Current mood:

pessimistic

The Academics of Trolling
Over at academics_anon, wmchichiri announces that she/he is doing his/her Masters Thesis Defense and would like some words of advice.

Poor, poor wmchichiri. Because there's a dearth of words of advice, but gosh is there a lot of wank.

clevergirl posts that at her institution, powerpoint and business suits are the norm.

theoria responds with Remind me never to go anywhere near your institution.

This is the first place that Theoria says this, but not the last. Almost every comment that says what the defenses are like at someone's University is met with this comment, or a varation of it.

sjcarpediem jumps in to break a Jurisimprudence Law by saying WoW... Impressive trolling, I must say. I'm guessing your defense didn't go so well? Maybe you could share your own experiences and then somebody may benefit, rather than vowing to avoid ppls' institutions.

Needless to say, Theoria doesn't like that.

Hilights of this include:

- Accusations that Theoria's defense must of sucked, thus why s/h/it is being so wanky.

- Hitting Theoria's journal to point out that all s/h/it does is play video games and work at his/her/its father's business, so that explains everything.

- Theoria getting up in arms that anyone would suspect s/h/it is female from his/her/its user name.

- Theoria insisting that dressing proffesionally for an academic defense indicates that you don't think your thesis stands on its own. (What?)

- Theoria getting angry that comments about Theoria are not being made to Theoria's comment so s/h/it has to go looking for them.

- Insulting Canadians. That's always fun. ("Perhaps your discipline is simply so backward and irrelevant that it has no need for useful tools?...Oh, wait - Canadian. Right."

- aboveboard, subtitled "Telling it like it is", created in 2003. It has posted 2 comments since then. It shows up to insult Theoria (and is responsible for the above quote.) In fact, their entire 2 comments in the history of the journal are both to Theoria, dissing s/h/it for being from Canada.

- General insults towards academic discplines ("Apparently your 'discipline', like Powerpoint, is based upon the premise that your entire audience is idiotic. How do you feel getting a Ph.D. in a field full of idiots?")

- Latin vs. Greek ("Your paltry Latin background is of relatively little assistance in deciphering a word drawn from archaic Greek." I love academic insults.)

I'm attempting to determine if this:
Obviously you feel some need to validate your intelligence by putting down complete strangers' depts and fields of which you know nothing about. (michicanj)
is academic speak for a) You're just jealous b) You're just a mean girl from high school or c) If you can't be a good academic, you shouldn't be discussing academics.

My favorites are reading the people who are trying to be calm, cool, and collected while arguing with Theoria.

I think my favorite quote of all is from Theoria, with this:
Dr. Freud, please don't project. It is common knowledge that the only possible way to fail a defense (because unpassable theses will never make it to defense) is for the external to ask specific questions about specific passages. For instance, "In the second paragraph on page 52 you write, 'Any time someone mocks something for being idiotic it means that they themselves hold deep-seated issues of self-hatred and a lack of self-confidence.' This claim seems suspect. How can you account for its veracity beyond dismissing it as 'trolling'?".

People start posting "Okay" after a while. (Well, it's only one person. But I really think more people should be doing it.)

And then pockawida comes along and politely asks everyone to please be nice and remember the point of all this. To which I wish him/her/it the best of luck, because I suspect it's going to get ugly again soon.

I feel so bad for the OP, because I don't think she got much advice.

(Wow, today is busy here. I like busy. *grin)

Edited: because I thought someone might actually want to see the link to where it's all happening. Or you could just trust me, because that's always fun. *grin*

(Post a new comment)

mirabellawotr
2004-05-29 07:22 am UTC (link)

Hrm. Wanky she might be, but really Theoria's right. Customs vary depending on your field and school, obviously, but where I'm from going to a thesis defense with a business suit and Powerpoint would get you some really strange looks; and once a thesis gets to the defense stage, it really does take heroic action on someone's part to put a spanner in the works. It's like the doomsday machine in old sci-fi movies, except that the doomsday machine is always stopped and the degree-awarding process almost never is.

But that doesn't mean academic wank isn't fun.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

kannaophelia
2004-05-29 04:12 pm UTC (link)

If she was simply saying that a thesis shouldn't depend on things like clothes and tech, sure, she'd be right. But saying that using Powerpoint and dressing formally means assuming an audience is "retarded" is simply wrong - unless there's some deep reason why presenting things in a tidy and pretty way dumbs-down content. As someone pointed out, PPT is simply a tool - and I won't write the obvious second part of that sentence.

I did enjoy the way people were falling over themselves to tell her where they went to university, in order to ensure she stays far, far away.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	llama_treats 2004-05-29 02:10 pm UTC (link)
	How dare anyone in academia even think of wearing a suit! EVAR!!1!one! Sellouts! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	zozma 2004-05-29 04:31 pm UTC (link)
	You know, that comment is particularly funny placed under an icon of the best-dressed woman in all of science fiction. Hee! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kannaophelia 2004-05-29 04:02 pm UTC (link)
	At risk of being wanky, I am so, so glad that my own university allows research work to stand or fall on its own merit without thesis defense, technicality or not. I'm too shy and insecure for something like thesis defense - nothing in the world could prevent me from blanking out, no matter how beautifully I knew my own work inside and out. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	panthea 2004-05-30 06:21 am UTC (link)
	Oooo. What university are you at? ^---has to start applying to grad schools this summer (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: kannaophelia 2004-05-30 06:45 am UTC (link)
	Adelaide, or I was, and will be returning, so unless you're Australian it might be difficult. Arts research PhDs here are done purely by "original and significant contribution to knowledge", i.e. your thesis, rather than coursework or things like thesis defense. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	liarliar 2004-05-30 08:22 am UTC (link)
	"Your paltry Latin background is of relatively little assistance in deciphering a word drawn from archaic Greek." Am I the only person who hears this in VillainSpeak? Your paltry Latin background won't save you now, Spiderman! And if this were anime, it'd be followed by shouting "What will you do now?" a few times. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	kijikun 2004-05-30 08:29 am UTC (link)
	Or 'Die' depending on the villan. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: notjo 2004-05-30 09:28 am UTC (link)
	I know! I totally want my next villian to use that in a game at some point. I think he should reference Troy or something. grin (Reply to this)(Parent)