Machos with Cheese

I was all ready to post away with new images of my model airplane projects, but that big dark truck from the movie “Duel” roared in and ran over my dogma (72) and I’ve been depressed. It started with a visit to the 1/72 scale forum where some old guys were comparing liver damage and telling each other over the virtual pickle barrel that they would go off into the sunset inhaling MEK or toluene fumes just like their pappy did ‘afore ’em… long may he reign.

Wow. That was depressing. I can fight a lot of things. Me and my sword, Fancy Dancy, have slain many dragons on this world. But I can’t defeat The Dragon of “Macho” and his sidekick, “You’re a Pussy.”

Then I kept on rolling around the internet, and I met a guy named Jim, who’s a friend of Doogs, whom we already know from an earlier episode where I declared that I liked his style even if his message was messed up. Keep in mind that I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why my whole internet identity is just dead in the water, with nobody daring to reference what I’m doing anywhere for fear of being thought a sissy who won’t sniff paint, or something worse. Like an outlander who useth not the holy airbrush. I had managed to convince myself that my problem with having no impact on the modeling scene is the result of my laziness as well as my dislike of humans. Put those two things together and you get one big, dead blog.

My real concern is that my tendency to spout off (about RLM 02, experts, other stuff, experts) makes me persona non grata and subject to mobbing on Britmodeller, where they take a very dim view of bullying unless I’m the one being bullied. Then it’s OK. I’m a pretty wussy guy, I make no claims not to be, and I’m also an angry guy (for good reason, trust me) and that makes my blog tough reading, at times. So I was all ready to accept that if you want to win friends and influence people, you should be nice, and post nice, clear, well composed photos of quality work and show how it was done, and be a nice guy. After all, just being myself doesn’t pay.

Or does it?

Doogs is acidic. But his friend Jim is positively sulfuric. His blog rips the paint off of U.S. Navy vessels it is so toxic. He really just seethes with ill defined hostility.

And he’s popular AF.

How? How does this happen?

So I’m depressed about it, even though I know what’s going on there. I can see it clearly. It’s not about “better modeling” or any of that nonsense. It’s about testosterone and being a manly man who follows The Code of Machismo. It’s all about the macho. This affects me, you and anyone else who dips a toe in the steaming cesspool of online frivolity that is the plastic model kit community right now.

Here are the rules of being macho online. It applied to everything, although applying it to plastic model kits is a stretch, but Jim and Co. manage to do it. It’ s much easier if your online obsession, is, say, the Philadelphia Eagles. Then being a monster is easy. It’s harder to do when the object of your obsession is a plastic model. Jim is a very smart guy. He has to be to pull this off (no phallic innuendo intended).

Rule One

All life is a competition. Or a war, if you prefer.

Did I mention that this is not just an online “style?” It’s a whole way of life? People raise their kids and set them off to be little monsters with this philosphy. Life is a battle, and you have to win. God (or “reason”), in all his glory, has created this planet as a gladiatorial arena and we puny humans fight to the death to determine who is best. If this sounds to you like a nauseating philosophy, well, brother, you and I are on the same page but we are “pussies” to the machos. And they can only be killed by a blow to the head.

Wait a minute. Ignore that last part.

Rule Two.

Always be on the attack.

Always, always, always be attacking. Why? because the best defense really is a good offense. If you ARE “that guy” then, almost magically, no one else will step up to become an “alternative” that guy. You’re it. This is the meaning of “bully.” You take on the role, you play the part, and presto-change-o, you’re it.

Rule Three.

Gender is absolute.

Men rule. They have the right to say that “we are all equal” and carry arms and dispense justice. Since “we are all the same” the machos will want to provide a “level playing field” but that’s IT for fairness. In truth, the machos constant and eternal offensive will grind anybody to powder. The rule works like this: Sure we started off as “equals” but see Rule One and remember that the great arena doesn’t go away just because your social justice ass chooses to ignore it. See Rule Two on what happens next.

Rule Four.

Because of the first three rules, the arena automatically creates a patriarchy.

That’s a universal law, not called “God’s law” because the machos are not Christians and tend to be “rational.” One important strategy is to pretend that this rule doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, keep your powder dry, boys.

Rule Five.

Create a group, a pack, a gang. Let’s call it a posse.

This is a physical manifestation of the patriarchy. There can be only one “boss.” Only one alpha, then you go down the Greek alphabet. To ignore or attempt to “outwit” the inevitable arena–>patriarchy–>posse process is a pussy move and is an attempt to subvert the rule of… well it’s not God so let’s say “reason.” Once the pack/gang/posse is in place, then the world reverts to the natural state of grace that it was in before the Social Justice Warriors and Liberals got ahold of it and ruined it for everybody. A world where a King, erm, CEO, runs everything and everybody loves Big Brother–at least in one little corner of the internet.

Now let’s talk a little bit about what inhaling “laquer thinner” does to your liver. If you put down the Macho Legos for a minute, you can learn a little Chinese medicine and see that inhaling toxic fumes (and laquer thinner is toxic) will cause “liver fire” and you will become angry. Being angry all the time is a symptom of a stressed liver. You put an angry liver together with the macho rules and you get Jim and his blog and Facebook stuff.

Here’s the thing that is depressing to me. All this macho posturing and angry liver noise lowers the level of online discourse to the point where what I am doing is dragged down to the level of the lowest common denominator, so that it LOOKS LIKE I am playing the same game as these guys who are stuck in proto-human sexual displays. When I call a phony expert a liar, it looks like I’m following Rule Two. When I take up a brush and put down the liver destroying airbrush, it looks like I’m just trying to “win” the macho game, and set up an “alternative” hierarchy, like a big pussy, by “cheating” and creating an entirely separate thing–not a separate hierarchy, but a seperate ARENA. It’s not stated outright (none of this is, because it’s instinctive anyway) but the thought bubbles up in the primate brain from the reptile cortex, and we start thinking, “this is not my beautiful hobby, how did I get here?” and then we think “this guy is a fruit, and his models suck, and they are PHONY and he’s make COUNTERFEIT AIRBRUSHED models and he’s trying to subvert the will of GOD…erm…REASON–and I’d better get OFF this page before my wife sees me and loses all respect for me as a man!”

So here’s a tip. If you want to visit my site, log in to a VPN first and preserve all anonymity. That is, until The Reapers gain access to the VPN’s records and you are dragged before the macho inquisition. But I digress…