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Original poster

Arseholes Who've Ruined Groups And Hobbies

538 replies

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 08/03/2021 18:18

Moved house last year, then COVID happened.

I am CEV and so have done loads of shielding and joining a hobby group I was looking forward to post move hasn't happened but I am on their mailing list. For this specific thing they are my only option locally.

Get emails from the mailing list regularly and having had my interest piqued googled the social media presence of the named sender.

They are clearly an arsehole, a massive, tedious, arsehole with very "set views" which I imagine would need to be agreed with by any incomers, which is not going to happen. (They are a group organiser)

So potentially that's this group out the window...

Which made me think, MNers, were you / have you ever left a group style hobby you really enjoyed because of That One Arsehole and

What did they do? How bad was it?

OP posts:
PickAChew · 13/03/2021 00:08

Yeah, the seizures thing. The new design looks a bit bedroom developer but I can't see the difference, otherwise, between that and the most of the Internet.

Maximum cognitive dissonance when C was on twitter complaining about attention seeking behaviour, mind.

ThatLibraryMiss · 13/03/2021 00:09

I've noticed that the hot takes on racism are much more prolific than gender identity

Maybe because it's more American than is MN?

having said that I remember after JKR's open letter, ravelry self-immolated.

It's got to where you can't express another opinion, even to say, "But she didn't say that. What did she say that was bad? Can you tell me?"

Were you there when everyone formed an opinion on whether their new website design was triggering epileptic seizures?

And migraines, apparently! They're gearing up for another tantrum because Classic Rav's being withdrawn at the end of this month. I've been there since you had to wait for an invitation and used to be a very active member of some of the fora. I mostly go for the patterns these days.

BeagleEagle · 13/03/2021 00:13

@ThatLibraryMiss

I've noticed that the hot takes on racism are much more prolific than gender identity

Maybe because it's more American than is MN?

having said that I remember after JKR's open letter, ravelry self-immolated.

It's got to where you can't express another opinion, even to say, "But she didn't say that. What did she say that was bad? Can you tell me?"

Were you there when everyone formed an opinion on whether their new website design was triggering epileptic seizures?

And migraines, apparently! They're gearing up for another tantrum because Classic Rav's being withdrawn at the end of this month. I've been there since you had to wait for an invitation and used to be a very active member of some of the fora. I mostly go for the patterns these days.

I don't use any of the social parts of ravelry at all, and haven't been able to find much of an active online craft community which hasn't been taken over by the wokerati. Hopefully something will come up, or all of this will die down soon
PomBearWithoutHerOFRS · 13/03/2021 01:06

I gave up on ravelry after they dogpiled the lovely, lovely Blue Brick lady. It was horrendous, I've never seen vitriol like it in 25 years online Sad

NotMeNoNo · 13/03/2021 01:42

So true about Ravelry, to be fair I think vast majority of users are just in it for the knitting, but keep quiet about it!

Theydidntwin · 13/03/2021 02:21
  • And migraines, apparently! They're gearing up for another tantrum because Classic Rav's being withdrawn at the end of this month. I've been there since you had to wait for an invitation and used to be a very active member of some of the fora. I mostly go for the patterns these days*

I’ve been on Ravelry since early 2007 but I’ll probably have to leave at the end of the month. Sorry that you don’t believe that some people really have been made ill by the changes to the site. Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Fortunately I’ve made lots of friends through Ravelry, and we’ll continue to meet twice weekly over Zoom until our usual meeting places are open again.

Theydidntwin · 13/03/2021 02:43

A blog on Ravelry and Accessibility

An early article by the yarn dyer Countess Ablaze

Some results of a poll by Victoria Marchant.

Twitter #RavelryAccessibilty - I don’t know how to link to that.

habibihabibi · 13/03/2021 02:56

Hot Yoga
A.cheap inclusive and church hall type set up
The teacher was amazing and the participants very varied in age size shape and ability. A lean, barely clothed millennial couple started and immediately went to the front of the class. They made all the breathing sound like sex. There were plenty of other studios for wanky people like them. People started dropping out.
Thankfully the teacher started doing womens only classes and sex sound woman didn't come without her budgie smuggler wearing bloke.

GinJeanie · 13/03/2021 08:55

.

SaddleUpandRideYourPony · 13/03/2021 10:15

Daleksatemyshed
I am a member of the same author group as you and feel very uncomfortable about the very sexually posed cross dressing photos. I've no problem with what anyone wants to do in their private time but using others as non consensual witnesses to one's sexual fetish grinds my gears. They get such a kind and encouraging reaction because we've all been trained that any response other than validating men in women's clothes is bigoted and transphobic Hmm

SaddleUpandRideYourPony · 13/03/2021 10:16

OP, this has been such an enjoyable and enlightening post; thank you for starting it!

ThatLibraryMiss · 13/03/2021 11:10

@PomBearWithoutHerOFRS

I gave up on ravelry after they dogpiled the lovely, lovely Blue Brick lady. It was horrendous, I've never seen vitriol like it in 25 years online Sad
Demon Trolls was started as a good thing but when there are no new developments it gets terrible. That said, Blue Brick did take money and not deliver and was called out for it.
Original poster
EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 13/03/2021 11:21

@SaddleUpandRideYourPony

OP, this has been such an enjoyable and enlightening post; thank you for starting it!
No probs! x
OP posts:
Theydidntwin · 13/03/2021 11:48

At my knitting group we knit and crochet, sew patchwork and embroider. One person even steeked her Rams and Yowes blanket during a meeting. Now it’s on Zoom some people spin and wind yarn while they talk, too.

We listen to the person who talks non-stop about her son, and the woman in her 20s who has variously said she’s a trained medic, engineer and other things, without saying anything about them when they are not there. Advice is offered only when asked for, and we comment only positively on other’s people crafting.

That’s what I think, but the people who come for a few sessions and not again may think differently. Smile

TalktotheFoot · 13/03/2021 12:34

I'm still chuckling over the church notice board and the flower arranging rota with betty and MARJORIE. Grin

Any churchgoers will agree that we all know a MARJORIE.

Daleksatemyshed · 13/03/2021 12:51

@SaddleUpandRideYourPony I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I think it's a lovely vibe in the group and everyone tries to be supportive of each others difficulties and that's to be applauded but I don't feel the photos are in keeping with the group dynamics. I wouldn't expect the women to post photos of themselves in their knickers so I don't want to see a man do it either Grin

Dailyhandtowelwash · 13/03/2021 13:20

I’ve been in a FB group for years started by a US academic who writes about celebrity culture and history. She has some really interesting stuff to say and the group used to be really interesting. It’s now mostly just people being cancelled, and things being problematic. I’m not remotely up for blanket excusing of painful things from the past with ‘they were different times’ but I do think there is nuance, and actually that group should be capable of it based on what it used to be like. Those would actually be interesting discussions, but instead we’re firmly into #nodebate and I’ve stopped contributing.

Dailyhandtowelwash · 13/03/2021 13:21

That post was brought to you by the word ‘interesting’.

00100001 · 13/03/2021 13:44

@Dailyhandtowelwash

That post was brought to you by the word ‘interesting’.
Interesting first post...
00100001 · 13/03/2021 13:45

Oh god @Dailyhandtowelwash

Sorry WRONG THREAD Blush

hippychick11 · 13/03/2021 13:49

I used to go to a knitting group a few years ago and loved it but there was one particular woman who was awful and a real bully. I was trying to follow a pattern one day and let her help me. She started yelling at me like an old school teacher calling me dumb. She ended up upsetting so many people in the group that she was asked to not come back again. Luckily the group still carried on and they are an amazing bunch of women. Hopefully we will all be able to meet up again after lockdown

TellySavalashairbrush · 13/03/2021 14:04

An odious man in the legs,bums and tums class who insisted on sitting right at the front and gave you daggers If you went within 6 feet of his space.
A woman at Zumba who looked like Miss Trunchball and used to throw a strop if you stood in her ‘place’.
The man in the gym who makes extremely loud grunting noises whenever he lifts any type of weight- even my headphones can’t blank the noise out.

KevinTheGoat · 13/03/2021 14:05

@Dailyhandtowelwash

God, this has just reminded me I got banned from a Chalet School fan site for being mildly critical of a beloved character AND for pointing out (when an obsessive poster kept talking with complete seriousness about all the wondrous things that character ‘did offstage’) that as the character only exists in the words on the page, there is no ‘offstage’, and she only does what the reader ‘sees’).

You were in the wrong Chalet School group! All the ones I've ever been part of have been the reverse, with the flouncers tending to be those who dislike criticisms of series favourites. I would suggest getting back on a different horse - nothing as life affirming as giant online brawls about children's books written almost a century ago. Grin

Yes, yes, to the MLM horror. My nice laidback postnatal group was totally trashed by a Thermomix hawker.

I was in a women's choir for years. I was one of the youngest and probably least emotionally invested, and went along just to sing - I stayed well clear of 'the committee' and its works. I coped with the group discussions on some subjects on which I was labelled 'too politically correct' but finally the arrival of two women who made a thing of not knowing the pieces, talking through every rehearsal, sneering at anyone they considered 'keen', and not speaking to any member they had selected as undesirable caused a mass exodus of those of us who just wanted a good sing. The choir leader and chair knew what was happening but only tried addressing it through generic fairly rude emails to all of us telling us we needed to behave better rather than raising it directly with them.

Ooh, which groups? I'm only involved with the CBB and they're very down on criticism these days. Like the one Mary-Lou/Peggy Bettany fangirl.
PomBearWithoutHerOFRS · 13/03/2021 14:36

No she didn't. It was a long story, and not going to derail the thread and debate here, but maybe get the full facts?
Ravelry "mafia" were appalling and made the whole thing much worse, both for their own users and Blue Brick.

PomBearWithoutHerOFRS · 13/03/2021 14:37

Oops, that was supposed to quote tag @ThatLibraryMiss
Doh! Grin

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