so you say you were taken advantage of for being a nice guy. but you go insulting everyone. thats not nice at all.
Now its YOU that seems to be taking advantage of peoples kindness.
bro, all im trying to do is make sure you dont apple bucking hurt other peoples feelings again.
This community needs an enema…or a cage match!
…
I was trying to purposely stay out of this thread, but I’m going to jump in and write a freakin’ novel like I always do. Why not hit the potty, grab a snack and a drink and sit down. Or just skip this one.
First, let me address what has been said about me. I am honored and humbled by the thought and concept of being an expert, but really, I am not worthy of the title for multiple reasons. One of the first reasons is I am new to the world of yoyo, but at 39 and rapidly approaching 40, I have the time to read and learn and research and expand my knowledge, due to the fact that the work I do often allows me vast amounts of free time. Depending on the stuff I have lined up, I may only work 4-8 days a month. Second, as my knowledge is constantly expanding, my gaps between what I do know and don’t know may become obvious. I don’t see this as a weakness, because if someone corrects me, I learn from my mistake. I’m not afraid to be loud and wrong, provided that I learn something from it. Third, my skills, even at 4 months compared to others, are pathetic at best. It’s also difficult to find time to practice right now and I’m lucky to get an hour a week, which is frustrating. My household constantly re-adjusts itself to ensure that I’m unable to do that which I want to do, which also includes work. Case and point, my brother in law KNEW for 2 months(as I reminded him weekly and even invited him to work video for my crew on) about SacAnime. So, what does he do? He schedules a party for the Sunday of that 3-day convention I work. Annoyed I can’t make it, he re-schedules it for Saturday, which he can’t fathom how I can’t just drop out and attend this. Having lost on that front, he annoys me with text messages all day Friday and Satuday of that event to fix his karaoke system and gets angry with me for not being able to just “pop on over” to take care of it. I could go on about the endless nuisances and annoyances that keep me from taking on more than the 4-8 days of “work” I do a month.
My skills will never be all that great, but that’s OK. I’m yoyo’ing for my own personal enjoyment, which is why I chose to get into it. My knowledge will grow, my skills will gradually improve. I am working towards a goal of making a 1- hour in-school presentation to expose kids to yoyo. I don’t need to be great, just good enough to pull off a few things, answer questions, show off wares, let kids try and show a few videos. The idea is to get kids off the couch and on their feet and actively doing something.
I do not need a title of “forum expert” to provide assistance. I, by my nature, enjoy helping. Title or no title, I’m not going to change who I am or what I do. If the powers that be feel it appropriate to grant me the status of forum expert, that is truly their decision. However, I’m sure there will always be many more worthy than I of the title of expert. I will never be a yoyo expert myself, but that won’t prevent me from enjoying this.
A note to the community in general:
Compared to the industries I work on, yoyo has been easy to get “in the door”. Buy a yoyo, be nice, you’re in. The welcome and help and support that surrounds this community is fantastic and for the most part has been great. While there have been a few exceptions(and there always are), I feel WELCOME here. This is unlike the world of live sound. There are some idiots around my region using my name(business) to do crappy work to damage my reputation, when the reality is that I do all my own gigs with my own gear and I do not rent gear out, so if I’m not there, it wasn’t me. Further, the nature of my industry, it’s a “watch your back because you’re a moving target”. I can’t change that. I’ve just choosing to do things my own way where I don’t have to try to do something underhanded to get ahead. People won’t change, but I don’t have to lower myself to that type of aggression. I know I’m a moving target. Oh well. At least I don’t have to deal with that level of crap with yoyo.
Regarding Jayyo:
What can I say. I mean, I’ve had PM’s with Jayyo, one was regarding a thread which, while posted with rather good intentions in mind, was written in a manner to sarcastic to come off anyway other than mean. Yes, it can all be in how the material is presented, and in this case, it was presented poorly. While younger than me, Jayyo has shown significant skills with the yoyo, and seeing his videos and other stuff, I can say that Jayyo deserved some respect. However, with that thread(which was deleted), due to the nature of it, I have to say I lost quite a bit of respect for him. I forget if I contacted him via PM or he contacted me, but we’ve have interactions since then, and he has earned back some respect(quite a bit) for taking down that thread. Also, if I thought he was such a “world class tool”, I would not have bought a yoyo off him, and a rather expensive one at that. So, there’s respect there. I won’t buy or trade with someone I don’t respect. I refuse to name names, but there is someone here I don’t respect, but it’s tied to BST and how that individual chose to handle things, and the funny part is, that after that whole thing, he started doing what I politely asked him to do, but his initial impression told me “avoid at all costs, regardless of deal or item”, and I will.
I can certainly get the “nice guy” thing. I see it all the time. I live it, I am it, and I know what comes with. Nice guys finish last, because we get screwed over constantly. At some point, we get fed up with it and snap. How we snap can range from posting a diatribe on a web forum, or climbing up on the roof with a sniper rifle and picking off strangers with high powered ammunition. The sniper route requires some extra dedication as you gotta acquire a gun, learn how to use it, it takes money and commitment, and most nice guys aren’t willing to take that level of dedication to express their anger and frustration. Plus, the ladder, it just gets cumbersome and time consuming.
As a nice guy in the aggressive and hostile world of live sound, I got nailed constantly. It was tough to get in, and once in, it was a constant beat-down to drive me right back out. And once it was established that “the guy got the skills and ain’t going anywhere and is most likely going to get us fired in time”, well, then the aggression got amped up. People would sabotage my work in order to make themselves appear better and “save the day” in front of the boss. Tour after tour, day after day, I finally got sick of it. A tour ended and instead of taking a flight back with the rest of the crew to the major airport hub where we would go our separate ways in a big hug of fake crap, I simply walked away and said “this is now how things should be done” and I chose to do it on my own. This isn’t to say I had great experiences. I saw the loading docks of many nice establishments and cities and all the interesting smells and filth that went with it(that’s usually where the garbage is) in an endless blur of destination after destination. After a while, you don’t care where you are, you just care you get a bed, shower, toilet and food, although not necessarily in that order. Oh, and a check. VERY IMPORTANT.
So, I get it. I also remember being Jayyo’s age, and it’s NOT a fun time. Most guys just turn into jerks(for lack of the term I’d like to use, I gotta remember this is a PG forum). Now, I’m not defending Jayyo’s current behavior, as we ALL make choices, but most guys are jerks around this age. We’re old enough to be an adult, we can legally give ourselves cancer if we want to through tobacco if we so choose, we can even take a bullet for our country, but we can’t drink. of course, I had no intention to use drugs, smoke or drink, and I’m medically unqualified to stop a bullet for Uncle Sam(bad knees), but I know the crap that goes on. So, I know it’s a bit silly to say this, but Jayyo IS in fact acting his age. Guys mature, then retrograde, then mature back again. And if what he says is true about being taken advantage of, then yeah, it can come out in writing.
However, we have to keep in mind that a forum is a “flat medium”, where things like inflection, which can affect interpretation and intended meaning, are hopelessly lost because it can’t be properly expressed except through master wordsmithing, which I myself hope to achieve myself some day. Jayyo’s blogs let him express himself better. The visual, combined with the audio and choice of words, there’s less room for misinterpretation. For the most part, Jayyo’s video blogs don’t seem to be so negative, harsh or counter productive.
But keep in mind, when I was 19, it was 1990 and I was accessing the internet via a 2400bps modem through a telnet access session. Sadly, I’ve forgotten most of the stuff I knew then thanks to TCP/IP and GUI. The web was very infant, so infant that it was just past concept. We had gopher, we had WAIS, what do we need WWW for? Plus, bandwidth was expensive and broadband was still in it’s initial engineering phases of development(which I was a part of). Sorry to get a bit crass here, but in 1990, if you wanted to be an ■■■■■■ the internet, it required you to make a genuine effort. You had to basically wake up in the morning with your attitude out of control, turn on the computer, load your terminal or serial port or communications software, MANUALLY dial the modem(it was often easier) using the newly agreed upon HAYES command set, connect, login in, use the proper commands to access USENET, know how to use the usenet access client, and know how to post a message. It required a higher degree of skill and knowledge. Now, thanks to broadband, all you gotta do is fire up your computer, launch a GUI web browser and within minutes, you’re able to anger millions with ease. My, how technology has changed.
Now to change the topic real quick and then get back to the topic, I will NOT be attending Nationals unless they contact me to do sound for them, which I would do at cost.(fuel, food, hotel room, plus a few bucks to spend). I’m only 2 hours away, and I won’t be able to attend unless I’m being compensated because otherwise my best interests are regarding 2 major shows for me the next weekend. To bring it back, this would be an opportunity to meet some of you forum users, which woudl include Jayyo, who I would intend to meet as a FRIEND, not someone who has a chip on their shoulder and wants to “give you a piece of my mind”.
Now, back to my point, if I can even remember what it is or if I even had one in the first place.
Oh yeah, spirit and intentions. I think. That works. I’ll go with that. It sounds classy and all intellectual and crap.
This is a community. This is a community with children, adults and even some “old folks”. I’m not sure if I count as old, but I sure am not in the “young” group. The community is here to foster a POSITIVE environment. It welcomes all, it shuns few. Members come and members go. Some enter the world of yoyo briefly, while others stick around for extended periods.
What we must do is foster a positive community. This means we need to leave our negativity somewhere else. Those of us who can help, well, it would be nice if we WOULD help. The “kids” need the help of those of us with advanced knowledge. We should encourage and advise. We should guide and assist. But whatever we do, we should take our great big attitudes and cram it because it has no place here. Or on another web forum for that matter. The past is the past. We have to learn from it and move on, or like they say, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.
So, Jayyo, I got your back. But, please, I do ask you nicely, and as a friend, please try to cut back on the negativity and sarcasm. The negativity is more obvious, but the sarcasm, it’s just only coming across as negative. Deep down, you’re a nice guy. Embrace it. Not to use a term I dislike, but screw those who gave you crap. Don’t let that sort of stuff define who are you, let YOU define who YOU are. Sure, you can be angry or upset or even lash out, but know how to do that appropriately. You obviously get great joy yoyo’ing, and it’s obvious in your videos. Why not let THAT Jayyo come here? That’s the Jayyo we all initially knew(well not me, I just joined in May), but that’s the Jayyo every seems to like, and it seems more reflective of the actual Jayyo anyways. And if you should EVER need to reach me, you know many ways of how to do that. The only downside is that until your phone number is in my phone, I’d have to get a voicemail from you to respond since I have my default ringer set to silent. I can add you to the address book and assign a ring tone to it so I know it’s a call worth taking. I’m not a doctor, but I’m an audio engineer. A good portion of my job is to LISTEN. Sometimes, just having someone to listen to you is all that is needed. I’m not some worldly scholar but I may have advice, or I may not. Or maybe you should spend a few days in my world doing a multi-day event with me so you are out of your environment and will be focused on something entirely different just to give your mind a break from it all. If that’s the case, I got some multi-day events I could use help on! Heck, depending on the show, I might be able to get you IN it briefly so you can do what you do best with the yoyo. Sometimes we just need to be taken out of our environment for a bit and placed somewhere we may not belong just to open our minds to new things and broaden our awareness of the world. I only make this offer because logistically, it is possible.
Also, I’m acting of my own accord. Nobody has put me up to this, nobody has asked me to do this. I haven’t gotten divine intervention. I just am getting tired of seeing certain things, and I would like to make an effort to affect change in a positive manner. I like hanging out here. I’m on a couple of other yoyo forums, but I like this place the best. And for the sake of myself and others, and I say this to all, please don’t dump negativity here. This should be a place of sharing and help and a friendly community. We want players young and old alike to feel welcomed and encouraged, motivated and supported.
I don’t know much, but what I do know, I share. I may not be able to help much, but if I can, I do. I may not have mad skills, I may never have mad skills, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the yoyo. The yoyo should be more about fun and sharing.
So, title or not, I’m not changing. Smack me down, I’ll brush myself off and get back up. I spent a LOT of angry years, and now I’m fighting many years of depression. I do not let it get me down. I do not let that define me. The only two things that prevent me from going of the deep end is doing sound and the yoyo. Doing sound is my “happy drug” because I WILL NOT take medication for my depression. But the highs are intense, and then the show ends and the crashes are equally intense. The yoyo helps keep things a bit under control. The worse day yoyo’ing is better than NOT doing anything. And who can I thank for some of this? Why, YYE of course for selling me that Dark Magic II that started to get me out of this deep funk and selling me other stuff. Again, I can thank YYE for answering my silly questions. via Email(and hence Andre directly for at least one of them). And as silly as it can seem, Jayyo, who sold me a Markmont Next, which while is now mine due to purchase, will always retain a symbolic tie to it’s previous owner. But I’m just weird. No, I’m not going to build a shrine to that yoyo and put a picture of Jayyo behind it and then place fruit and tea and burn incense and do prayers, because that would be just really creepy. Equipment can take on an aura depending on how it’s user/owner treats it. A bit of gear that is loved performs better. But I’ll stop there because that’s part of something else I’m working on for another time.
Not to go paraphrasing Andre, but he feels that the yoyo is more than just a simple toy. I agree. It can be whatever we want it to be or need it to be. Now, having said that, let’s drop the negativity and the bad attitudes and get back to what we’re here for: the yoyo. And with that in mind, we should respect his vision for the yoyo and this site by keeping that in mind.
Whew. I might have burned myself out already today… I think I need to take a nap.
how long did it take you to write this? ^^^^^
Stop. Hammertime and all that rot.
Jayyo, I’ve told you this before. If you want to get away with shenanigans, you have to be helpful and/or funny enough to offset them. I think it’s fairly evident that you have been and continue to be helpful, but your current strain of shenanigans seems to be straining a lot of people’s patience.
It looks like there are two main problems people are having with your behavior. One is that you’re constantly fanboying MLP:FiM (or wolves, or whatever it is you happen to be fanboying at any given point) and everything you say contains (or is built out of) some sort of fanboy reference to it. The other is that your treatment of others is taken by them as too harsh, callous, and/or hurtful, regardless of its intention.
It’s fine to like something. I daresay everyone here is super interested in something other than yoyoing. But yoyoing is what draws people to this particular place of congregation—speaking only in bizarre, off-topic idioms to which most people can’t relate is something like salt. A bit here and there can enhance the taste of things, but pouring a pile of it on a plate and serving it as the main course isn’t a very effective way of getting people to trust your judgment.
As for the other issue…I think fixing the first one will make it less of one. Ease off. Consider what a reasonably average person would be expected to think upon reading what you write. Don’t alienate any more people than you need to, and when you need to be blunt, don’t sacrifice being precise. Make sure it’s clear exactly why you tear into someone before it happens, so that it’s merely a natural consequence rather than an emotional reaction.
I don’t really know. Plus, in between, I had to let my pugs in and out, take my kids to school, change a couple of diapers, feed a kid(different kids) and some other stuff.
Stuff had been aggravating me for some time and I was getting a bit tired of it. But, I felt rather than just go off on a tirade, to just sleep on it overnight to give it some additional contemplation. I wanted to leave it in a positive spin as best as possible.
We have to remember what brought us here: the yoyo.
We need to remember why we are here: the yoyo.
What can be more enjoyable than sharing and enjoying this simple toy than to do so with others? I thought that was what this place was all about. Ask, learn, share, have fun.
It’s not my job to be a leader here. I probably never will be, and that’s fine. I don’t run the place. But that doesn’t mean I should just sit by and idly watch some people self destruct or run out of control either. So in some strange way, I care.
Yoyo is supposed to be fun. Let’s keep it that way. That’s all I’m really saying. We can’t let a small number wreck it for the rest of us. Besides, there are kids here! We need to show by example.
Lololo I don’t think we’re self destructing
I agree with most of it. Good job.
Throughout this thread, Jayyo has come up a lot. Many people find his posts to be very unhelpful, negative, or just quite mean.
Being a forum expert, Jayyo is supposed to represent the face of the website. He is supposed to be a leader. He is supposed to be as helpful as possible in as many threads as possible.
As long as someone holds the ‘Yoyoexpert’ title, this is what they are expected to do.
When someone does not emulate these ‘rules’, they are not made a yoyoexpert.
And certainly, people who are actively unhelpful, negative, or just mean are never made a yoyoexperts.
Even when someone who holds the yoyoexpert title, and then become unhelpful, negative, and stop promoting positive community values, they are no longer worthy of the title.
Now, I’m not saying that we should eliminate Jayyo’s yoyoexpert status Immediately. Not at all.
However, I know that many of us have communicated that we are bothered by Jayyo’s posts of late. I think that we have given him many chances to shape up. However, I also think that many of us feel out patience grow thin.
That is why, in my opinion, that if Jayyo does not become more helpful and emulate what a yoyoexpert should be in a reasonable amount of time, he should lose his title. Someone who is not doing his job should not have his job.
Now, if we look around, we can see a few people who are on their way to the title. Some of these people are very long winded, and others are more concise. However, all of these people are very helpful.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather have new, helpful yoyo experts that keeping our old unhelpful ones just for tradition’s sake.
I’m going to say one last thing. I’m locking this thread. I’m not done with the subject but we are all done with this thread. If we want to start a new thread about it that’s fine but we, including me, are not going to bring up any negativity. I played a part in this one and I shouldn’t have. I don’t take back what I said. I still believe it all but I should have played my part a little better. Off to the wayside this thread will go.
locked
