Post #235750 by Thomas on Sat, Jun 3, 2006 6:51 PM

There might be a few different notions about what is being discussed here. Let me clarify what I have in mind when I address this topic.

It is not the interjection of a quick bit of humor such as, for example, a pun that comes to someone's mind during the course of a thread, or whatever. You're reading a fairly serious discussion of some topic and then someone makes some hilarious comment and you're laughing out loud. I couldn't agree more that that's one of the great pleasures of TC.

Nor is it the scenario of someone deliberately changing a topic, for example entering a thread about "Tiki Tony's bar in Jersey City" and saying, "I hate Tiki Tony's in Jersey City -- Luau Larry's in Hoboken is much better..." and going on at length about Luau Larry's. That kind of blatant "hijacking" strikes me as pretty rare.

For me what comes to mind is something like this: Someone starts a thread asking for advice on how to construct a little waterfall, using tiki design elements, in their garden. A number of concrete suggestions come in, along with expressions of enthusiasm for the project, because the subtle noise of falling water enhances a tiki environment so well. Spurred by these comments, someone posts an exuberant post about how the sound of trickling water is conducive to a zen-like state, constructs a musicological theory about how it is the basis for the very concept of rhythm, and relates an anecdote from his travels in Mozambique to bolster this theory.

It's not malicious, it's just a bit lazily unmindful of the fact that the thread is for the exchange of a certain type of focused information. It also might spur followup posts about anything from Zen to Mozambique. Uncool! The thread-creator and others wanted to have a particular type of discussion.

So, those are my two cents. I know about this naughty tendency because I have on occasion noticed it in a certain TC member ... myself! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.