out with the old, and trying something new!

First, let me tell you that I'm quite into the idea of trying something new as often as possible. I would like to brag about my beginning a pair of socks:

yay! I've attempted knitting socks before, but have struggled, but this particular yarn has some awesome colour, and I am quite eager to sport this particular pair of socks!

:)

This will be my good news, before I vent about the bad.

:(

Now, I don't believe in naming names because it's just not necessary, but I do feel the need to get this off my chest.

I often find myself relying to websites for new knitting inspiration, and lately have decided to pop into a few of these awesome sites and check out their posting forums and chatrooms. I found myself in a chatroom where I was surrounded by a quite aggrivated and mildly b****y group of women ~ I have obviously invaded the Mean Girls Knitting Snob Click. Within a week of hanging around in this particular chat room, I went from (what I thought was) positive knitters to chat with, to the cattiest of the most unfriendly and unwelcoming group of people.

Part of my Fiber Snob post a few days ago was inspired by a couple of these women in this chat room, but that negativity spread from one or two people through to the better part of the group. It went from joking sarcasm to harsh accusations, name calling, people ignoring then mocking, and finally a couple of them falsely accusing me of things like copyright infringement and bad business practice.

Now, granted, it's nothing more than the gross misinformed judgement of a handfull of people, and just out of a chat room, but considering that this is (from what I understand) a particularly popular site and seemingly a high-traffic chat room linked to it, I would hate to think that not only they would treat other new chatters the same way, but also, who knows how far false accusations travel once you've left? And who else also gets this negative attitude? For I'm sure I'm not the first, and likely won't be the last.

I do think that this sort of thing is unfortunate. To be honest, I was so happy to find what I thought to be a great place to hang out and chat in, considering that I'd be surrounded by knitters, as well as I have a lack of knitters in my personal life to stitch with. Who would've thought that such an immature, elitist attitude would transcent teenage immaturity and high school playgrounds into a chat filled with adults?

It's silly of me, I suppose, to expect anything more than extreme superficiallity when it comes to people's attitudes online. It was naive of me to think that a group of people, however small, with such a 'calming' ;) hobby as knitting would welcome me in their circle, irrigardless of what items I knit or which yarns I use, rather than make it a point to snub me out.

Who would've thought that knitters were so mean?

;) ah, live and learn.