I suppose the men will be really happy.
This week in Star Blog, we were told to write about the best of Singaporean men and the worst of Singaporean women. Which is probably a one-way-ticket to flame wars.
I think the male Star Bloggers probably had an easier time writing this.
It was tough for me because stereotyping is very much against my nature, unless it’s meant as joke, in which case I’ll laugh about it but won’t really buy it seriously.
Oh, well.
Come read what I wrote and observe how wars are started!
is tht ur old gothic necklace?
It’s not a gothic necklace. It’s a flower! :P
I can’t tell you didn’t care for this weeks topic much. It must have been your shortest post ever on SB. I wonder if the people picking these topics know how boring they are getting?
I generally don’t feel comfortable writing unbalanced, baised articles. To be fair, though, it’s really hard to think of interesting topics to write about. And it’s even harder coming up with good topics week after week.
Sheylara: Really? I could come up with 1000. All better than the one’s the SB editors have come up with the past year. It’s not rocket science and I am not the only one saying that.
I understand they have to be diplomatic about the topics, but come on. This week’s topic is so one sided, considering that a majority of the Star Bloggers are female. I suspect the editors (all men) sat around in a room and came up with this week’s topic after watching a bad USA talk show. Good Men and Bad Women, on the next Oprah. :)
This week’s topic wasn’t even a question. It was a statement that the female writers should have taken offence to. Men and women are different no matter where you go. It’s not just some freak occurrence in Singapore as the SB editors seem to think in coming up with that statement. There are a million books on this subject, the most famous being Men Are from Mars, Women are From Venus. The two guy writers had a field day trashing women.
And as for you being a balanced writer? Come on, you don’t actually believe you are balanced and unbiased when you write do you? Fox News or CNN are not pounding down your door asking for you to be one of their fair and balanced writers, are they?
It’s really easy to say you could do something. But usually, people are only believed when they prove it.
Also, your statement about Fox and CNN shows how little you know of the world of journalism and, well, the world in particular.
And how to you propose I do that, Sheylara? Should I start spouting off topics here in your little corner of the internet?
And for the record, I know more about journalism than you could ever hope to know. All you have to do it turn on your television and tune into a major media news source, or pick up an legitimate newspaper to see/read what I do.
But that is besides the point. You said you didn’t like being unbalanced or unbiased in your writing, but there are seemingly endless examples of where you are, many times taking pride in doing so.
I’ll prove that I can come up with better topics (within the constraints that the SB editors are in) and you prove you are balanced and unbiased (and just for grins, prove to me that you are any kind of journalist, other than a “bloggest”. I’ll do the same).
I have no interest in proving anything to you. I was a journalist for three years, and not the armchair kind who sit at home and watch TV and read the papers and think they know everything about journalism. At least I don’t make outrageous claims. :P
See, that is what you are famous for Sheylara. You get backed into a corner and the only defense you think have is to make a pathetic attempt and insulting the person who challenges you. The proof of THAT is on every post you have on this blog where someone challenged your opinion and your excessive use of the title ‘Troll’ you give to unruly commenters.
The key word in your short-lived rant: WAS.
So, in fact you ARE an “armchair journalist” because you have gone from a legitimate writer to someone who publishes blog posts.
Granted, I’ll give you credit for choosing the fastest growing medium in journalism, but you are still bound by the rules of traditional media and that is honesty about who you are and what you stand for. Anything less and you are just a tabloid.
But see, again, none of that matters. What does matter, especially in the world of journalism, if you say you are something you had better be that, or you are nothing.
If you have no interest in proving it, then don’t lay claim to it. Someone is always lurking around to catch you when your words go against your actions. That is the first rule.
I wonder who started with the insults. :) I use “troll” excessively? It just isn’t worth my time proving myself to someone who makes unsubstantiated claims.
But thanks for spending your time on my blog, reading and commenting. Much appreciated!
Unsubstantiated claims?? What in the world are you taking about? You made the claim, Sheylara. I am just calling you on it. The evidence is all over your blog. You said you didn’t like to write unbalanced and biased, but all one has to do is pick five posts of yours and read them. Four of them are unbalanced and bias. How much more proof do you need it to satisfy your incessant need to be right in the face of all the evidence pointing to you being dishonest? It’s all over the place. You wrote them. Hopefully you know what you said.
I mean, what more do I have to do or say? It’s in plain sight.
It’s a simple question. Why do you say you don’t like to write unbalanced and/or biased, but in just about everything you write you are unbalanced and biased?
The only unsubstantiated claim is the one you made about part of your writing style and then proceeded to do everything you could to avoid a challenge to it.
So, please enlighten us. Make me look like the bad guy in all this by proving me wrong. Do that and I will happily accept it (provided it is the truth) and an humbly bow out after a more than graceful apology.
And just for the record, the reason I didn’t start this conversation on Star Blog was becasue of the very first thing I wrote here this evening. I know you didn’t care much for the topic.
So that does add a little extra legitimacy to your talents.
Wow!
Hey, Jeff. Isen’t a blog one’s opinion and isn’t one’s a opinion meant to be one sided (The side of the person writing it)?
I think you are missing the point about a blog here. It’s not about you. It’s about Shey.
Go write that in the Washington Post!
Realliveman: You’re missing the point. Sheylara claims she isn’t generally unbalanced and/or bias, but the evidence to the contrary is all over. It does nothing for her legitimacy if she is found to be dishonest.
When I asked her about it, she first tried her classic insults strategy and when that didn’t work, she ran away from it.
If she is going to make claims about something, she should make sure her past “transgressions” do not conflict with her current statements.
Here are your unsubstantiated claims:
1. You said I use the title “troll” excessively. I don’t.
2. That you could think of 1000 interesting topics.
3. You know more about journalism than I could ever hope to know.
4. You said I claim that I don’t write unbalanced and unbiased blogs. I didn’t. What I said exactly was, “I generally don’t like to write unbalanced and unbiased articles.” That in no way says that I have never written and unbalanced and unbiased article. It just says I don’t like to write them.
Do get your facts right before you embarrass yourself any further by trying to bring someone down when you yourself are not perfect.
Dude, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. I don’t think Shey is twisting your arm. She didn’t put a gun to your head and say “READ MY BLOG”. Although I couldn’t completely understand if she did and told you to go away.
And who in the world gave you the authority to cruse her blog and investigate statements made by her? Is this that whole Web 2.0 thing and Mr. Web appointed you Blog Cop?? :)
Are you a Blog Cop, Jeff??? Are you going to arrest Shey??
The only one who is embarrassing herself is you Sheylara. Unlike you, let me answer your claims:
1) I have found several posts by you where you used “troll” in creative ways to describe some of your more colorful commenters on both this blog and on Star Blog.
2) I could, I have and will provide 1000 post topics whenever you are ready, but you have to provide me with proof that you are balanced and unbiased.
3) I do because I am in more than just one or two mediums and have been for much longer that 3 years
4) If you don’t like it, then why do you continue to do it.
And, of course 5) Your commenters now come out of the woodwork (even one your called a troll in the past) to defend you.
I never claimed I was perfect. Another unsubstantiated claim from you.
I got news for you Jeff. I think Shey dislikes me more than she dislikes you, so your defense claim doesn’t stand. I just commenting because I cannot believe there is a brownhole as big as you on this planet.
I’ve met quite a few guys like you in my line of work. You are not happy with your own skills, so you have to find someone to off load that nastiness on. The end result will be Shey will go back to writing and you will go back to your life (not a pretty sight) and nothing will have changed. Why waste her time with your stupidity?
Why don’t you do Shey a favor and just admit that you are impressed with her writing talents?
Anyone who would spend that much time on trying to make a claim about is either impressed with what he is reading or most likely pulling something out of his brownhole to make himslef feel better.
Did I claim that you said that you were perfect?
I find it hard to believe that you were really a journalist when simple comprehension defies you. :)
Realliveman: I don’t think you have a dog in this fight. I won’t even discuss your writing talents, because they are not worth discussing. Let’s just say you need to go back to grammar school and typing class and leave it at that.
Sheylara’s 30 readers will eventually discover that she is no professional writer. She’s a cute blogger with a little writing skill, but not much more.
I have said all I am going to say. If you want to make claims that you can’t backup, Sheylara, go right ahead. But people are going to keep challenging you and if you continue to handle it the way you currently do, you will just sink deeper and deeper into that hole you dug for yourself when you stopped being a legitimate writer and became a blogger.
OK, so I don’t do stupid. I am removing myself from this conversation.
Just to add one more thing:
Shaylara, your sarcasm speaks volumes about your personality and it shows in your content. You would rather try to pick apart someone rather than answer a simple question. I “bucked” your claims against me, but you would rather choose to try, rather poorly I might add, to wit your way out of answering mine.
I’ve proven my case. If you know how to read, it’s plain as day for anyone who chooses to go back and research my claims. It only took 20 minutes to discover.
Those of you who choose to just defend Sheylara’s case blindly and not reasearch the facts, that is more or less what I have been trying to convey here. It would be the blind FOLLOWING the blind in this case.
Jeff Lon: are you bored, attention deprived or just mean?
But kudos, that’s some promising flame-bait you’re throwing out there. Too bad that Sheylara is too smart to take it. Facts are a real buzz-kill aren’t they?
A few tips: don’t lose your lid so quickly! Come on! Blowing your top at the second post? A full 4-paragrapher at that point just looks amateurish. Check your passive aggressiveness and don’t ruin everything with the hyperbole. Fake a concerned attempt to correct Sheylara’s mistaken POV first and then come out blazing at the “insensitive” response! That’ll start you off on the right foot with the peanut gallery, see?
Ah, kids today. They never had the benefit of growing up on Usenet. Sigh..
WHAAAAT? And I thought it’s on the topic between nasty sg women and great sg guys :(
So in a nutshell, the above 22 posts is generally trying to say shey sucks! SERVES YOU RIGHT WOMAN! WOOT! lolol.
I’m curious, wtf is a legitimate writer?
Just to clarify things, I enjoy the stuffs she wrote, let it be biased or unsubstantiated. It’s one of the places that makes the time in the workplace pass me by. Nevermind if she’s oxymoronic! (Not everyday I get to use that word on you shey! WOOT)
What is even more disturbing is Jeff decided to drop by and tells shey “No! you’re wrong! I’m right! I have got proofs! I have done my research!”… laying claims to this and that. Admirable effort there.
I’m not sure if I’m even considered as ‘defending’ her, granted I may have made a few statements to her benefit (which are based purely on what I think of her, you can do your research on that too hey!).
As far as the “blind leading the blind” goes, not that I care. Hell, not that we all really care about being a legitimate writer or an illegitimate one. The moment I step out of this office I hardly ever click my way back into this blog.
Oh well, at least I know who is a happier person and who is extremely bitter.
Shey, you R teh suckage!!!!111
Jeff: Your tactics may work on other targets, but I am logical enough to see what you’re doing. Accusing someone of behaviour that you yourself are displaying pre-empts your victim and psychologically stops him/her from calling it back at you, which allows you to throw out ridiculous accusations with impunity. I suppose that might be pretty smart in the circles you hang out in, but it amuses me instead of offends me.
Still, I welcome people like you to my blog. You must like my writings at a subconscious level seeing that you keep coming back for more.
Cheers. :)
Realliveman and Ben: Thanks for your contributions! Much appreciated. :)
Yoi: Tsk tsk… go back to WOW and stop terrorising people here. :P
Why am i singled out?! WTF?! How am I terrorising people?! CHRIST!
Hello??? Don’t flatter yourself. You started it lor. I didn’t even mention a peep about you and you suddenly appeared with comments like “Shey, you R teh suckage!!!!111”.
And you say that I single you out?!
You need to go back to your law books or I’m going to bish you. :P
… whoa look at the bish threat. It’s the the best you’ve got?!
Suddenly appeared? I certainly did not suddenly appear. I like that line, don’t mock me.
As you may notice by now, I don’t need to flatter myself at all :D
Doh… you must be too free today. :P Go and terrorise someone else. How about Ela? You’re supposed to go terrorise her about joining us tmr!!
:O
WAIT! AM I TERRORISING YOU!? OMIGODS! WOOT!
lol can’t terrorise ela when she’s being terrorised by someone else.
I would like to know how I am displaying the behavior even remotely close to the behavior you are displaying (reference: Accusing someone of behaviour that you yourself are displaying..). I just asked a question, which you have refused to answer, choosing rather to run around in circles in a cute, but all too common dance of avoidance.
So, don’t answer the question. You don’t have too, because the evidence to my point is all over this site. It’s speaks for itself. You say one thing one day and then say almost the exact opposite the next. I’m not accusing you of that. The evidence of your own words is. All I did was point it out. And all you did was dance around it.
You have a point about me liking your writings on a subconscious, however. If I completely forget your prior writings, each post stands very well on its own. That is quite obvious. You are, indeed a very good writer when it comes to a single piece.
But that isn’t how it works, now is it? Writers are judged on the whole of their work, not their individual pieces. Be if from me to have the professionally and justified ability to judge your work on any level outside my own opinion. But, I suspect if even the average reader were the thumb through your writings and subsequent comments as I have, they would come to the same conclusions and ask the same simple question I did yesterday when you said what you did about balance and unbiased. I also suspect the people who have actually read your work here and came to the same or similar conclusion didn’t want to waste their time mentioning it because they knew this was the reaction you would most certainly display as evidenced by prior confrontations with other commenters.
To address your comment that you know what I am trying to do. All I was trying to do was get an answer to a question, and nothing more. If you think I have some sinister plot to take over sheylara.com or something to that affect, you are sadly mistaken. I just would have liked a fair and honest answer. Then I would, as a very small minority of less intelligent commenters have said to others on this blog, craw back under the rock from which I came.
Final thought: It doesn’t matter what I say or how I judge your work. In this particular medium I am nobody.
However, your writings, in a traditional sense speak for themselves and they speak even louder on the whole.
The reason I don’t answer your questions is because I refuse to fall into the trap of trying to defend myself against people who are only interesting in picking on me, and not wanting genuine answers.
You accuse me of insulting you after being backed into a corner by you. But everyone can see that you started with the insults first. That’s the only example I will give you of you accusing me of your own crime. I think that is enough.
If you had wanted genuine answers, you could have asked nicely and I would have given them to you. If you had bothered to read all my posts and comments, like you claim that you have, then you would have noticed how I answer genuine questions with sincere answers, while I answer obvious troublemakers with sarcasm.
You started with posting insults in all my latest entries and you expect courtesy and respect in return?
So far, you have only piled on accusations without giving evidence. “Just look into her archives and there’s your evidence” isn’t much of an evidence.
“I can give you 1000 interesting posts if you answer my questions” also isn’t evidence to back your claim of being superior to STOMP editors.
You suspect that other readers think as badly about my writing as you do. That’s speculation designed to mislead readers. If you’re really any journalist at all, you wouldn’t even dare to say anything speculative like that.
As for writing “unbalanced and biased blogs”, you’re not even in the right category. This is a personal blog. I talk about what I like to eat, wear, see, hear, watch. Do you honestly expect to see neutral, formal writing in a personal blog?
There is such a thing called different styles of writing to suit different types of readers. If you can’t accept that, maybe you shouldn’t be reading blogs.
Jeff Lon: Dude, don’t be such a blowhard. It’s clear that you desperately want to engage, but you are going about it in entirely the wrong way.
And this is a blog for heaven’s sake; intentionally written in a charmingly whimsical style for the entertainment of its readers. Somehow I don’t think Sheylara is aspiring for its inclusion in the Western Canon.
So stop with the evidence baloney, nobody here can see your new clothes.
Sheylara, your last comment was comparable to a drunk driver weaving in a out of traffic. Are you just spitting stuff out to justify your reason for not answering the question?
How is what you wrote not evidence? Should I list references to post and comments you have made? Since when was this a court of law?
Like I said, don’t answer it. Let the readers discover it on their own.
“You started with posting insults in all my latest entries and you expect courtesy and respect in return?”
You want evidence?
“And as for you being a balanced writer? Come on, you don’t actually believe you are balanced and unbiased when you write do you”? That was the first question I asked. Your response: Also, your statement about Fox and CNN shows how little you know of the world of journalism and, well, the world in particular.
There is your evidence of who started with child’s play. I asked you a question and you try to make me look less than you?? That may work with average commenter, but it doesn’t work on me.
You want more? I have tons.
I stared out defending you. You turned it into this twisted wreck of a discussion and I should mention it has been mostly one-sided.
But it’s pretty easy to generalize this conversation, I ask, you avoid and accuse me of not having evidence. Then when I say go look for yourself, you say maybe I should be reading blogs.
“You suspect that other readers think as badly about my writing as you do. That’s speculation designed to mislead readers” First, that is a misquote and second, how is that in any why designed to mislead anyone about anything? What I suspect does not mean a thing and it really doesn’t matter. Facts are all that matter and all people have to is read to get the facts of what I based a simple question on.
If what want to argue with me the finer points of justification and reasoning, then you have spun this one way out of control.
And as for you Ben? You don’t have a dog in this fight either.
Jeff Lon: Sure spaceman, we’ll see you when you come crashing back to earth. LOL
Sheylara, just so you are aware, Ben is in the very small marjority I commented about prior.
Despite that, I forgive you, Ben.
Sheesh, Jeff. Your last posting didn’t even make sense.
“Your last comment was comparable to a drunk driver weaving in a out of traffic.”
Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself? Here is another evidence of you accusing me of something you’re doing yourself. :)
I can’t even reply to anything you just said because it really doesn’t make sense.
Oops, that’s minority. I actually like many of your commenters comments.
Yeah, Sheylara, it probably best that you attempt to wit yourself out of this, regardless of how feeble, repetitive and ineffective it is. Let your readers discovery what I am taking about through your prior postings and comments. They won’t have to look very far, that I am sure of.
Jeff Lon: Dude, you are starting to freak me out. Please, consider your own privacy and don’t let everything fall out of the closet like this. Since you know everything, I’m sure you know about psychological projection? Maybe it’s time to chill out.
/me signing off
Jeff: There you go again, saying stuff without hard evidence, using very general terms to not commit yourself into a hole. I grow weary of this game. If there’s anyone out there who even thinks you’re making the least bit of sense, I don’t see them.
Thanks for your comments and continued support of my blog.
There YOU go again. Now it’s just getting stupid on both of our parts.
Well, I’ve said all I need to say anyway. We will just have to see what happens. Most people have a curious mind and will want to validate that my comments are BS. To do that, they have to read and compare…..and maybe discover what I did.
Or maybe not.
We shall see.
I just skimmed through the entire thing because I simply don’t know what’s behind Jeff’s intention. Soz Jeff, all the piled up frustration from formatting my laptop only to find my drivers installation disk missing is not for the faint hearted.
Can you like, sum up your grievances in lay terms? Like Shey is crap because A+B=C, not Shey is crap because (AxD/123) – (ABE) bla bla = C… you get the point.
Then again, i’d just scroll through it all despite your very best effort to explain… in the event that you care enough to, of course.
Why I’m such a sloth… I don’t know. Probably because wall of text just critical hit me for 13k damage.
I need to level up some more. Sigh*
Well I like yr gothic flower.
Interesting topics that Stomp chooses huh? Some of your colleagues there are very thin skinned. Interestingly, they’re the same ones that were gushing when the topic was ang moh men and SG gals…
abraxis: Thin-skinned? Not sure what you mean by that, in the context of this week’s topic.
@Sheylara: “Thin-skinned” means sensitive and defensive…
Hmm, I see. But I don’t really see any evidence of thin-skinness there. lol. :P