BLAARGing

[Resume]

You are correct in your implication. I apologize. I should be more nuanced. Yes, WP allows that some Bigfoot sightings may be hallucinations and misinterpretations of hunters, while the majority of sighters are blaarging and we cannot trust anything any Bigfoot enthusiast tell us.[

When proponents advise each other to tell more believable lies, tell us poor skeptics how to distinguish a trustworthy footer.

Come on guys. Give us some analysis that doesn't rely on the blaarging meme.

The knowing, purposeful liar has been a component in bigfootery since the beginning.

 

[jerrywayne]

To make matters more confusing, here is an enthusiast who argues that a form of blaarging (although he doesn't call it that) exists to a large extent in Bigfootville.

From an on-line book seller blurb about Michael Dana Greene's book "Sasquatch For Sale: Death, DNA, and Duplicity:"

"Michael's book presents a captivating look into the world of Bigfoot research, with all the good, the bad, and the ridiculous. IT'S AN ABSOLUTE PAGE TURNER." DEREK RANDLES This well written and cynical book travels from the glaciers of Bella Coola, BC, to the Everglades of Florida, from the remote wilderness of the Manicouagan Meteor Crater in Quebec to the high Sierras of California on the author's 20 year journey to prove the existence of Bigfoot. He has captured the fascinating "Squeaky Thermal ' video (see Finding Bigfoot episode "Compelling Evidence") and encountered footprints, tree breaks, screams in the night, as well as opportunists, fakes, frauds, overblown egos, naive tree huggers, con men and women and a few honest researchers along the way . Go inside the Ketchum DNA debacle, Rick Dyer's never- ending hoax, Todd Standing's Photoshop efforts, the implausible Falcon Project, Don Young's "Big Phil", and the authors' intimate relationships with Justin Smeja, the infamous Sierra killer, Derek Randles and his Olympic Project, the BFRO's greedy unethical leadership and philanthropist Wally Hersom who tried so hard to make so much possible."

Well, this is funny because this guy himself has to be a blaarger. I think it's Mike Greene, the guy who was supposed to write the (aborted) book about the "Sierra Kills" and the guy too that had a thermal of what appears to be --- well, Mike Greene.

 

[jerrywayne]

When proponents advise each other to tell more believable lies, tell us poor skeptics how to distinguish a trustworthy footer.


The knowing, purposeful liar has been a component in bigfootery since the beginning.

Yes.

 

[Resume]

Yes.

A very large component

 

[Checkmite]

...there's already a word for that kind of thing. It's "charlatanry", and the people who engage in it are called charlatans.

 

[s4zando]

Delete

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Wow, this thread is tedious and confusing to follow.

Okay, let me get this straight: the claim is being made that some people who portray themselves as Bigfoot enthusiasts, "researchers", or just general "believers", are actually skeptics who are misrepresenting themselves, pretending to "believe in" bigfoot for japes or some other frivolous motivation. Is that correct?

Please select the less confusing rendition:

"My parents pretended to believe in Santa Clause for fun"

vs:

"So let me get this straight - your parents pretended to believe in Santa Clause when they really were skeptics who were misrepresenting themselves, pretending to "believe in" Santa Clause for japes or some other frivolous motivation. Is that correct?"


This thread is tedious and confusing because the thread starter wants it that way. It is no more confusing than Santa Clause.

We can shame/guilt-trip you for calling parents liars with Santa Clause and claim there really are Santa Clause believers out there despite every set of parents putting presents under the tree themselves.

We can word it just as you did, to make it tedious and confusing, and in the form of a rhetorical question to emphasize how unbelievable it is that parents would pretend to believe for fun.

 

[Checkmite]

Please select the less confusing rendition:

"My parents pretended to believe in Santa Clause for fun"

So the answer in other words is "yes"? Thanks.

Well, that certainly qualifies as LARPing, I suppose. Roleplaying a "bigfoot believer".

Alternative reality games don't involve roleplay or players misrepresenting themselves, however, so including a reference to ARGs in this new unnecessarily-invented replacement term for "charlatanry" doesn't make sense.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

The BLAARGing meme sucks. At first it seemed like a joke, but now it's turned into something else. It's done nothing but impair people's understanding of the individuals who research and discuss this phenomenon. Maybe that's the whole point of it though; a blurry definition used as a solution for the lack of understanding of what's really happening. This is far from critical thinking.

 

[Night Walker]

But... but the skeptics are just BLAARGing about BLAARGing! They're just as bad!

Yeah I saw that coming.

No. BLAARGing seems to imply roleplaying, make-believe, and/or dishonesty. There is no evidence that BLAARG proponents here do not actually believe that BLAARGing is a valid thing. If BLAARG-proponents can really believe in a made-up thing which has different subjective meanings for users then why can't Bigfoot-proponents really believe in another?

Insulting or bringing family into a disagreement is considered a pretty low thing to do where I come from.

... but dismissing/labeling people you don't know as "liars" is OK, right?

 

[The Shrike]

Take 2:

Um . . . no.

BLAARGing is a form of live-action role-playing or live-action alternate reality gaming. LARPing and LAARGing are real things that people do. We've illustrated this with examples such as Civil War re-enactors or Ren Faire knights of old engaged in mock battles while in character. Those people who claim to be real vampires are LAARGers. In millions of households (including mine) on Dec. 24th, people engage in a form of LARPing: sharing stories about Santa or singing carols would not meet the criteria of LARPing, but leaving out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk certainly would. We do this every year without ever saying "this is dumb"; we just do it and stay in character (as hopeful believers in Ol' Saint Nick) because it's fun.

BLAARGing is just LAARGing about bigfoot. People "go squatching" to celebrate bigfooting culture. They might on some level believe that bigfoot just might exist, but they know darn well that they're not going to actually find him. So they pretend that they have encountered such things, either by claiming sightings, concocting stories to accompany blurry photographs, smacking trees, hollering so loudly they get the coyotes to respond, interpreting fallen limbs as having been purposefully arranged by the bigfoots, etc.

We know that BLAARGing exists (check out Finding Bigfoot or Mountain Monsters if you need to be convinced) we do not know that bigfoot exists.

 

[River]

The BLAARGing meme sucks. At first it seemed like a joke, but now it's turned into something else. It's done nothing but impair people's understanding of the individuals who research and discuss this phenomenon. Maybe that's the whole point of it though; a blurry definition used as a solution for the lack of understanding of what's really happening. This is far from critical thinking.

This.

And only that.

 

[bruto]

So if BLAARGing is not what is "really happening," then what is?

Somebody is doing something, and of the various things we can see being done, the only one that smacks of competence is that. If it isn't purposeful fiction, it's a sad excuse for anything else.

 

[Garrette]

The BLAARGing meme sucks. At first it seemed like a joke, but now it's turned into something else. It's done nothing but impair people's understanding of the individuals who research and discuss this phenomenon. Maybe that's the whole point of it though; a blurry definition used as a solution for the lack of understanding of what's really happening. This is far from critical thinking.

Who, exactly, is researching the phenomenon? Bear in mind that research means employing actual research methods. None of the NAWAC silliness qualifies.

 

[Checkmite]

Um . . . no.

BLAARGing is a form of live-action role-playing or live-action alternate reality gaming. LARPing and LAARGing are real things that people do. We've illustrated this with examples such as Civil War re-enactors or Ren Faire knights of old engaged in mock battles while in character. Those people who claim to be real vampires are LAARGers. In millions of households (including mine) on Dec. 24th, people engage in a form of LARPing: sharing stories about Santa or singing carols would not meet the criteria of LARPing, but leaving out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk certainly would. We do this every year without ever saying "this is dumb"; we just do it and stay in character (as hopeful believers in Ol' Saint Nick) because it's fun.

You are describing "LARPing". LARPing is portraying a character in a setting. That setting itself may be fantastical, or it may be "the real world", but either way they are acting - playing a role.

There is no such thing as "LAARGing"; the term seems to be some amalgamation of LARPing" and ARG's (alternative reality games), which doesn't seem to describe either. An alternative reality game is a game - it's a transitory event with a set of rules and an ultimate goal, directed by a "game master(s)", that people play. The game typically involves real-world interaction (for example, having to solve a puzzle using real-world information, or retrieve game items stashed in real-world locations) in order to advance a "plot" toward its conclusion. People playing an ARG don't play a character; they don't wear costumes or pretend to be vampires (or researchers, or anything else); they are just themselves. Players are usually encouraged to network with other players via the internet, in order to solve puzzles and decipher clues, some of which might require special tools or skill sets that not everyone possesses, or might be physically located in places that not everyone playing the game can necessarily access easily (obviously if you are supposed to pick up a package of clues at a park in eastern Washington for instance, it helps to be able to find a fellow player who lives nearby to make the pickup and share the contents).

At any rate, everybody realizes that the game is a game, and there is an actual win condition that players are working towards.

Self-directed bigfoot hoaxers and charlatans faking evidence for notoriety does not fit the definition of an alternative reality game. It might fit the definition of LARPing, but this is not the remotely the same concept.

 

[ComfySlippers]

The BLAARGing meme sucks. At first it seemed like a joke, but now it's turned into something else. It's done nothing but impair people's understanding of the individuals who research and discuss this phenomenon. Maybe that's the whole point of it though; a blurry definition used as a solution for the lack of understanding of what's really happening. This is far from critical thinking.

He said "blurry" so must be true.

Individuals don't "research and discuss this phenomenon" unless they are one sandwich short of a picnic because... Drumroll.. There is no such thing as Bigfoot.

 

[Zed Too]

I thought the point about LAARGING was that it wasn't really LARP and it wasn't really ARG, but it used elements of each.

Something like "Live Action Role Play Where The Proponents Actively Deny It's A Game", but LARPWTPADIAG doesn't trip off the tongue.

 

[Castro]

...This is far from critical thinking.

Obviouly you're an expert in critical thinking. Was it your critical thinking skills that made you to believe that Melba Ketchum was a serious scientist and that the Elbe trackway was the real deal?

 

[OntarioSquatch]

I don't recall believing that the Elbe trackway was real. Melba Ketchum was never a real scientist. She did seem like she was legit at first though.

 

[Castro]

I see and I understand what you're doing.