Princess SnorklePants is my current name on twitter.
I like being Princess SnorklePants.
Why Princess SnorklePants I hear you ask?
The short answer is because the Internet is a ridiculous place and I don’t generally take myself or the Internet too seriously. Remembering if you will, that Klout regards me as an authority on Zombies, Chihuahuas, Crocs and Trombones.
The long answer is, that I had massive case of hurt feelings (again) and needed a way to cheer myself up after someone had called me a troll.
To deaden my fragile feelings I changed my name to Troll Queen Foale III and proceeded to faff about on twitter, posting arty photos of the undersides of bridges and talking about my comment policy on the blog.
Once the sting of the troll slur had receded, I then morphed into Princess SnorklePants, fulfilling a childhood ambition to be a princess when I grew up and tadaa due to the awesome power of the Internet I was able to become a princess.
Being Princess SnorklePants also enables me to swan about in public, telling people that I am THE QUEEN and asking small children if they have seen my missing Tiara. I really need to invest in a fold up wand that I can keep in my handbag so I can be the fairy queen as well. Do fairy Queens wear tiaras?
Long time readers here know that “The Spouse” has a serious disability: Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. A genetic disease, one that causes him all manner of problems, the most significant being chronic pain due to his hips, pelvis, shoulder and various vertebrae dislocating.
Have you ever dislocated anything Internet? I smashed my knee to smithereens in 1993 in a serious drinking accident. From 93-98 my knee used to dislocate, causing me to collapse onto the ground sobbing with the pain. One memorable dislocation occurred at 2 am when I was heavily pregnant and on my way to the outside loo IN THE RAIN. I landed in a puddle, where I lay like a glorious beached whale sobbing for The Spouse to come and help me up.
So yes. Dislocations, they hurt a bit.
Through the power of genetics, my children also have Ehlers Danlos Synrome. The level of pain my daughter Veronica deals with on a daily basis boggles my mind, so I try very hard not to think about it. My son used to have a cute little party trick that he would do just to make me growl at him. He would make a musical popping sound with his jaw as it subluxed. Now his jaw dislocates on him fully when he sneezes and all the “I told you this would happen” in the world will never ever fix his jaw. He is only eighteen, Internet.
Do you know how it feels as a mother to stand by and watch your children suffer excruciating pain all the fucking time and not be able to do a fucking thing about it? It is horrible internet, it is horrible.
To watch helplessly as my husband slides in and out of a black depression. To watch as my daughter struggles with Post Natal Depression after the birth of her gorgeous but seriously medically complicated third child. To listen as my son tells me that he couldn’t go outside today, because his anxiety attacks were so bad and could I please drive into the city to see him, as he would really like a hug please mum.
To do all this without my own mother here to tell me everything is going to be okay, that I am doing the right things that it will all be okay, is a bit hard internet. Actually sitting down and typing this out, it is very hard and I have forgotten where I was going with this post.
Oh that’s right.
Princess SnorklePants.
Knowing my own experience with depression,, as outlined above, is it any wonder that I came out vociferously and loudly voiced my disapproval of a poorly written blog post proclaiming that depression IS the new black?
I lobbed a hand grenade into twitter with three tweets (yes that is correct, only three tweets from me) and then I wandered off to talk about container deposit legislation and my experiences as a child in the seventies collecting cordial bottles, as they provided a well needed boost to childhood coffers. The discussion then returned to depression, which apparently the author of the blog post did not like and she promptly blocked me.
Oh dear. Blocked again. Poor Princess SnorklePants.
Over the course of the next few days there was much talk of dreadful bullies on twitter. Dreadful loud noisy bullies, with agendas instead of opinions.Remembering that after the initial tweets, I didn’t actually speak to the blogger in question, though my initial disapproval was a catalyst for some heated discussions that I did not actually participate in.
Passive aggressive blog posts popped up like mushrooms after a good rain. There was much wailing and wringing of hands, no-one let the truth get in the way of their righteous indignation and I am sure I heard some pundit ask, “Won’t somebody please just think of the children.”
BAD BAD Princess SnorklePants.
It gets very tiring. Very tiring indeed. After that champion of democracy, Anonymous, had emailed me and accused me of being a horrible, horrible bully who had no right to pick on and viciously attack poor defenseless bloggers, I decided to go back and screenshot my tweets. For posterity.
Ignoring rowdy villagers on a witch hunt is exhausting and so Princess SnorklePants morphed into Colin the Labradoodle.
If I am going to be accused of running with a PACK, well then I was going to be a LABRADOODLE.
Colin is a very nice Labradoodle, I have met him a couple of times and he is always pleased to see me. Colin doesn’t run with any packs but he does go to doggy daycare and for a time Colin was my twitter avatar. I enjoyed being Colin as I dealt with and diffused the hurt I felt at being labelled a bully by using humour.
Colin’s tagline on twitter was, “Leader of various packs. Loud Woofer. Labradoodles are the NEW BLACK”
I don’t think that people were very impressed with Colin, as the blockings, wailings and gnashing of collective teeth continued.
After a few days as Colin I morphed back into Princess SnorklePants and commenced the interrupted search for my lost tiara.
Princess SnorklePants is here to stay I think Internet. I met an acclaimed philosopher on the weekend and he called me Ma’am, which whilst not quite the proper Royal protocol was still quite funny. The silliness of my Princess persona enabled two people who would not otherwise talk, have a lighthearted conversation before returning to face the weightier matters that deep thinkers deal with every day.
And that, dear Internet is the story of how Princess SnorklePants came to be.
edited: I have now morphed back into plain old Kim as I sparked a bit of a trend and there are now, Queens and Baronesses, Ladies and Commanders everywhere I look. Trends, I sometimes set them.
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I chortled, Princess Queen Colin. Wonderful post …. and I do love it when you call me Internet.
And I ALWAYS love it when you apply critical thinking skills to any given situation. We need more of it. God knows you and I have disagreed on things in the past – doesn’t make either of us trolls who need to block each other. Geez.
Xxxxx
Ah thank you
Eden,Internet. I lament our collective inability to disagree. I deplore the fact that people are not prepared to stand by their own words and when questioned about their assertions they screech TROLL at the top of their lungs. And I appreciate the fact that whilst there are some seriously sooky princesses out there, You and I can always find common ground and when we cannot, we can agree to disagree. From that mutual respect , comes friendship. xxThis made me smile, except for the parts about the trolls. Trolls seem to think they own the internet, but in reality, its Princess SnorklePants.
Exactly. Maybe I need to make some Royal Proclamations. da da da dunnn.
Princess SnorkelPants suits you much better than Colin (although he also has some definite opinions and is not afraid to howl them out loud!!) I am afraid I am too old fashioned for this Twitter etc, I like a good face to face discussion/ argument/ debate (and I can have one of them anytime I like, thanks to “The Boss” – so he says – ).
Just remember to keep your sense of humour, dear – cause even I don’t agree with you ALL the time! xx
Best not tell him that he was an internet celebrity though, because then he will WOOF even louder. *grins*
All rise for Princess SnorkelPants.
Boo and hiss to people who are so lacking in intestinal fortitude that they need to block people as soon as a point of view which doesn’t match their own appears.
I don’t agree with anyone all of the time including myself. If I blocked everyone (and that also includes myself) what a lonely possum I would be.
Depression the new black? As in something desirable? Expletives.
The depression as the new black reference in the blog post was a veiled dig at a number of high profile bloggers who had recently written about their struggles with, or their acceptance of their own depression. I honestly don’t think the author expected to be taken to task for her words publicly. As after all public disagreements just aren’t socially acceptable any more.
Love this post. Yes, sometimes twitter is a nasty bastard. Every time I see PS, I giggle a bit.
You are no troll, just a chick who tells it like she sees it.
Love to you xx
Thank you. I have a strong sense of the ridiculous and I need it otherwise I would just never get out of bed.
Speaking of ridiculous, Zoey has a running app that speaks the tweets she gets when the apps name is included in the tweet. I asked Zoey if the tweets came from frogpondsrock or Princess Snorklepants. They come from PS. It amuses me enormously to imaging Zoey running along and suddenly she hears Princess Snorklepants says Thunderbirds are Go! or Princess SnorklePants says “Beware of Pumpkins on the paths!”
It’s been interesting to hear how this whole thing came about. I missed most of it, coming in at the tail end! However, I was still PISSED when I found out. I think what did me in was the comments. A travel blogger, first stating they had no mental illness, then going on to say we shouldn’t let it ‘define’ us.
Um… My partner has mild agoraphobia among other things. I’m his carer. He has several security items that feature in his agoraphobia: the home, our car, our children. Then, his illness has what he calls his ‘anchor’. What is his anchor? ME.
Being the anchor of an agoraphobic DOES define me. It defines what I do, where I get to go, and every thought I have about what I can and cannot do. It defines my children and the life experiences they get to have. I will NOT be told by someone who has the capability to travel the world, and has never had to eat meals in the car with their whole family because the father could not get out of the car, how we should be running the mental illness in our family.
I’d love for mental illness not to define, us but at this point it does.
I was also aghast at the blog post that spurred the whole thing. Do people REALLY think we’re having a good time dealing with this shit?? Who would sign up for it? That’s right, nobody. Do people REALLY think that we feel like we’re ‘cool’, dealing with quirky behaviour down the street? Do people REALLY think my partner feels like a cool person when he involuntarily yells out, ‘NYARK!’ in public? Because when it happens, we sure as SHIT do not feel like a part of the in crowd, and the reality is very far from that.
I know you well enough Kim, to know that you are no troll. You are great at calling out bullshit in a very matter of fact way, and I love you for it. I remember when you were tweeting about the nestle stuff going on at a blogger’s brunch, and I thought it was very admirable. I see this situation as no different at all.
Ah yes the Nestle thing. That went down rather well didn’t it. heh. My husband has not been to a single one of my exhibitions, not one. He doesn’t like crowds, they make him anxious. He doesn’t have agorophobia and frankly Sharon that sounds dreadful, for you all but I understand and empathise with the difficulties you experience because of the limits your husbands illness places on you. Luckily for me I am able to as well as happy to go to events and functions by myself. But I really wish The Spouse would come to just one of my exhibitions I would love him to see my work in situ.
Hopefully he can make it one day, Kim:) We’ve had a few wins over time with my partner’s agoraphobia, which has been lovely. I can go some places myself, but a lot of thought and planning needs to go into it, sometimes.
Also, I agree with Occulus Mundi below that when we write blog posts, we usually have some idea of what the consequences might be. Not always, but I think the ‘depression is the new black’ post was fairly predictable in the type of response one would expect from it.
I also agree that if you write the post, you prepare to cop the fallout, within reason of course.
It’d be similar to if I someone without diabetes, decided to write a blog post, telling diabetics how they should run their condition. Or that they perhaps should blog about it less, because blogging is clearly worsening their condition. I would get backlash from writing something so absurd, and rightly so.
Could you do a private showing so the Spouse can see the exhibition before the doors are opened to the crowds?
Yes, I will and that way he can help me set up as well 🙂
The Internet just wouldn’t be the same without Princess SnorklePants, & of course fairy princesses have tiaras. Boo hiss to the trolls , people don’t have to agree but why be nasty about it.
yes boo hiss to all the trolls.
Love.
…it makes the world go round Michaela. 🙂 and thank you
I am so damn sorry about the things your family are going through/have gone through. I know someone with this syndrome, though I can never remember the name for it. Just wish there was something I could do that was useful, but all I can send is love.
You are about as far from being a troll as it is possible to be Kim. You just don’t sit there and tolerate the intolerable in silence.
So, let me get this straight – it is ok to voice an opinion publicly (globally in fact), in a blog post, but the only acceptable response to said post is agreement or else you are a troll? I wrote far more tweets than you did to her, all polite, and amended one of my blog posts (one of the two I have written on being mental, cos I love to be fashionable like that) to include an addendum about that post. If she called me a troll I am unaware of it. And what’s more, don’t tell me if she did because I have very, very little tolerance for passive aggressive twattery so have been keeping away from it all as much as possible.
What we write and post publicly always – ALWAYS – has consequences. Me, I choose not to give a flying fart in a wind storm about such consequences. I make a conscious decision not to to care for more than a few seconds about the opinions of people I do not respect.
But if – like the writer of the original post who eventually took said unpleasant post down – you clearly do care, a whole lot, about what others think of you and say to you, perhaps give some thought to who you are about to upset before you post? Perhaps, if you cannot take the consequences of your own actions, think twice before you do it.
It comes down to this – She wrote it, she can own the crap she generated for herself and you most definitely did not troll.
I am crafting an article for The Shake that touches on some of the issues that you raise here Alison. *grins*
Every single post that I publish where I talk about contentious issues I craft very carefully, edit consciously and then once I have pressed publish I will defend my words because I have not published them lightly. On twitter I do not have this luxury of time, time to craft a considered response, time to be politically correct or what not. So with a tweet If it is taken the wrong way and if I see that it is because I was wrong or not clear in my intent. I will often apologise or remove the offending tweet and repost it with a slight edit. But if sensitive souls are offended my my honesty that is their issue not mine.
What I will not do Alison is stay silent. My father tried to beat silence into me and it did not work. I am a woman, I live below the poverty line, I care about things.
Silence is complicity.
And thank you for your final words, I know I am not a troll, though I am rather fond of the undersides of bridges.
You are right. Silence is complicity. There have been, as you know, a couple of times in the past when I have been too mentally shaky and just could not face a full out online fight, with actual genuine trolls. I am always very grateful there are people like you around to keep the rest of us bastards honest 🙂
Prinny–I love it! The teen boy assures me the zombocalypse is imminent. You will see all the zombie princesses emerge then.
I strongly, strongly deprecate what led to this post, but I love seeing both Colin AND Princess Snorklepants 🙂
Heh Thanks Mary and make sure you tell the teen boy that I am well prepared for the Zombocalypse and I have learned a lot from reading Max Brooks, World War Z.
The internet has turned people into pussies. A small hint of disagreement and suddenly you are a troll with their fangirls chasing you down with pitch forks. It kind of reminds me of soccer players when they roll around on the ground after a foul pretending that their leg is broken.
Oh those soccer players annoy me.
*sigh*
I;m-a gionna curl up with ine for a bit, til the ocaisional fists blazing rant is upon me.
love to you xx
I get the Princess bit, of course you are a Princess, when you’re not a Queen that is, but where did Snorklepants come form? That’s the funnest name I ever heard.
As for the wailing and gnashing of teeth bloggers, just don’t go there. Save your sanity.
It just popped into my head River, I wanted a name that was supremely ridiculous, and Princess SnorklePants just seemed to work.
I see the snorkle, I’m (pretty) sure you’re wearing pants, and you always wanted to be a princess. You rule! Others have said other stuff so well. You matter much.
You also say things well. *grins*
I wish I could reach through this Internet which connects us and separates us and give you a squeeze hug. Or maybe not. If you’ d prefer.
Kim oh Kim.
What a life you live and come through with such amazing insight, guts and creative treasures bar none.
I know how much your mum not being here anymore breaks your heart.
I also know that you are the feistiest & gentlest Grandmother your beautiful three grandchildren could have.
That you are the rock…the diamond in the centre of those creations of yours (people and sculptures) makes you the princess of princesses..
Loving wishes
Denyse x
Oh Denyse. Thank you
Sorry to drive-by comment… there is so much I’d love to say but so little time. I’ll get to it eventually.
I love to read your posts but just couldn’t leave without saying this is so beautifully and honestly written and I love it!
Your children and grandchildren are so fortunate to have you. Nothing can displace pain and depression but love can soothe.
Thank you and yes, Love does soothe. Thanks for reminding me.