Below is a tongue-in-cheek article written by an anonymous blog reader. It is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.
Thank you, Anon. We needed the laugh.
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Goodreads, US- Almost 2 months ago, local giant book entity Goodreads began enforcing its rules banning public defecation. Area residents have been mad as hell ever since, and they’re not going to take it anymore.
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” shouted top reviewer Manny Beardie, observed as he was taking a crap on a local self-published book. “This is the crappiest service I’ve never paid for!” He then ran off, yelling “Viva la revolucion!”
Similar cries of “Hasta la victoria!” and “Give me liberty or give me death!” and “Where’s the toilet paper? Oh man, did Miranda use it all again?” echoed and still echo throughout Goodreads.
This sounds like a joke, but it’s not. When it started enforcing its rules, Goodreads did not foresee the epidemic of butthurt that would be the result. Emergency rooms, doctor’s offices and walk-in clinics have been overwhelmed by the sudden upsurge in cases.
“Cases of aggravated reviewer butthurt are up 800%” explains local medical professional Dr. Petra X. “These are far more serious than the run-of-the-mill author butthurt we see year-round. Mostly that only affects authors who don’t count.”
Outside in her waiting room, reviewers can be seen waiting patiently with duct tape over their mouths, or alternately wandering around, dropping their pants and howling in rage and pain.
“Their poor tushies” murmurs a nurse to me, munching on some Lindt chocolates. “I never saw it as bad as this.”
But the actual patients are not the only ones affected. There is a palpable sense of betrayal that Goodreads has not protected its reviewers from the vicissitudes of life. “Goodreads was a safe place for me, like a home” says one local resident. “I didn’t expect anyone to just come along and disagree with something I wrote in my own home. Now I feel unsafe, like it’s not my home anymore.”
Local housewife and romance reader Jane, 58, speaks for many when she says that Goodreads did a terrible, unforgiveable thing. Refusing to give her last name, she said: “It’s too bad Goodreads never charges its customers anything, because it makes it so much harder to boycott. I mean, you can still flounce off in a huff and then sneak back in under an assumed name, but it’s just not the same.”
Her friend Kat Ridley is even angrier. “Goodreads provides me a free space where I can practice my favorite hobby, crapping on people and books, and then tells me where and how to crap? It’s not like I’m paying them or anything! You would expect lousy quality from something you paid for, but Goodreads is free! This is an outrage!”
Her words of defiance were echoed by a group of students currently engaged in fighting their way out of a tangled snarl of reblogged blog posts at local cafe’ Booklikes.
“We, like, flounced off and came here, but it’s not the same. There are like, no public spaces where we can find authors to crap on. You have to make the effort to find them yourself.”
“Bummer.”
“Totally.”
“It’s worse than Hitler.”
“Before Goodreads started enforcing the rules, we were getting attacked on a daily basis. Now, we’re still getting attacked on a daily basis. Nothing has changed.”
“Eez the Great Horn Beast. Sheez like Bigfoot. At first, I thought she was legend. Before that, there was the Great Looney Beast and the Linda Ness Monster. Dat one lives in da lake. Now eez Great Horn Beast. Da kids call dis one Angela. I thought she would be good for business, you know, like Bigfoot. Good for tourists, they come. So I used to trow her scraps of food out da back. Lately though, she’s taken to breaking in at night and shitting on the counter. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
Very clever. Love it.
“Outside in her waiting room, reviewers can be seen waiting patiently with duct tape over their mouths,”
LOL!
This bit made me laugh so hard, in fact the whole article is hilarious! I think it sums the whole situation up perfectly. Every time I see people on GR using those silly photos with their mouths taped I cringe for the person. Such drama queens.
Ok we get it, the trolls are annoyed because GR has put a stop to bully reviews that attack authors. If you don’t like if leave, stop talking about going, just go.
This humorous article explains the carry on on GR’s very well, love it.
You know, I imagined Dawid with a speech impediment. Good call.
Great story!
Oh my goodness, that’s just hilarious. I love it!
PERFECT! Brilliant and truthful and exactly how it is..
It’s doubtful that anyone will ever convince bully trolls that what they do is NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR, but eventually sites like STGRB will call enough attention to the psycho behavior patterns of these disturbed people, that law enforcement will see it for what it is….criminal behavior by mentally unbalanced individuals that needs to be stopped!!
Psychology’s answer to trolling and online abuse:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/aug/12/psychology-trolling-online-abuse
Hmm, there hasn’t been a peep about this article on the Great Horn Beast’s site, and she’s usually glued to this site 24/7. She’s put up a bunch of the usual fare, attacking authors. What’s funny is that they could serve as a primer for how to create effective, believable sock puppets. You know, like the ones she has.
Ugh, I just went and read her blog. What a waste of time, and a massive, massive pile of crap. Would someone please remind me why we haven’t sued her yet?
Too good!!
This is priceless: a defender of freedom of speech is deleting comments from his review because they’re mean to him:
I wanted to leave this comment here because I’ve been doing my own little sting with one bully reviewer who likes to get freebies and slam authors she doesn’t like with reviews that don’t even make sense. She waits to get the free books, downloads them, and then leaves bad reviews in order to sway customer opinion without even talking about the plot or the characters. And in case it’s ever made public, I wanted to leave a comment here to prove I’ve been doing what I’m doing as an experiment and trying to set this bully up so I can bring her down in the long run and make her sorry she decided to screw around with the wrong person this time. I can’t go into anymore details at this point. I just wanted to put it in writing that I’m doing something undercover to prove how some of the more subtle bullies work and I’m waiting for her to break so I can really go after her.