Nova Land
17th January 2004, 02:37 AM
Peter David tells the following tale about what I consider to be commendable behavior by comics fans at a convention he attended. I considered posting this in a thread over in humor (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33274), but decided to post this separately since there is a serious point to this story.
A lot of people seem to think it's funny (and fun) to heckle and harass people they deem to be obvious lunatics. Whether this is rational is up for debate. Heckling here at JREF occasionally seems to do more harm than good (as discussed, for instance, in the thread User Suspended (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870275626#post1870275626) currently over in M & ADA).
Peter David came up with an intriguing way of dealing with the problem of heckling at Dragon*Con, and the fans there were willing to go along with it. In this case it sounds to have turned out well.
Luciana Nery's thread Next steps for skepticism (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22008) , in which she, Girl 6, and others discussed a possible "Skeptical Movement," is one I was interested in when it appeared but not able to take active part in at the time. I am posting this new thread under General Skepticism because it relates (in my mind at least) to that discussion. (I have been intending to bump and revive that older thread, and still hope to do that at some point if someone else doesn't do it first, but there is generally a many-month lag between my thinking of writing a post and actually getting around to it.)
What I'm interested in is thoughts on how a hypothetical Skeptical Movement might deal creatively (and rationally) both with the situations that lead to heckling and with the heckling itself. Please consider this thread as brainstorming, where one tosses out an idea one thinks is interesting (even though it may not be very practical or workable) in hopes of stimulating other thoughts and possibilities.this anecdote originally appeared in Peter David's weekly "But I Digress" column in the December 12, 2003, issue of Comics Buyer's Guide
I have emceed the costume competition for Dragon*Con on several occasions. The first time I did so, I was outfitted in my Sherlock Holmes Inverness and deerstalker that I’d purchased in England.
Now, Atlanta audiences can be rowdy under the best of circumstances. They can -- and will -- boo you off the stage. The problem was: I had promised all the contestants that I would do everything I could to keep the audience off their backs, so they could, at the very least, complete their presentations. So I archly told the audience that there would be no booing, no hissing, and above all, no snide comments … because that was to be the emcee’s job.
So about five entries in, out comes this … this guy. A six-and-a-half-foot-tall black gentleman, wearing a huge curly flowing wig. He was clad in a floral-print two-piece bathing suit, platform shoes, and he was gyrating to a disco tune. Oblivious to Rotsler’s Rules of “Short is better than long,” “Funny is better than not funny,” “Short and funny is best,” the guy just danced and danced for an inordinate period of time. He was exactly the type of entrant that the audience would normally rip apart. I sensed their impatience speedily escalating into hostility, bordering on anger. With all the confidence I could muster, considering they outnumbered me 1,000 to 1, I put up a pre-emptive hand, indicating mutely that they were to silence themselves immediately. Instantly they quieted, indicating to me that they were going to give me some rope … perhaps to see if I’d hang myself.
The guy undulated for another 30 seconds or so and then sashayed off the stage. I stared after him as he departed. I continued to stare after he was gone. Taking my cue from Jack Benny, I didn’t move. Not a muscle. Barely blinked. Just kept staring at the now-vacant stage.
The audience started to laugh at my look of sustained incredulity. The laughter built, as long seconds passed and I still said nothing. The anticipation escalated. By the time I finally turned to them, I could have said anything and it would have killed.
“What,” I asked, each syllable dripping with stupefaction, “the hell … was that?”
Not that funny a line. Not a dazzling bon mot. But, as they say, it’s all in the timing. The audience exploded into hysterics, because I had summarized in five words what was going through the minds of every person there.
I milked it for the rest of the evening. If a presentation was painful to watch, I was still able to rein in the audience so that the contestants wouldn’t be humiliated onstage, because the audience trusted me to be the designated smart aleck. They knew that I knew when a presentation was ghastly and, because they knew I’d say something once the contestant was gone, they felt no need to harass the contestant while he or she was on stage. Having a "designated heckler" is not a perfect solution, but it does sound better than the out-of-control heckling which is often the alternative. True, that kind of heckling often does succeed in chasing the performer off the stage. But chasing people away doesn't seem to me to be what a rational group's highest ambition should be.
Just because a person has been chased away does not mean anything positive has been accomplished. "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." (And if you have converted any audience members to your side in the process, I question what side it is you have converted them to. It seems to me the lesson just taught is that ridiculing and bullying, rather than reasoned discourse, is the best way to settle disagreements.)
I am not seriously suggesting having a "designated heckler" here at JREF. (Although I think Tricky might be great at it...) As I said at the beginning, please consider this thread as brainstorming. Rather than assume there is nothing that can be done (or that there are things that could be done but they all suck), I think it's more fun to treat problems as challenging puzzles that we haven't solved yet.
If there actually were a Skeptical Movement, how might people in it deal creatively and rationally both with the problems that lead to heckling and with heckling itself?
I realize it is not entirely fair for me to compare comics fans at a convention with skeptics posting on a forum. Comics fans posting on a forum might be as unwilling to refrain from thoughtless heckling as I suspect some posters here would be; and skeptics at a convention might be as willing to refrain from thoughtless heckling as the comics fans at that particular convention were. I just wanted to make a provocative thread title. My apologies for the unfair comparison.
A lot of people seem to think it's funny (and fun) to heckle and harass people they deem to be obvious lunatics. Whether this is rational is up for debate. Heckling here at JREF occasionally seems to do more harm than good (as discussed, for instance, in the thread User Suspended (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870275626#post1870275626) currently over in M & ADA).
Peter David came up with an intriguing way of dealing with the problem of heckling at Dragon*Con, and the fans there were willing to go along with it. In this case it sounds to have turned out well.
Luciana Nery's thread Next steps for skepticism (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22008) , in which she, Girl 6, and others discussed a possible "Skeptical Movement," is one I was interested in when it appeared but not able to take active part in at the time. I am posting this new thread under General Skepticism because it relates (in my mind at least) to that discussion. (I have been intending to bump and revive that older thread, and still hope to do that at some point if someone else doesn't do it first, but there is generally a many-month lag between my thinking of writing a post and actually getting around to it.)
What I'm interested in is thoughts on how a hypothetical Skeptical Movement might deal creatively (and rationally) both with the situations that lead to heckling and with the heckling itself. Please consider this thread as brainstorming, where one tosses out an idea one thinks is interesting (even though it may not be very practical or workable) in hopes of stimulating other thoughts and possibilities.this anecdote originally appeared in Peter David's weekly "But I Digress" column in the December 12, 2003, issue of Comics Buyer's Guide
I have emceed the costume competition for Dragon*Con on several occasions. The first time I did so, I was outfitted in my Sherlock Holmes Inverness and deerstalker that I’d purchased in England.
Now, Atlanta audiences can be rowdy under the best of circumstances. They can -- and will -- boo you off the stage. The problem was: I had promised all the contestants that I would do everything I could to keep the audience off their backs, so they could, at the very least, complete their presentations. So I archly told the audience that there would be no booing, no hissing, and above all, no snide comments … because that was to be the emcee’s job.
So about five entries in, out comes this … this guy. A six-and-a-half-foot-tall black gentleman, wearing a huge curly flowing wig. He was clad in a floral-print two-piece bathing suit, platform shoes, and he was gyrating to a disco tune. Oblivious to Rotsler’s Rules of “Short is better than long,” “Funny is better than not funny,” “Short and funny is best,” the guy just danced and danced for an inordinate period of time. He was exactly the type of entrant that the audience would normally rip apart. I sensed their impatience speedily escalating into hostility, bordering on anger. With all the confidence I could muster, considering they outnumbered me 1,000 to 1, I put up a pre-emptive hand, indicating mutely that they were to silence themselves immediately. Instantly they quieted, indicating to me that they were going to give me some rope … perhaps to see if I’d hang myself.
The guy undulated for another 30 seconds or so and then sashayed off the stage. I stared after him as he departed. I continued to stare after he was gone. Taking my cue from Jack Benny, I didn’t move. Not a muscle. Barely blinked. Just kept staring at the now-vacant stage.
The audience started to laugh at my look of sustained incredulity. The laughter built, as long seconds passed and I still said nothing. The anticipation escalated. By the time I finally turned to them, I could have said anything and it would have killed.
“What,” I asked, each syllable dripping with stupefaction, “the hell … was that?”
Not that funny a line. Not a dazzling bon mot. But, as they say, it’s all in the timing. The audience exploded into hysterics, because I had summarized in five words what was going through the minds of every person there.
I milked it for the rest of the evening. If a presentation was painful to watch, I was still able to rein in the audience so that the contestants wouldn’t be humiliated onstage, because the audience trusted me to be the designated smart aleck. They knew that I knew when a presentation was ghastly and, because they knew I’d say something once the contestant was gone, they felt no need to harass the contestant while he or she was on stage. Having a "designated heckler" is not a perfect solution, but it does sound better than the out-of-control heckling which is often the alternative. True, that kind of heckling often does succeed in chasing the performer off the stage. But chasing people away doesn't seem to me to be what a rational group's highest ambition should be.
Just because a person has been chased away does not mean anything positive has been accomplished. "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." (And if you have converted any audience members to your side in the process, I question what side it is you have converted them to. It seems to me the lesson just taught is that ridiculing and bullying, rather than reasoned discourse, is the best way to settle disagreements.)
I am not seriously suggesting having a "designated heckler" here at JREF. (Although I think Tricky might be great at it...) As I said at the beginning, please consider this thread as brainstorming. Rather than assume there is nothing that can be done (or that there are things that could be done but they all suck), I think it's more fun to treat problems as challenging puzzles that we haven't solved yet.
If there actually were a Skeptical Movement, how might people in it deal creatively and rationally both with the problems that lead to heckling and with heckling itself?
I realize it is not entirely fair for me to compare comics fans at a convention with skeptics posting on a forum. Comics fans posting on a forum might be as unwilling to refrain from thoughtless heckling as I suspect some posters here would be; and skeptics at a convention might be as willing to refrain from thoughtless heckling as the comics fans at that particular convention were. I just wanted to make a provocative thread title. My apologies for the unfair comparison.