silverthorne

All right, what I'm about to say will amount to:

a) Preaching to the choir

and/or

b) Seeming to talk down to folks. (Which I'm not, but hey, it's the interbutt. Someone's bound to get offended.)

But. I'm irritated.

Okay, people can be dumb ass about the stupidist things.

Fans can turn into drooling idiots and lose their minds. I get this--I get real damned excited myself when something I've been looking forward to something finally gets in reach. Hell, I've gone into Walmart at 5:30 am to politely ask a clerk if I could go through the unpacked CD boxes to find Have A Nice Day from Bon Jovi, so that I knew I'd get one for sure the first day it was generally released.

There's a huge ass difference though, between getting your lazy ass out of the bed at OMG am on the day of release...and pirating a copy of something that isn't released yet.

And yes, I know that's the fault of the people pirating this stuff to make a quick buck off people too damned desperate for their fix to wait until the right day, but you see, that's the thing.

If the fans weren't so fucking desperate to get their hands on it and 'be the OMG! FIRST PERSON TO READ IT YAYS!'...then the pirates would be out of a fucking illegal job.

So, here's a little perspective for the fans.

Yes, it's a thrill to finally get your hands on whatever it is you've been drooling for and having fangasms over for however long you've been having them, but here's the thing. At the end of the day?

Still just a book. Or CD. Or movie. It will still be there tomorrow, next day, or, if you're that unlucky, within the next few weeks when the next shipment comes in. Or month. Or whatever.

Point is? You won't die if you're not one of the first ten people to get your little paws on whatever it is.

No, really. I'm usually three months behind on book buying and wait for the DVD on any given popular media. Guess what? I'm still here, alive, well, and kicking. And if I'm careful and use some common sense when reading news about these things (like, pay attention to the 'spoiler' tags, and quit reading as soon as I see mention of the interest in question), I won't even get 'spoiled'.

So...cut it the fuck out. Quit being so stupidly desperate. Quit 'feeding' the people who do the illegal copies, and chill, all right? It'll get here. You'll get to read it. It's cool.

And yeah, I'm just as guilty as the next person--at least in regards to music downloads. Difference being? Getting a copy of a couple of songs here and there, I'm not paying the person, and usually it's stuff I simply can't get on my own. Like wise if I send music to someone else. Slight difference between that and whole-sale mass marketing pirated copies of something.

(Not to mention I end up buying the CD in question the song came from anyway, if I can ever find it. So...)

This public service announcement brought to you by Decaf Crab.

Decaf Crab: Don't let her listen to radio news before her morning coffee.