Nerdfighters Gazette

Three years ago today a great man participated in the challenge he was put to by his brother. That great man was Hank Green. On the 8th of March 2007 he had to give away eighty seven and a half peeps to the public, needless to say he found this difficult.

I challenge you, the reader to show your appreciation for this great act of kindness, by trying this yourself.

There was a bit of drama here at the Gazette last weekend and it got me thinking. Here’s the abridged version of the story:

I wrote my first movie review column last weekend about Avatar. It contained some vulgar language and in the end I compared the movie to sleeping with a surgically-enhanced prostitute. Happy with my first column, I posted it to the site and went to sleep. Upon awakening, I found that one of the site’s new administrators (who I will not name as calling out a hater is not the point of this article) had not only hidden it from public view and noted how vulgar it was, but he had also changed my user status on the site to that of a subscriber, effectively taking away my ability to do anything. Which is bad because I am also the site’s webmaster.

Now, luckily I was able to hack my way back into the site and restore my user status back to that of an administrator and after doing so I sent the guilty admin an email stating my displeasure and informing him that it is not his place to play censor and that he shouldn’t have taken it upon himself to decide who can and can’t write for a website that he is not in charge of. He then responded with the following:

“…if you feel that posting obscenities to an audience of mostly young people then go nuts. There is nothing faintly nerdfighterish about what you’re doing.“

Now I am certainly not as ingrained in the Nerdfighter community as most of you, but I’ve looked around the Ning and have watched some of the Vlogbrother’s videos, and nowhere is it stated that obscenities are a bad thing. As a matter of fact, John frequently uses adult language and even describes sexual intercourse, alcoholism and drug use in his books, which are marketed to the same crowd we are writing for.

He then goes on:

“I do not wish to be a part of something where the people with power are free to post obscenities that do not belong in the community…“

Yes, I do feel free to post obscenities and my thoughts on any topics that I choose because that is my right as an American. Now, I hope this outraged former admin (who is from the United Kingdom) never makes the journey over to the USA, because I’m sure he will be appalled to learn that I can stand in the middle of the street and loudly describe, in detail, every sexual experience and bowel movement that I’ve had. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

His account was deleted and I have since received a couple of trollish emails, as  has the site’s owner Bekah. He has even threatened that “Hank and John (Green) will be told about how outlandish your website is.” That’s akin to hearing your 8 year old brother swear and then running to a random stranger on the street to tell on them. While we at the Gazette certainly admire and look up to Hank and John Green, they hold no real authority here.

Which brings me to my question: Why is cursing bad? The word “shit” contains 4 letters and refers to solid human waste. The word “poop” also has 4 letters and is a synonym. So who decided that “shit” was a bad word but “poop” was okay? “Fucking” is considered the King of Obscenities, while “humping” is fine and dandy to use in everyday conversation. And the only reason the word “cunt” is derogatory is because medieval clergymen were scared of vaginas (WARNING: video NSFW). These words got a bad name for no good reason.

So what do you think? Are curse words really a bad thing? And do you think vulgarity should be banned in the Nerdfighter community? Let me know in the comments below.

There is a place where nerds can unite

And in this place world suck they do fight.

They play, they laugh, in good works rejoice

And in times of need they speak with one voice.

They know who they are. They know where they stand.

When near or when far, they stand hand in hand.

They are intelligent, in layman’s terms smart.

and they do like reading, and music, and art

one man hath helped so much for their cause

and for this man we do now give applause.

This place where we gather? Nerdfighters.com

we beg get well soon great ningmaster Tom.

Everyone knows what blogging is.  Heck, even old people know what blogging is.  And I know that a lot of you probably have taken up this little hobby.  I know I do occasionally.  So this post is to ask you Nerdfighters to do a little shameless plugging and link your blog in the comments.

Mine contains swear words, even in the name, but nothing too obscene.

If you haven’t heard, DailyBooth is a social network where one posts one picture of themselves or something relevant every day.  With this site, you can see how you’ve changed over time, make friends, or even track a pregnancy!  It’s owned by a guy named Jon (@jon on DailyBooth) who is an entrepreneur.  He lives in England, and is always working on making his site better.

The point of this article is to ask the Nerdfighter community: Do you booth daily?  Do you booth at all?  (NOTE: To “booth” is to post a picture on DailyBooth, like to “google” is to search something on Google.)  Do you sometimes double booth? (NOTE: Double boothing is to post two pictures in one day on DailyBooth.)

Link us to your DailyBooth profile in the comments!