Has ILE become too pally?

Incidentally Jess I didn't have you in mind as one of the people who seems unnaturally effusive and enthusiastic.

I have an ambivalent attitude to those threads. I rarely laugh at what's posted there, partly because it's about context (threads are always funnier if one sees them as they build anyway - there's a strange element of timing, despite the message board format) and partly just cause people have crappy senses of humour. Yet, I can't stop myself pasting stuff there from time to time. It's a weird compulsion. And I always read it in the hope of an ego boost.

I do find it hard to believe that people are sticking to the 'laugh out loud' criterion most of the time.

For me, it's just because I have read something I think is pretty funny. There is no connection to me and I'm not trying to boost anyone's ego. No evil Machia-pally-ian scheme behind it at all.

maybe not but then they are HUGE threads, and while some do dominate there is still a wide range of people both quoting and being quoted on there - and nobody has really complained about it (because they'll just get accused of hating fun).

the 'laugh out loud' threads i dunno - you either like that sort of thing or you dont- i guess i love it. i didnt want it to be just about backslapping, ego-stroking cliqueyness, but i dont really see the harm in that anyway if thats what people want to do. i suppose some people approach a thread like that and they wont laugh at anything on there because often people will not laugh at something when they've been forewarned that its absolutely hilarious.

it seems that way to me, too, but then I have to sit back and realize that these other people ARE NOT ME, and have v. different emotional lives and may mean exactly what they say when they do that effusive ILXor love thing.

I have serious issues with strong emotions and other people probably don't. That's my problem, not theirs. I know exactly where Amateurist is coming from but at the same time I like to think I know where the other side is coming from as well

(obv I do not, to be honest)

In terms of people being supportive and that seeming trivial...there may be some insincerity on these boards, but it seems that very many of these sentiments are real. Especially with the more prolific posters, you get to know people a bit from their posts, and become fond of some of them. And it sucks to see anyone hurt.

It seems to me that the issue at hand stems simply from the fact that people are different from one another. Some people are not tolerant of this and would prefer if everyone posted as they themselves would post. Some people are not sociable, jokey types and reading sociable, jokey posts may grate on them. They don't feel genuine concern or empathy for other people, besides a select few loved ones, and assume that those who show concern and empathy freely must be faking it.

Concern and empathy aren't really my pet peeves, as these can be and are in many different ways--it's excessive flattery and effusive sentiment that doesn't seem to have much basis. The sort of thing Jody alludes to when she calls ILE "We Love Us."

I know a woman, she's a friend of my mother's, and at get-togethers she inevitably gives a toast in which she rambles on and on about how much she loves everyone, how special everyone is, how beautiful and smart and etc.. Most people are rather embarrassed for her, for her toasts seems to be less about actually loving anyone (although I'm sure it is not *dishonest* per se) as her needing to feel a part of something, soak in emotion. (Said person all attends funerals of people she hardly knows and cries profusely, and calls up dying friends 10 times a day to see if she can "help," over the objections of said friend's husband.)

Does it not belittle certain feelings and thoughts if you go around expressing them in the most enthusiastic terms willy-nilly? Also does every thought and emotion have to be expressed in the most enthusiastic, hyperbolic terms?

You're right though that I probably prefer less expression of "feelings" (in the overt, explicit sense) than many. It's a cornerstone of my personality, and yet I don't think it makes me "unemotional"--quite the contrary.

From my first post here I said only that I myself "balk" at these effusions, not that anyone was being insincere or dishonest ("faking it"), nor that anyone should have to stop them on my behalf.

Concern and empathy aren't really my pet peeves, as these can be and are EXPRESSED in many different ways

This sounds like me at 5am Sunday morning at Glastonbury.

And how are you determining what is excessive?
I call bullshit on your economy of emotions, but, to each his own.