Good Night Boys

Aleks- you have misinterpreted my first post. This, of course, is my fault for not typing it clearly. Let me flesh out the context:

Josh’s comment for this video is “Sorry Joe, I had to put it up here”.

My first part of comment was “Has Joe asked that you not put these up in the past?” This is a legitimate question that is a direct response to Josh’s comment on the video. I was trying to determine if Josh’s comment was meant as light and comical or direct and serious. How could I have posed this question in any other way? I see no way that this could be interpreted as incendiary.

The second part of comment was “I know that he has mentioned Milky Boys has increased his “old pedophile” audience a lot…” This was a suggestion for the reasoning that Joe might’ve had for why he did not want Josh to post. This is not my commentary, but referencing an exact comment from Joe. I didn’t say that “I thought it increased…” I said that “he mentioned Milky Boys….”. Again, how could I have stated this differently? I have watched most of Joe’s videos and read almost all of the comments, and after his “conversation with alex” video- he mentioned milky boys viewers a number of times (actually, even in a video!).

I do not understand the logic behind your recent reply:

“I try to live with facts, not fears”. This implies that my “discussion” that some teenagers may not be comfortable with older viewers is not a fact, but just my (naive) fear. Am I to infer that you do not believe that teenagers may be uncomfortable with your viewing them half naked on a blog? Remember, I am not stating there is anything wrong with this, but I am only trying to have a discussion about the perception of this from the point of the subject. I think I must be misinterpreting your statement, because it would be incredibly arrogant to think that my bringing up a valid point for discussion, is just my fear, and not a fact–and not worthy of discussion.

“Steve, your comments were intrinsically negative”. You misinterpreted my comments as negative, but I will take responsibility for not qualifying my intentions (which were not positive or negative, but inquiring about Josh’s intentions on the comment).

“and certainly incendiary”- I see that it affected 80% of the comments, and this is just proof that I didn’t make myself clear enough. However, certainly interaction and discussion is the point of most blogs, so I don’t know if “incendiary” (an intrinsically negative word) is the best word for this purpose.

“please re-read paragrah…see it as gentle guidance instead of an offensive flag”. I would suggest that you reread my initial post. You might notice that I say “he mentioned”– I was making no statement about my beliefs at all, but referring to a statement that Joe made in direct response to Josh’s comment on the video. I would argue that equally important to not using “incendiary” words, is to read the words precisely in their context–especially before criticizing the poster. You contradict yourself saying “If I have … hurt you, I apologize” only a few sentences after implying that I was not “enlightened” and being pleased that I was singular in my opinion (certainly you meant to hurt me).

Additionally, you say “incredible query” and didn’t respond to my post at all. I assume that you believe that there is no room for discussion? You must have it all figured out then, and I apologize for wasting your time. The purpose of this second post was not to claim that I am “just uncomfortable” and need to “enjoy life as it is”, but to raise a discussion point that I think legitimate. Am I alone in seeing the value of understanding others’ perceptions and feelings about this?

Bottom line: I believe that I should’ve qualified my original statement more so that the casual reader would not mis-interpret my statement. Aleks you can’t attack me, claim that you don’t want to engage in a dialog (and then of course engage in a dialog) and then say that you didn’t want to attack me… this is nonsense. But I will accept that it was my fault, because I didn’t make my intentions (asking Josh a questions, referring to Joe’s comment as partial suggestion) clear. Regardless, I enjoy the discussion and interaction, even though I think you are overreacting, I still enjoy the dialogue—thats what social interaction and the internet is all about! Thanks!

Steve