I really hate to beat a dead horse and I'm sure I will be accused of doing that; at the risk of that, and being redundant to a certain degree, I feel like I simply must weigh in on the Butterfinger McFlurry situation. This is because as many of you well know, I tend to, like donfreenut, compose writeups that are "egregiously silly" as Mr. Nut in what is written in his homenode. Some of you love them. Some of you hate them. And some of you don't care about them at all. But as a fellow Warrior of the Silly, I feel I have to offer an opinion, even if I am inviting possibility of eye rollings in my general direction.
First of all, life is about balance. The purpose of silliness is to counterbalance the very serious situations out there in the world. Imagine a world with all the endlessly dark, disturbing, evil and depressing things going on without anything funny or silly. That would warrant mass suicide wouldn't it? So real quickly, to stop myself from going on for many pages about it (I'm not interested in actually getting deep into the debate over whether BFMcF should have ever been there or not) that writeup was about sillying up something that was otherwise dry and drab, using tossed-in non sequiturs and sometimes profane nonsense to do it. And it was hilarious. Well, I thought so. And hundreds of others -- I believe the final ching count for it was well into the 130s. So that was it. It was hilarious silliness to make you laugh. Nothing more, nothing less. If you even begin to analyze it beyond that, you're wasting your time, you didn't get it and you never will.
The real point of this is that it's kind of a requiem of sorts. I'd thought about doing a "Requiem for Butterfinger McFlurry" node but I knew full well that it wouldn't have lasted unless it was written more eloquently than I have the ability to do. Maybe even then. But anyway, when I'd first came into the catbox that day last week and saw the subject, "Farewell Butterfinger McFlurry" and the surging argument, I immediately became incensed. I rarely get very angry about something as most who know me will attest to. I'd incorrectly assumed that the high-ranking stick-in-the-muds who'd always hated BFMcF had finally gotten their wish, that they'd decided to end the debate over its existence and just kill it once and for all despite what protests may incur. I hadn't realized at first that it was its creator, donfreenut, who had actually ordered the hit on that and almost every other writeup he'd ever done, angry over the removal of the permanent Mark of Destruction. I thought he had a good point about how that had become part of its charm, and therefore, in a roundabout way, a part of its content, but then I think he overreacted. And that's all I'm saying about that debate.
It really screwed with my head, though, when I'd learned the truth about what had happened. I was still angry, but didn't know where or who to direct it toward. That is a very frustrating place to be in and I'm sure all of you have been there at one point or another in your life. I just could not bring myself to be angry at donfreenut. I had always held him in such high regard. I loved everything he'd written. He had this style of writing that, even in his serious nodes, could make me laugh because they were so modestly authoritative with this weird tongue-in-cheek machismo that only donfreenut could convey. That may be an inaccurate way to describe it but those are the best words I could think it.
But I am very disappointed at his course of action and found it petty in a way and very un-donfreenut of him; he always seemed so cool to me, like e2's very own Fonzie. At least to me. Many, I'm sure, will disagree.
I'm getting off course though. I wasn't really here to talk about him so much. Where was I? Oh yes, I was upset about BFMcF being removed, didn't matter who'd done it. I thought, and I'd said it in the catbox, that a part of E2 had died that day, part of its soul was gone. Part of its history. It had become the symbol of the never ending debate over E2's identity, whether or not it should be too serious for any irreverence, if in-jokes were appropriate or tolerated. If silliness has a place here. And even though, as it turned out, its own creator had handed the executioner the gun to shoot it with, in a way its removal meant that a part of that war had been won. Score one for the Serious Squad. Butterfinger McFlurry and its egregious silliness were finally gone, that thorn in their sides, that affront to everything good and decent was finally put out to pasture.
But they do not realize what has been lost. Gone will be all the "What's with this Butterfinger McFlurry thing?" questions by newbies. Gone are the belly laughs by users when they discover it, ones who Get It, who, upon that discovery, realize that, Yes, E2 can be quite hilarious and non-sequitur, a fun place to hang out. It was one of the biggest weights attached to the silly side of E2 to counterbalance all the seriousness and religious debates and stories about death on the other side. And now it has been cut free. Is E2 out of balance now?
Maybe. OK so I understand many of you, if you've even read this far, might be thinking, "Oh get over it, it was just a silly writeup, come on!" You might be right. I hope you're right. I hope that all the other silly writeups, maybe some of mine included, will still serve the purpose that BFMcF had. But you cannot argue that a piece of E2's history is gone. People can now read about Butterfinger McFlurry but not the Butterfinger McFlurry writeup itself. Now new users who wish to see just what the big deal, if it was truly funny or not, was won't get a chance to (unless it still exists somewhere that I don't know about yet).
I don't know about you, but I will sure miss it. I will forever be part of "tha McFlurry crew" even if its "head nigga" is gone.
karma debt pointed out to me the perfect node title that describes the situation (and I wish I'd thought of it) - I felt a disturbance in the fun, as if a million playgrounds cried out, and then