Do you ever get attached to the bloggers that you read?

[fundies_like_zombies]

Just thinking that some seem kinda nice but maybe sheltered and on a slippy slope.

Do you think it is possible to stop them going properly fundie and crazy?

It is kind of like they have potential to do all sorts but are either being supressed into a box of what they should be by their elders / family or even doing that to themselves and making themselves into this meek and always sweet people.

So if you have read a blog for years and can see the blogger slowly getting more fundie does it bother you?

[celestial]

Just when I think someone seems nice, *POW!* I get a big fat reminder that there is some serious crazy going on. Buried amongst the "I love baybeez!!11!1" and "Here's a great tip for saving money/decorating your house!" are some real doozies like "Women with ectopic pregnancies should just die!" and "I wear a concealed carry gun while nursing my infant!" (Not made up examples, unfortunately.) I hope against hope that these people someday see the harm of some of their ways, but realize there is nothing I can do for them specifically. I see it as educating myself about a group of people who are "fundamentally" dangerous (see what I did there, har har?) so I can warn others in my life away from that kind of craziness if possible.

[Witsec7]

These people are my enemies. I like to know what they are up to.

Becoming attached to one of them is like saying you're attached to a yeast infection.IMHO

[GolightlyGrrl]

These people are my enemies. I like to know what they are up to.

Becoming attached to one of them is like saying you're attached to a yeast infection.IMHO

Ha! So true, so true.

[PBrooke]

I'm always rooting for them to rethink their choices - or, in the case of the young ones, to do some thinking for the first time. I know some are rather fatalistic, especially when they get married and start having babies of their own, but... look at Anna Keller's two sisters! One of whom was married, perhaps even with kids (can't remember)! I think there's always hope.

It does get a little depressing when they have clearly had fresh doses of the Kool-Aid, though. But there's a difference, to me, between hoping they'll change in the future, and thinking they're sweet right now. I never forget what they believe.

[sea_gale]

These people are my enemies. I like to know what they are up to.

Becoming attached to one of them is like saying you're attached to a yeast infection.IMHO

I don't know. Some of them, like a yeast infection, are basically harmless, if irritating. Others are like a raging case of herpes or being ravaged by AIDS.

[NothingLeftToLose]

No.

But I do have to take a break from some every now and then because I get too angry or upset. (LL for example)

[Terrie]

I don't get attached to the ones we snark on. Now, I've read other blogs where I've gotten, hmmm, maybe not attached, but where I actually, honestly wanted good things to happen to them. But the Stinking Housefish? Zsu-zsu? It's like getting attached to a wild animal that's actively trying to kill you.

[Austin]

No. Never.

[haveapicniclife]

I wouldn't say I get attached. There are some that I enjoy reading, and some I read because it's like watching a train wreck.

On a side note...I have a vibe that Rebecca the Unusual Maiden will be making a very special announcement soon.

[Boogalou]

Yes, but I won't tell you which one or you will all hate me.

I have to say though, I have that kind of personality. I get attached to everyone and everything that I spend enough time around. When I was six I cried when we got rid of our old TV (for a much better TV, I might add) because I was that attached. I've gotten better, but not much.

[liltwinstar]

Yes, mostly because I just want them to be happy. I see a lot of my previous fundie-ness in the SAHD blogs, and I root for them. I just want them to be happy, you know? So when they get married or have babies, I think that's great, because they seem happy doing that. I wish that some of them could go to college and have jobs, if that's what they really want, too.

I don't get attached to the ones who just pontificate about the evils of feminism or whatever. So I'm not attached to Lady Lydia, Zsu Zsu, etc.

[Sola]

I did once sort of. It was a fundie-lite blogger whose husband was in prison. She stood by him and was determined to turn him around and by all accounts the last time I read her blog she had. She home-schooled, bible quotes in every other post, believed in patriarchy etc but she didn't seem as fundie as the Maxwells for example. Her husband was released from prison but then had to spend around 2 years living in a halfway house a good way from where their home was. All she wanted, and he wanted, was for the family to get back together but the probation officer kept standing in their way. I found myself really rooting for them to be reunited, which is a strange thing for me as I didn't know what crime the husband had committed but it was enough for the probation officer to state that the husband was to have no contact with the son. I don't whether he did anything to the son and if that was what sent him to prison, but eventually earlier on this year they were reunited and his probation terms were lifted. I wouldn't have thought that the husband did something nasty to the son as surely he wouldn't have been allowed to move back in.

[buttercup]

Actually, I used to... because some of them can present a very inviting narrative - for example, the Sanders and Mortons seem to present a really nice picture of a large family, living on a farm. I'm interested in agriculture, and I've always wanted a large family, so when I first started reading I was almost attracted to these people. I thought then that I'd like to live the way they do, just, you know, atheist and with jeans.

But then little things would pop up. And I'd read more here, where y'all are great at pointing out the hypocrisy and the hate that underpins this lifestyle. The picture of the Confederate flag. The fact that these happy "helpmeets", who I thought were older than me, are quite younger and were married when they were nineteen/eighteen and looked worn out and tired in their early 20s. I saw how obsequious their language was towards their father, how what I had taken for affection was getting more like a sort of infanitalizing. Their intolerance towards people that are different than they are, their idolization of racist historical figures. The way LL treats Mira. The prayers over Anna Sophia and Elizabeth's wombs. Jasmine, with all the brains in the world, sitting at home and waiting for a future that she knows perfectly well will likely never come - . How Adeline, enjoy the blog as I may, writes like a gushy character out of Gone With the Wind when most girls her age are working or going to college. There's a balance of creepy and cruel and sad that's not at all far beneath the glossy surface - and it's that surface that's dangerous, because that's how they lure people in. The hate and the tiredness and the isolation all comes after.

So, yes. I do get attached. I tend to always want a sympathetic protagonist in ANYTHING - a book, a movie, a religious movement (my latest is Lise). But, when I catch myself doing that, I look back and remind myself that not only are these probably about 5% as happy as they seem, but if given the chance, they would take away my control of my destiny from me and expect me to celebrate my lack of agency in my own life. Moreover, they're not what they seem. It's not a self-supporting agricultural community full of bff brothers and sisters, but a religion/culture that promotes isolation, hate, misogyny and intolerance. And, worse yet, they're recruiting AND breeding.

I know that's rambly, but it's how I deal with my tendency to want a "pet" fundie. (I have a similar process when I watch TV shows full of dreadful people, like Jersey Shore. I find myself saying things "But J-Woww's not so bad! I swear!"). Growing attached is dangerous, IMO, because it means that their propaganda is working.

[Kelya]

Not attached- I like watching them for their redemption or their steep slope into insanity, but I don't particularly care which way they go, until it gets up in my business or hurts people who have no choice in the matter, like kids. The only person I read regularly in Anna at Pleasant View Schoolhouse, and that's just because I think she's amusing. Everyone else I only catch through posts here or the occasional, "I wonder how LoraLyn is fucking up her kids lives now!" thought.

[FloraDoraDolly]

Yes, I do care about the people whose blogs I read. Must be my bleeding heart...

[genericJname]

I have one that I feel a bit too attached too:

http://homemakingpilgrim.blogspotdotcom/

There's some definite fundy/patriarchy craziness but she is just so cute and has such a likeable personality from her posts. I just can't bring myself to snark on her.

[Kaylee]

Sometimes, although I don't spend as much time reading blogs as I used too. I really, really liked Candy for a while, because she reminded me so much of myself (not just the blog stuff, but other things as well). I still sort of hope she sees how ragged she's running herself and learns it's OK to trade being happy for trying to be perfect, but I don't think the online following she has would ever let her admit that. Sometimes I wonder if the flounces aren't attempts to step back and be real, then coming back because she's so used to blogging and having her bit of the limelight, and it's something of her own.

[FJismyheadship]

What about Meredith? Wasn't she one of the ones everyone seemed to genuinely like, despite the crazy?

[pixydust]

Yes, the Mortons. I disagree with them on just about everything, but they seem to truely love each other, they have friends, and they seem to have so much fun (and I really want to go to their New Years Eve ball!). I actually enjoy their blog, even if Adeline's writing is a little affected.

Saying that, I do know that they have some scary ideas, and they would prob take one look at me and decide I was going to hell!

[polabear]

I have one that I feel a bit too attached too:

http://homemakingpilgrim.blogspotdotcom/

There's some definite fundy/patriarchy craziness but she is just so cute and has such a likeable personality from her posts. I just can't bring myself to snark on her.

Those rolo pretzels she is making are GOOD. Someone in my neighborhood makes them all the time.

[AmyP]

I have a couple that I love- and I am keeping them "off the radar" for that reason. ;)

[skankbiscuit]

i am pretty "attached" to Sarah Maxwell. I worry about her happiness. I think she is a very nice woman.

[StarrieEyedKat]

Yes, but I won't tell you which one or you will all hate me.

Gah, you can't do that!

[clover_leigh]

I love Sherry tbh. Her blog is gorgeous. Her obsession with Victorian Culture mirrors my love for it. The difference is I realize that we dont actually live in Victorian times anymore and women dont have to be sexless or at least not satisfied sexually, and extremely feminine if they choose not to. She seems to have a great,close relationship with her kids. I would have LOVED to be dressed like a doll at a tea party when I was a kid, like her daughters are. She hosts great awesome parties that are right up my ally. Ive always preferred themed decorated parties as opposed to drunken frat parties my generation seems so fond of. And she HAS raised her kids with great taste in movies/books. I could definitely be friends with Alexandra if we could put aside the fact that shes very anti feminism and Im a bisexual Wiccan :text-callme: