Forty- eight dollars will get you a trip through the looking glass into a land whose rivers run crimson with hatred populated by inhabitants last encountered by me whilst reading Lord of the Flies .
The Land of Tider Insider
Made possible by a grant by the FATES, the WHAB and contributions from you, our listeners
By AUTIX
Granted, I forked over the money for the trip, but I could not help wonder why are all these people, in 2013, are paying good money for something that can be had for free else where (less the banner commercials of course)? Even more puzzling is why anyone, even a die-hard bammer fan, would want to inhabit such a dreary and dismal cyber country.
If there was any intentional humor displayed on the board I did not encounter it, even the light deprecating humor can one seen thrown against rival teams was absent. The rivers here run only with red vitriolic crimson- I found no streams of humor here nor even a small pond of Hobbesian deadpan muck.
I encountred the most foul growths of multiple threads about poor coaching, firing Nick Saban, decapitating the kicker (poor “what his name” who will forever be the Greg Gant of the 21st century). All these threads and posts appeared to be written by a tee-totaling 80 year old, tightwad, spinster who appears to be pissed off at the world because she can never did get any nooky, and never will, and could use a stiff drink but can bring her self to spring $ 12 for some Mad Dog 2020.
The natves are insane. And I mean piss angry crazy. They make South Pacific Head Hunters look like the Dali Lama. I will say, and I am not being facetious, that if you took AUBJ and made him an Updyke, and then had him poast on TI he would, in relation to other posters be very moderate and subdued. Bear’s Boy (and I mean no offense to him- he is a friend) is one of the few voices of reason on that place just to give some perspective. And he has suffered temporary bans for his sanity (okay near sanity).
Most threads and posts are so over the top that one begins to suspect that they are “Reverse” Mojo parodies to poke fun at Bammer eccentricities. It is tempting to hope this is the case- but alas it is not. These dismal and dreary posts and threads are so varied and so numerous it is hard to believe they are not "real". Note I did not say they connect with reality, only that real people are posting these things. Because the disassociation with reality IS the reality on TI.
I mean there are posts adnaseum about the “Invincibility of the Tide”, The “Traditions of Winning”, “How Bama deserves a shot at the (M)NC even with one loss”, “Cheating refs being the only way the Barn won”, the “read option play is illegal and will be banned” (never mind that the read option wing T was in vogue when I was a tyke) and on and on and on. Every third thread is about how no one has the traditions of Bammy. I guess these guys have never attended a Texas Aggie football game- although I suspect most of them have never been left the miserable poverty stricken country into which they were birthed; more likely.
To give you a flavor of the head hunting mobs that roam that Mordor like land: Yesterday someone on TI posted a link to the Mobile story regarding rumors about Saban leaving for UT. Lets assume for a moment that this person was NOT a troll (I checked out his/her posting history and this seemed unlikely). He simply posted “Just heard that there is a story from a Mobile TV station that Saban is leaving, who knows, but I am sick of it.” Within minutes (perhaps seconds) this thread garnered about 60 replies including at least five telling him to “commit suicide”, that he was a “barner troll”, that he should “walk under the nearest bus”, that he should “eat #badword# and die” etc etc with many more sub posts applauding and urging the crowd on. It actually reminded me of the “She is a witch” act from Monty Python less the “duck part” that calmed everyone down. It actually resembled a lynching, and, perhaps I am exaggerating, but if some of these guys could have gotten their hands on this poor soul they would have torn the poor sucker from limb to limb. Seriously- it was frightening.
If there is a sense of humor on that board I did not see it- or understand it, perhaps. I suppose calling Nick Marshall a thief might be a form of humor or when a thread refers to Cody Parky a “lisbian kicker” whatever the hell that is or a poster accuses SEC officials of conspiring with Gus Malzahn to rob the Tide, or links to obviously photo shopped pics of Nick Marshal 50 yards out of bounds. One reads these with a sense of awe and then astonishment that turns to sadness that so many people live such tortured lives over a football team (and I love the Tigers but dear Lord) and what is said about them.
About the closest I came to a real chuckle was reading BB calling it the “Disaster in the Pasture” but I think he got censured for even admitting it was a disaster for Bammy rather than a fluke of nature or outright thievery.
On second thought there was humor-but none of it intentional. Apparently the HUNO is designed to “wear out the refs” not the defense and thence to “confuse the refs” so that they are so brain addled that they can no longer remember rules such as downfield pass blocking by lineman, where the line of scrimmage is, and the location of the out of bounds line, and incredibly enough, “how to run the clock” (over looking that their own coach argued for time back on the clock)- you simply cannot make this stuff up!
There was more vitriol and pure hatred on that board in 10 seconds than our fair dual emperors would allow in any time period by any poster including them selves.
The WHAB tribe is somewhat tolerant of opposing views and banging on Auburn, our fans, our coach- of course any poaster doing so it going to hear from WHAB regulars- but usually in good fun-and with some tolerance (as long as it does not move over the line of denigration). But any mention that Bama might have actually lost a game fairly (gasp) or any discussion that UT might be the destination of Saban- the knives come out and bloody quick too. A counterpart to BB, or Bamer Fan or Volman would be pilloried hectored and banned before you could say “kill Cade and quarter his body” on TI.
The place is an arid desert of roaming attention disordered idiots, baying for blood, anyone’s blood, yammering about their dissatisfaction at a 10-1 season, with little respect for any other program (and not just Auburn). Honestly I have not seen such anger and bitterness so rampant in any single place in my five plus decades.
I cannot imagine TI tolerating the kind of fun we have poking fun at Auburn's "luck" and our "alien" Coach and I can more picture the Aytatollah of Iran kissing the popes ring that I can see TI putting the Haitian Voodoo Doll on their masthead.
I need some good ole lye soap and really hot water. Anyone got some spare Penicillin you can send me?
Pardon me whist I vomit.
