Dog Pile on the Rabbit (Dispatches From the Fly on the Wall 3–21–22–2020)
In this series we have an ongoing character appearing in nearly every conversation, no matter the topic. Dog Pile on the Rabbit has been played by many different individuals, people who take someone’s allegation far too seriously, and they run with it! These are the followers of an idea or movement who develop chants, hold signs, scuffle with police, and scream their outrage, regardless of the stance they take. Sometimes these figures are savages, jumping into an extreme far out of dimension over controversy or suspected crime(s).
Dog Pile on the Rabbit is often filled with praise too, shouting overjoy with fanatical politeness. Take this from a writing room (I will not publish the stories or prompts or poems of others, respecting their right to to their own submission.) Tough luck on the conversation, folks. All that is mine. As per usual, names are not changed to protect anyone (fuck those people!), but shoved into a literary affectation to allow for character development. And since this mostly focuses on a specific character type, the conversations will be more highly edited than usual, sometimes picking a handful out and fitting them into a similar reply for the relevant quotes used for this study:
Oh, I’m harsh! Watch out for me!
- Are you sure you want this critiqued? I tread carefully.
Sensitive Artist, turning away in a huff
- no it was what just came to me. My mind is different from other’s. To each there(sp) own. Keep it interesting.
The Birth of Dog Pile on the Rabbit (positive)
- It’s not easy to expose oneself and I appreciate your willingness to share with the group. Critiqueing other’s work is a very tricky undertaking, trying to give honest feedback, while respecting the creation and the creator. I personally think anyone who’s brave enough to put their work and themselves in such a vulnerable position deserves kudos for doing so. Thank you for sharing.
This is an important piece for the conversation to follow. Since much of what will pass in the creative writing rooms, peopled by the nervous/arrogant sort of writer, most of them so filled with angst over whether they have any talent or not, yet see in their ideas a work of genius. Some post their first drafts of their work after having maybe re-read their work twice. Inevitably there follows hordes of uncaught spellcheck revisions, spelling errors only sometimes fixed, context and tone of voice problems, and sometimes trying to cover so much ground they make very little sense.
(For the poem that inspired this brief conversation, I withdrew from entering a comment. I read the thing but I didn’t like it. Had I commented it is quite possible I would have harmed this person’s sense of themselves. This is not an arrogant boast, for even the lamest comments, a “This need work,” or even the stark single-worded “bad.” My stuff is the sort of analytical breakdown I used to do in college, deep-meaning speculations on works that I often despised. I used to be a high school English teach too, which caused me to be irritatingly high-minded about the quality of student work–and yes, my mediocre favorites did benefit, while the kids I didn’t like would mildly suffer. I was a TA, or teacher’s assistant, in my undergraduate college years. I knew a lot of the kids socially. I got to grade some of the papers. I was mean.)
The Birth of Dog Pile on the Rabbit (the Sensitive Artist’s Conversion)
- thank you
Dog Pile on the Rabbit(i)
- . . . continue pursuing your passion (s) no matter what.
Becomes Dog Pile on the Rabbit
- i will. Appreciate it alot.
Do not mistake this guise of politeness from what is really going on here. These are, of course, not the traditional Dog Pile on the Rabbit we will be taking on shortly, but they are the progenitor of such creatures: the meet pose, the drunkenly encouraging, the way-too-hard efforts to fix the hurt expression the like-minded recall they have experienced. Then come desperately radical responses. This is how Dog Pile on the Rabbit is born, at least in the slight dialogue expressed in chat rooms. Of course over this time being homebound, that conversation has drastically increased. The talk becomes repetitious. They begin their cultish existence:
Even with an outline, how does one get over writers block?
Either Young or Old Enough to Retire, enjoying the games which precede sitting down and actually writing
- II changed the color of my paper and screen
- I write a conversation between two of my characters asking each other questions about the outline.
I’m gonna make like it’s easy and substitute a name for God
- Mostly the MC does all the talking and then I just go from there
These are the initial responses, the sort of character who gets the ball rolling. Here’s what we should talk about, let’s do. In a chat group that does something like this, clearly the writers are wasting their time, doing anything other than working. It is a question on writer’s block after all. These people offer solutions, perfectly valid exercises to see if you can’t get going.
The real concern here is that the questioner seems to be having trouble even composing an outline. It implies there is no idea in the first place, that sort of Always-wanted-to-be-a-writer-and-now-I-have-some-time person looking sorrowfully cute,
For some reason, this inspires anger
- . . . I think about someone who irritated me earlier in the week and write about something horrible happening to them.
Dog Pile on the Rabbit
- Just start writing anything, edit later
Dog Pile on the Rabbit
- Just keep
Dog Pile on the Rabbit
- Just start writing, even if it’s utter drivel at first
Maybe a third of the respondents repeat this same comment, but you get the idea.
Let’s turn to politics. This one,
this one features a rancor unexpected in its callousness. The chat site I selected this one from tends to be peopled by cynical younger people–not children, just younger than me, 20s and 30s, I’d guess, with a few even senior to me, here in my late 40s. Their cynicism is really another form of nihilism, a bleak, hopeless, given up on the world and want everyone else to suffer just like them. Of the more than a hundred and fifty comments this has received at the moment I found this, the vast majority are Dog Pile on the Rabbits. A mere selection:
- Can you say K A R M A
- I DO believe in KARMA!!!!
- Ain’t karma a bitch!
- Thank you Ms Karma for your service
- Hey Senator. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?? Let’s face it, you got it coming
- I hate to say this but Karma for the imbecile
- Well I am sorry for anybody that gets this horrible virus but karma is a bitch
- Karma
- Karma
- Karma
- Karma
- it’s bitch
- Karma can be a real bitch sometimes
- Karma is a bitch.
- Karma is a bitch
- His Karma ran over his Dogma!
- Karma is undefeated.
- Can you say “KHARMA”? This is the Asshole that just voted AGAINST helping the American People!
- Karma. Thoughts and Prayers!!
- Thoughts and prayers
- Thoughts and prayers
- Thoughts and prayers
- Thoughts and prayers Shit Head
- Thoughts and prayers!
- you reap what you sow
- I don’t wish illness on anyone however this guy is reaping what he sows.
- Reap what you sow
- Good
- Good. Fuck him
- GOOD
- I hate to laugh at someone else’s misfortunes, but fuck him.
- Ha ha fuck this asshole
- HAAHAHAHHHAAAHAHAHA!
- I kinda am happy this fucking asshole got it.
- As far as I’m concerned he’s a “non-people”. And as he said, non-people don’t count.
- Go hug some of your GOP friends douche bag
- He doesn’t care about human beings. God doeth all things well.
- Now go a hug everybody in the Senate.
- Fuck him just like the Republican motherfucker say fuck the American people
- Get all the fucking republican scum.
- That’s great news. Hope it is fatal for him. The world will be a better place.
- I hope the Devil needs assholes in hell…
- What can I say… Except good bitch! I honestly, hope it fuckin kills the prick.
- Please take him Lord!!!!!!
- Take one for the team..die Paul die
- This asshole comes here in Canada for his health problem, I just hope he dies… asshole!
- yes, he should die. So should entire administration! If you don’t agree with me, don’t scold me or tell me what you feel. I don’t care.
- Couldn’t happen to a better person. Oh trump should be next.
- i wish Trump dies!
- Whatever
What a bunch of assholes, right? I assure you that every single one of these respondents is a different person, and this far from includes as of the references to “Karma,” “thoughts and prayers,” “reap(ing) what you sow,” “Good,” “asshole,” “fuck this guy,” “I hope he dies,” “It’s all the Republicans fault,” and “I hope all republicans die.”
I am not a Republican (nor a Democrat, being entirely against organized religion,) and yet this is a weird reaction from people suddenly throw into an we’re-all-in-this-together situation where we need everybody to work hard to save civilization in the future. But this petty bullshit (and this certainly comes from all sides, right wing sites mostly mourning Senator Paul’s misfortune while blaming the Democrats and their “socialized medicine” for causing this. Some offer smug “thoughts and prayers,” while others go out and wish the entire left dead.), this awfulness depicted here is clearly widespread, at least on the internet, where what once were considered private thoughts in moments of ire become public forum for crushing debates.
And this Dog Pile on the Rabbit mentality has only grown more intense as people are forced to stay away from each other, life and friendships getting smaller and smaller and bored and lonely people increasingly depending on people they will never know to lift them up or cause any other kind of reaction.
And so, “dog Pile on the Rabbit! Dog pile on the rabbit! Dog pile on the rabbit! Dog pile on the rabbit!”
