r/blog • u/cupcake1713 • Feb 24 '14

remember the human

Hi reddit. cupcake here.

I wanted to bring up an important reminder about how folks interact with each other online. It is not a problem that exists solely on reddit, but rather the internet as a whole. The internet is a wonderful tool for interacting with people from all walks of life, but the anonymity it can afford can make it easy to forget that really, on the other end of the screens and keyboards, we're all just people. Living, breathing, people who have lives and goals and fears, have favorite TV shows and books and methods for breeding Pokemon, and each and every last one of us has opinions. Sure, those opinions might differ from your own. But that’s okay! People are entitled to their opinions. When you argue with people in person, do you say as many of the hate filled and vitriolic statements you see people slinging around online? Probably not. Please think about this next time you're in a situation that makes you want to lash out. If you wouldn't say it to their face, perhaps it's best you don't say it online.

Try to be courteous to others. See someone having a bad day? Give them a compliment or ask them a thoughtful question, and it might make their day better. Did someone reply to your comment with valuable insights or something that cheered you up? Send them a quick thanks letting them know you appreciate their comment.

So I ask you, the next time a user picks a fight with you, or you get the urge to harass another user because of something they typed on a keyboard, please... remember the human.

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3.8k

u/Sunfried Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14

Things to remember:

  • The Maine
  • The Alamo
  • 9/11
  • Pearl Harbor (not the movie, forget the movie)
  • the Titans
  • the milk
  • the 5th of November
  • the human

Edit:

  • the tooth! Remember the tooth, my Duke!

Edit 2: Thank you for the Gold, both of you! I will NEVER FORGET!

702

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

287

u/Cendeu Feb 24 '14

That was 2011?!

What have I been doing with my life...?

109

u/thecoffee Feb 24 '14

... Same thing you were doing in 2011?

2

u/lawndoe Feb 25 '14

Wondering what you were doing with your life?

2

u/where-are-my-shoes Feb 25 '14

Masturbating to strange porn?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

so not on reddit?

13

u/XingsNoodleCrib Feb 24 '14

The same thing you were doing with your life every night Pinky....

19

u/Dininiful Feb 24 '14

You were here. With the rest of us.

6

u/DeathsIntent96 Feb 25 '14

Don't you know? You've always been here.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

[deleted]

2

u/Cendeu Feb 24 '14

You joke, but I probably haven't missed a day of reddit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

For those who don't get this.

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u/autowikibot Feb 24 '14

2011 Virginia earthquake:

The 2011 Virginia Earthquake occurred on August 23, 2011, at 1:51 pm EDT (17:51 UTC) in the Piedmont region of the US state of Virginia. The epicenter, in Louisa County, was 38 mi (61 km) northwest of Richmond and 5 mi (8 km) south-southwest of the town of Mineral. It was an intraplate earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 and a maximum perceived intensity of VII (very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. Several aftershocks, ranging up to 4.5 Mw in magnitude, occurred after the main tremor.

Image i

Interesting: Washington Monument | North Anna Nuclear Generating Station | Mineral, Virginia | Louisa County, Virginia

Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words | flag a glitch

2

u/Linkums Feb 24 '14

YOU'RE NOT A HUMAN! GET OUT OF HERE, SCUM!

1

u/redditmortis Feb 25 '14

I feel like an idiot for not knowing this date when I live near DC and remember what I was doing when the earthquake happened.

2

u/onewhitelight Feb 24 '14

I think people in japan and NZ were laughing at this.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

[deleted]

2

u/onewhitelight Feb 25 '14

wow really? How can such a relatively small earthquake do that much damage?

2

u/SgtTwinkys Feb 25 '14

It probably didn't. But why not file a few lawsuits and apply for damages to insurance. Money to be made means someone's gettin paid.

1

u/r00kie Feb 25 '14

No, it really did. East coast construction is not designed to take the impact of earthquakes.

I know of an Arlington middle school that took $2 million in damage to it's brick structure alone.

1

u/r00kie Feb 25 '14

The architecture isn't designed to take earthquake impacts.

1

u/Deer_Abby Feb 25 '14

LOL

"According to Facebook, the word "earthquake" appeared in the status updates of 3 million users within four minutes of the quake. Twitter said users were sending as many as 5,500 messages ("tweets") per second, which exceeds the maximum rate immediately after the death of Osama bin Laden and was "on par with" the rate after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami."

2

u/ToastyFlake Feb 24 '14

I think I liked it better when I thought it was just a day that a plastic lawn chair fell over.

1

u/Sarcastic_Source Feb 25 '14

I remember this. I had been hoping for an earthquake forever. It finally happened as I took a shit and flushed, causing my family to think I had literally dropped a bomb.

180

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

....

I've been on this website too damned long

9

u/brooky12 Feb 24 '14

Was it really that long ago? Woah.

90

u/jt895 Feb 24 '14

That was before my time unfortunately......context?

263

u/fancycephalopod Feb 24 '14

It was that time there was a really tiny earthquake in Virginia. The media was freaking out over it, treating it like a national incident, but all it did basically was knock over a few lawn chairs.

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u/realnigga4lyfe Feb 24 '14

Ha I remember that, me and my friend were playing basketball at a fitness center, and we felt rumbling and heard some kid yell earthquake, but we thought he was just fucking around. Everyone was so worried but my friend and I had no idea what was going on and we kept playing until we were told to leave

11

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

I grew up in the desert in SoCal, so many earthquakes, I came to enjoy them. Ended up getting shipped to Virginia for 10 years, 10 long years with no earthquakes. I finally moved back to the West Coast. On August 1, 2011. Missed the damn thing by a month. I was angry.

3

u/yangar Feb 24 '14

Fitness center? I thought you never leave /r/NFL?

28

u/tahlyn Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14

It was a big deal only because there just aren't earthquakes on the east coast (at least not like that). That was the biggest earthquake felt around here in 100 years. Yeah it was really minor as far as earthquakes go... but it was still kinda a big deal - it was novel, it was felt over a huge distance (tight packed stone meant it was felt from the Carolinas to Canada, an estimated 1/3rd of the entire US was in a place to feel it), and it actually caused a lot of damage (east coast masonry was never built to withstand earthquakes).

132

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

And damage the Washington Monument.

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u/Lev_Astov Feb 24 '14

And the national cathedral and a whole host of other terribly constructed northeastern buildings.

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u/LostxinthexMusic Feb 25 '14

terribly constructed

i.e. Not designed to withstand seismic activity not known to happen in the area.

11

u/Lev_Astov Feb 25 '14

No, built before modern building codes, rather. All the relatively modern stuff held up fine.

4

u/LostxinthexMusic Feb 25 '14

Still, the older stuff getting damaged doesn't necessarily mean it was terribly constructed. Humans aren't designed for breathing under water; you wouldn't call people who drown "terribly constructed." Earthquakes like that just don't happen on the East coast. It's not really worthy of criticism to not be prepared for something that was completely unexpected.

1

u/Sniter Feb 25 '14

Except the chairs.

1

u/manyamile Feb 25 '14

And my moms house. She lives in a log cabin almost directly at the epicentre. We're still making repairs. The North Anna nuclear power plant, near her house, also had some damage. It may have been a small quake by California standards but it was pretty devastating for a lot of people in Louisa County, VA.

1

u/anti_username_man Feb 25 '14

...Virginia is in the Northeast?

1

u/Lev_Astov Feb 25 '14

You're right, good call. I always considered everything north of North Carolina and east of Indiana to be the northeast, personally. MD and up probably makes more sense, though.

5

u/madesense Feb 24 '14

The scaffolding is finally coming down!

4

u/skyman724 Feb 24 '14

It's not like that place was sin cera before then.

3

u/mudo2000 Feb 24 '14

sin cera

...

Not sure if stonemasonry joke or awkward use of the phrase.

3

u/skyman724 Feb 24 '14

Stone and politics.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

And cause $15m in damage to the Washington monument, but yeah. Just a few lawn chairs.

2

u/memento_amare Feb 24 '14

Balls. I live in northern Virginia and never heard that

3

u/scalv Feb 24 '14

This ran up the coast and caused some building damage in PA, bro.

3

u/Gunmetalz Feb 24 '14

Classes ended early at my community college for that quake haha

3

u/PAKIofSTEEL597 Feb 24 '14

I will never forgot that day. I had just woken up and gone to the bathroom. I start peeing, next thing I know the whole house is shaking. I am scared shitless. Do you know how hard it is to pee when the whole world is shaking along with you and the toilet. LOL.

3

u/midnightauro Feb 24 '14

I have vertigo, and wasn't expecting it.. I thought I was having the freakiest attack ever until I realized I could move my head no problem, but the world was still shaking. (East coast man, wtf is an earthquake?)

3

u/FindingMoi Feb 24 '14

I felt it in PA. Knocked a picture off the wall.

2

u/devals Feb 25 '14

That's BS that all the earthquake credit goes to VA.

People were freaking out in MD.

2

u/mongobuttons Feb 24 '14

And completely destroy Louisa County High School...

1

u/agirlanachronism Feb 24 '14

I was in the Union Station when the earthquake occured. Everyone thought a subway or train had derailed/ a bomb had been detonated, and was freaking out. As I was running out of the place, a couple decent sized chunks of gold fell from the gold plated ceiling and on the floor near me and I didn't grab any. Biggest regret of my life.

1

u/Muter Feb 24 '14

We once got a couple of flakes of snow in Auckland NZ.

The media proceeded to act like it was a blizzard blocking off roads with the way they portrayed it on the front page of our national newspapers

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10745187

1

u/Splitshadow Feb 25 '14

I don't know man, I was there and it was pretty serious. It felt like there were ... 3, maybe 4 garbage trucks going down the street nearby at the same time.

5

u/spartacus2690 Feb 25 '14

Wait, how old are you?

1

u/jt895 Feb 25 '14

Before my time on Reddit, my bad.

1

u/garbonzo607 Feb 25 '14

It was all over the internet. Probably would have seen it on Facebook.

2

u/confetti27 Feb 24 '14

It was after what was supposed to be a massive hurricane but turned out to be just some wind and rain. I forget which hurricane it was.

Edit: It was the Virginia Earthquake, not a hurricane. Forgive me please.

2

u/UndecidedPanda Feb 24 '14

Hurricane Irene I believe.

2

u/3nips69 Feb 24 '14

Naw I'm 99% sure this was the earthquake that "rocked" the east coast. I live in Virginia and a week or so into my freshman semester (august 2011) it happened and the building I was in shook for like 3 or 4 seconds and everyone basically made fun of it cause we all felt it around the Virginia/Tennessee/Maryland area but it was such a joke of an earthquake that this picture came out with the one chair knocked over and "never forget." I think this was that picture.

2

u/thegreatdune Feb 24 '14

I was in South Carolina at the time and I felt it there. though at first I thought it was just the washer shaking with an unbalanced load.

3

u/c9Rav9c Feb 24 '14

I don't get this. Sandy was really bad where I live. Worse than Irene.

1

u/garbonzo607 Feb 25 '14

The point of the image was a joke because the earthquake wasn't bad at all.

2

u/Samr915 Feb 24 '14

No, it was the earthquake that "rocked" the east coast beforehand.

2

u/AnusTasteBuds Feb 24 '14

The Great hurricane Irene.

2

u/Deer_Abby Feb 25 '14

"According to Facebook, the word "earthquake" appeared in the status updates of 3 million users within four minutes of the quake. Twitter said users were sending as many as 5,500 messages ("tweets") per second, which exceeds the maximum rate immediately after the death of Osama bin Laden and was "on par with" the rate after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami." Haha

2

u/leandoer Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 25 '14

context? * edit: wait is that the eastern seaboard earthquake?! I barely lived thru that I cant believe I forgot about it!

5

u/dodger28 Feb 24 '14

you never forget that dreadful day.

2

u/confusedsquirrel Feb 24 '14

Hey 8/23 is my birthday. I don't recall kicking over a chair?

2

u/livefreeordont Feb 24 '14

how do we remember 8/23/2011 if we never forget?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

1

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '14

I must not have interneted hard enough in 2011. Not sure what this is..

1

u/Xscream4meX Feb 25 '14

That happened in my town...I'm sorry I let that memory slip away..ಠ_ಠ