Malaysians Say The Darndest Things!

A Dedication To Self-Nangers And Their Dang-ers

September 15, 2008

*** Warning: This is a non-political post. It will only interest those who only know what the word “Innit” stands for.

Why do people love the Internet? Some of the obvious reasons are the anonymity provided by the Internet and the freedom of speech, where you can speak your mind with abandon. Of course, the multitude of different viewpoints and opinions, and the freedom of speech in cyberspace will more often than not lead to disagreements. Couple that with anonymity, and simple disagreements can degenerate into what we all fondly know as a ‘flame war’. (I am not trying to start a flame war, because if you flame me, I’ll probably just thank you for the hits. I’m magnanimous that way.)

In any Internet community, there will always be those that seek to become popular within the community, and those that just don’t care that much about being popular. There will also be those that also appoint themselves as the moral guardians of the community, deciding what is and what is not acceptable. If you’re old enough to have used IRC back in the mid-90s, these moral guardians will be the admins for the channel you are chatting in. In modern times, an example of such a community is Nuffnang’s Innit community, and the moral guardians, well, we’ll get to that later.

The whole idea behind Innit is just a feedback system for blog posts with a positive feedback being called a “nang”, while a negative feedback is called a “dang”. The more nangs you get, the higher the chance of your post being featured in the “Top 10 Of The Day” list, which leads to more hits (which is never a bad thing since the blog is serving paid ads from Nuffnang).

However, unlike forums that have appointed administrators and its own acceptable list of etiquette and behavior, there is none defined for Innit. There are no rules defining how, or why you should nang or dang a blog post, besides the rules imposed by the technology. This has led to a free for all in nanging and danging, in which some behaviors will be described below.

There is a behavior called self-nanging, which basically means that they will submit their posts for the community to feedback on, and they will give themselves a nang. Proponents of this behavior say that it is logical to appreciate their own posts, thus the self-nang. Some would think why not self-nang, since they can do it, and there is no rule that prohibits it (3POINT8, I doubt that there is an unspoken rule that prohibits this behavior).

Detractors will say that these self-nangers lack self-esteem and like to syok sendiri (self-Masturbators apparently). To these detractors, a nang is basically a vote, and in any election, voting for yourself is not allowed. That’s fair enough, I think everyone can agree with that logic.

To counter the behavior of self-nanging, there is also another behavior that basically calls for the danging of any self-nanged post (therefore invalidating the self-nang). The goal of these dang-ers is to band together into a group that will give so many negative dangs to a post, so that it will never be worth it to self-nang your posts. There is now such a group, and it is called KING of DANG, with their own blog as well at http://tiu-dang-king.blogspot.com/. The admin in the blog basically looks at all the posts that have been self-nanged and posts the links for other dang-ers to dang.

I have no idea whether this is an automated process, but in between writing blog posts and bonking China girls in papaya farms, the admin will be posting the day’s list of self-nangers to the blog. If it is not an automated process, then I guess the administrator has too much time on his hands. (psst to the admin, I’ll write you a script to distribute to your ma-chais that will save you loads of time. For the right amount of money of cuz. Contact me.)

It is now time for some disclosure. I am a serial self-nanger. I do it not because I love my posts that much, I just do it because it has been a habit for me ever since the nang feature was made available in Innit. At first, I felt pissed about the whole she-bang, but eventually, I came to my senses and I accepted it. Why? Because just as I have every right to nang myself for any reason, the people who dang me have every right to dang me for their reasons. I have even made it a point to announce my post in the Innit chatbox if I see the dang-er by the user name of NathLovesAlvin just to make it easier for her (btw, NathLovesAlvin, you’re hot. If you happen not to love Alvin anymore, let me know).

Therefore, in the interests of freedom of speech on the Internet and the democratic space in Innit, although I do not agree with the actions of these dang-ers, I will defend their right to do whatever they please and whatever Innit allows.

The detractors of this danging group might think that these people have no lives, and that they have too much time on their hands. But who are you to decide how they should spend their time? Does anyone stop you when you take that few minutes to wank off?

The detractors of this danging group might think that these people are anti-social bullies hiding behind a cloak of anonymity, who in real life, are actually losers. So what? If you’re allowing yourself to be bullied, shouldn’t you be at fault for being such a pussy? If you stop self-nanging, aren’t you just allowing yourself to be dictated to? And have you seen NathLovesAlvin yet? She’s hot! So therefore, in my logic, she can’t be a loser. Proof: http://www.nuffnang.com.my/blogger-profile?blogger=NathlovesAlvin

The detractors of this danging group might think that such behavior will cause the self-nangers to lose self-esteem. Boohoo. Are you going to commit suicide just because you have 0 nangs? Will your dog die because you had 0 nangs for your posts (btw, mine died last week because of snakes, not dangs). Will the world end because KING of DANG dangs your posts?

The detractors of this danging group might think that they are all just attention whores, which honestly, I think some probably are. But who are we to stop them from being attention whores? It’s their right to make a name for themselves in the community however way they want to.

But here’s what I personally think of the danging group. I certainly don’t think they are losers, because anyone who has enough money to go cheong-ing in papaya farms is alright in my book. And did I mention that NathLovesAlvin is hot?

My opinion is this: these are people who THINK that they are doing something noble for the Innit community, however twisted their logic may be. Because the owners of Innit did not bother to institute any laws against self-nanging (it’s just adding javascript with an if-else check after all), this danging group has taken it upon themselves to impose their own rules on Innit. If there is anyone to blame for this whole saga, blame the owners of Innit who have left the Innit users to battle it out among themselves to define what is acceptable and what is not in the community.

The only negative thing I will say about the group called KING of DANG is this: they are very likely to be hypocrites.
When Islamic authorities want to ban concerts in this country, they will probably be loud in protest in their blogs.
When Islamic authorities want all women regardless of religion to don headscarves in this country, they will probably be loud in protest in their blogs.
When Islamic authorities want to shut down bars, karaokes, papaya farms, and ban alcohol and gambling, they will probably be loud in protest in their blogs.

What they don’t realize are that the Islamic authorities are just trying to institute new rules and laws in our country, and they could give a flying fuck if anyone protests it in your blog.
What they don’t realize is that what these Islamic authorities are trying to do to Malaysia, is EXACTLY what KING of DANG is trying to do to Innit: imposing their own version of morality on the community, even though most don’t accept it (if most people do, they would have more than 10 people in the group already).
Of course, these people will have an internal mechanism to justify what their doing, just like the Islamic authorities, and there is nothing you or I can do about it. So the sooner you get over it, the better. For example, just like the Islamic authorities, they think it is their God given task. Not my words. Just read the post here. As you know, in Malaysia, you don’t fuck around with anyone’s God given task.

Here’s my whole point, especially to the self-nangers. If you don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, then continue doing it. Why let anyone dictate to you what’s right or wrong? Why conform to someone else’s standards if they are not yours? If you feel so strongly against the dang-ers, then do something about it, and don’t just bitch about how wrong they are. Look at the danging group, at least when they believe in something, they do something constructive about it.

The Innit community is now playing out like a Wild West cowboy movie. There is a town that is living pretty alright together until a bunch of asshole bandits ride into town, trash the local bar, molest the women, shoot the sheriff (or the deputy, if you’re a Bob Marley fan), and ride off with all the town’s horses. The townspeople, who are being bullied, do nothing and say nothing, even though they outnumber the bandits 100 to 1. They are just hoping for a cowboy to ride into the town to defeat the bandits and save their asses, without doing anything to save themselves. In cowboy movies, the hero will always defeat the bandits. In real life, we know that the bandits will more often than not shoot and kill the cowboy, tie his body behind the horses, and drag his corpse around town as a warning to other townspeople. The only way to defeat these well-organized bandits are for the townspeople to use their majority to save themselves in an equally well-organized manner. However, in the town of Innit, the heroes and heroines are few and far in between. That, my friends, is a fail of epic proportions.

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