet forum full of nobodies be squelched?
Post a Comment