Knifework’s Official Response to a Blog That Should Have Been Ignoring Him

A tumultuous firestorm erupted on the interwebs today, seriously altering the lives of 5-6 people.  As I am responsible, I wished to share my thoughts on the matter.

First of all, exactly how am I responsible? Well, I touched the match to the powder-keg yesterday with this simple tweet to @badnabes.  An hour and a half later, I was sleeping soundly in my bed, oblivious to the festering anger rumbling up through some dark, lonely corner of the internet.

This morning I awoke to a link in my Twitter feed directing me to this blog post. With every word I read, I became more and more aware of the pain I had caused.

Me, lost in the throes of self-contemplation

But should I assume such blame? Should I worry myself into developing bleeding stomach ulcers? Let us examine this cry for help:

Someone tweeted at me yesterday in response to this post. The twitterer in question is a total stranger to me, someone who has never read my blog (and probably not many of my tweets) but for perhaps that post and a cursory skim of the front page here. This person has never tweeted “at” me, either publicly or privately, either; nor has this person ever “re-tweeted” me or linked to me in any way that I know of. In other words, like I said, a TOTAL stranger.

The assumptions in this first paragraph alone are so numerous they are almost overwhelming, but let’s look at two things in particular.

Was I tweeting in response to that post? I was not. I was, in fact, tweeting in response to the entirety of the website, which I rather like. It just so happened that the link in question led me to the site in the first place.

Am I a total stranger? I suppose by the standards laid out above, I am. But since @badnabes re-tweeted me earlier today and I, in turn, re-tweeted @badnabes, we are now at the very least acquaintances and quite possibly third cousins.

I also seemed to offend this former stranger by calling their gender into question, unaware as I was to this total stranger’s sex:

“Dogette” (as in “By Dogette” at the top of every post on this website) means I’m female. Also, my Twitter avatar is a female 50s-style housewife. Diabolically clever hidden clues as to my gender.

Until the crazed feminism was put on display, I was admittedly cautious to attach any specific label to this person. It is well documented that sexual predators prowl the internet posing as man, woman and beast. And while I noticed the author wrote under the pseudonym “Dogette,” I did not at the time associate that with “bitch.”

Which leads us now to the comment section of the post. The author’s cult-like following of spurned women was quick to jump to @badnabes/Dogette’s defense. They, too, seemed to share the sentiment that I had trampled the internet’s last great social tradition: never talk to strangers.

None of this is surprising, as I have never learned how to properly interact with women. Just ask my girlfriend.

All this being said,  I am of a mind to accept this blame after all. Dogett’s abandonment issues have greatly touched my heart, and I will not ignore her/him/it. Though I am but a teeny-tiny, minuscule blogger I shall do my part to change this world, one irrational woman at a time.

I think I’ll even add her to my blogroll.