Kult of MonKeYs

Over the past year or two I finally came to realize that KFS - a huge and self-serving commercial site - has so, so many - hundreds of thousands of posts - that active and effective moderation becomes impractical if not impossible. The result is - that at the least - most interest areas have become dominated by small roving gangs of alpha-posters. Cliques bordering on cabals. Uncontrolled, unmoderated and dominating.

Think I'm kiddin? Get a load (pun intended) of these recent KFS numbers.

Total posts: 257,637
Posts by the Top 87: 155,843
Top poster: 10,362 posts

Put another way, just 87 alpha-monkey posters (representing a miniscule 0.8% of the membership) accounted for 60.4% of the posts, for an average of 1812 posts each. The rest - just short of 10,000 members (representing 99.2% of the membership) accounts for only a minority of posts, for an average of a paltry 15 posts each! And that's from the beginning of the website!!

That's right - just 87 red-assed egomaniacs dominate this huge website. For every post you make, each alpha-poster makes 182! You don't stand a chance. It's their private primate preserve. Worse yet, most of em are Republicans!

Put that together with a couple products that seem to have developed a cultlike subset of otherwise normal people who own them. These include the Hobie and its Mirage Drive, the ONNO paddle and certain bargelike fishing kayaks like the Malibu Extreme, or as I have come to label them - the Hobieholics, the OhNoheads and the Bargamaniacs. Some qualify as true Jackasses (defined elsewhere) though I prefer the kinder, gentler denominations.

It is important to note that these are actually just a vocal few and do not in any way represent the great body of owners/users of these products who are really quite normal and rational. On the other hand the cultist few take to expressions of great offense - react in chanting unison - and favor long flowing orange cotton robes (although a few favor lavender and silk).

They listen not to reason, but operate on the basis that their favored product is without fault. They congratulate one another on their wise purchases and are completely unable to countenance even the slightest constructive criticism.

It is also important to distinguish the subsets of these simians. Although all are alpha-posters, like all gangs some are alpha-monkeys and hold forth while the beta-monkey followers nod and chatter in rapt agreement.

It is these few alpha-posters whom I have addressed with generally logical and well reasoned arguments, supported by considerable data - and with not a little satirical wit. These exchanges have more often than not turned into donnybrooks - with these cults typically stooping to name calling and similar adolescent crudities and their posting of thousands of smilies which apparently represent the height of their intellectual pluck and prowess.

Really. It's great fun poking these bozos.

It's important for you, the normal and relatively sane reader, to better understand these few and get the real inside dope, so as to keep their posts in perspective, to understand why they insult me, and to overlook them with confidence. Here's a few examples (any resemblance to any monkey, living or dead, is entirely coincidental):

aLoadaDuh: an island-loving Hobieholic. Twice I tried to help him out, first with his oversized and hard-to-see icon (which I reduced and brightened for him), offered him free image storage on my site and last - and at his request - reviewed the voluminous superyak proposal he sent me. I spent hours on this for him. When I finally finished, I congratulated him on his efforts, but opined - privately - that his proposal was just a bit too Rube Goldberg and, however intriguing, was probably of little interest to the manufacturer beyond maybe making a VERY expensive one-off just for him. He was more than miffed and things have never been the same. BTW, my prediction was true. No matter - he'll never get over it.

Tearie: one of those women, you know, the kind who just wannabee one of the boyz, especially if they sport a big fat leaky Hobie. A sorta snag hag. The Hobieholics she follows around don't like me, so she doesn't either. Once when some guy posted a link to me and praised my Disco review as being entirely accurate (and the main reason he bought one), she came out of nowhere to exclaim "I won't read anything he writes". Of course she does read it all, and usually finds a way to say "me too" to support her cocky cohorts' criticisms.

KennyLoser: Mostly a political poser, if he isn't a neo-con he oughta be. A big believer in the "free market", as long as it, and the government is under the direction of a corporately controlled oligarchy . Mostly pooh-poohs global warming and seems to prefer global warring. A wannabe polemicist whose faux arguments would lose in a college debating class. Pointing this out has earned me his undying enmity. He has a long but faulty memory, actually referred to a comment of mine in a thread that was over a year old - incorrectly. And he had to chase me around the net to do so. Whew! Another Kenny Lay - back from the dead, and still guilty.

And you can guess what he drives.

Adelweiss: the master of multiple smilies and single (crude) one liners. But little else. When he complains to Hobie it's perfectly acceptable. When I post much the same observations - he posts multiple frownies and crude one-liners. Your go-to guy for me-too commentary. World class idiocy. Drives, well, you know.

Corkster (an up and comer): a cute and quirky lil newbie who, after posting numerous insults, then demanded to know my fishing and captain's credentials. Like I owed him an answer. Credentialed I am, but would I, should I answer him? Would you? Of course not. You see, we have an understanding: I'll never even consider dignifying his simian droppings, and he'll just keep insulting me. Plus it's just way too much fun watching him turn red with frustration. Quirky, if you're reading this (and I know you are)...

No. Never. At least for you (I might for Tearie though, lol). And of course, a Hobie owner too.

As so well put by Paul Newman "Who ARE those guys?". Or girlz? Whoever, and whatever they are, they remain part of a tiny group that actually follow my every word round the net, so they can post their pussilanimous primate protests and inane insults.

Havabanana!

Now there are a few others but really now what's to be gained? In the same way these ass scratchin anthropoids privately covet my insightful and influential reviews, so too do they revel at getting my e-goat and attention, praying for enshrinement in a Capn Jimbo diatribe. Anti-heroes. Like the type who'll scour E-bay to bid on a genuine Elvis' dried turd.

It's as close as they'll get.

And while this piece awaited publication I came to another realization. Now of course the cultists objected to my characterizations of them as cultists. And one or two of the marginally literate among them accused me of melodramatic extremism (not in those words, of course). Even I considered that I just might be pushing the literary edge a smidge. Really - a "cult" after all? Isn't that a bit much?

Nope.

I discovered I was - once again - a true bellweather, a canary in the e-coali mine. My notion of gangs and cults taking over KFS was... entirely accurate! Wanna know why?