Still having trouble concentrating on my comissions for IRN and Izzy, so I got to work on my own blog layout. It’s going to be a Legend of Zelda layout, featuring Link as an adult.

Going to be another CSS layout, as much as I physically can. Still working the kinks out of working with absolute positioning, so I’m not sure how well that thought is going to turn out. Anyway, this new layout uses lots of brushes from Nocturna.net, some 20+ layers, fonts used include Border Corners, RingBearer, and Elphinstone. Images pulled from ZeldArt.net.

I definately feel another bout of Lurkitis coming on.

Why am I being ignored?

That’s a question I’m asking myself on almost every message board I’m on. I’ll post a topic and no one will even look at the topic. Or I’ll reply to a topic, and the people who reply after me will act as though I never posted. I know they’ve read the topic, they respond or say they agree with the people whose replies surround mine. Why not me?

I think the most frustrating is when I offer an answer to a question. Ignored. Someone three posts down repeats my answer. The next several replies act as though that person is a genius, even quote people’s posts surrounding my reply. And they act as though my post doesn’t exist.

Why is that?

To me, it almost looks like I’m running into cliques. Which is strange, given how many people on the message boards I’m on claim to be in the “outcast” population of their schools. From the way they post they’ve been stereotyped, put in their little box, and excluded from anything that doesn’t fit their status. Why then, are they perpetuating this atmosphere and arbitrary hierarchy on a message board? Isn’t that, in a way, becoming exactly the type of people they like to rant about?

Maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s something else.

I realize that not everyone is going to be interested or have something to say to every given topic. I’ve been online since 1998, so I know how that works. But… with every post I make?

I’m often chided for being a lurker. I’m begged not to lurk. But yet… to me, it sounds almost like the old saying “If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around - does it make a sound?”

Only with me, it’s coming across as: If I make a post that no one reads or acknowledges - am I really taking part in a community? Am I really a part of a community that seems to think I’m somehow inferior because of my post count, the amount of chat or message board role-playing I do, how long I’ve been around or been away, how much sugar, caffiene, etc. I allegedly consume, or something else?

Either way, it’s frustrating and exhausting. As it gets worse, I find myself lurking for longer and longer periods of time. Of course, the moment I rear my head up - I get told to stop in more often. For what? Another dose of clique politics? More notifications that I’m “old?” To be someone’s intellectual whore; only good for the purpose of alleviating boredom? Or as an ear to upload the endless reems of melodrama with faceless, unknown players too full of themselves to understand just how truly pathetic they really are?

Wow. I think I’m so happy I might faint. Save me. /sarcasm