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 Glasses and Electric Tape: A Global Richard Patrick Conspiracy 01/10/02 | The Fun and Torture of Making a Website 1/30/02 | Rich's Wonderful Way With Words...Or Well, the Mystery of Some of Them. 3/3/02 | Proud of Being An Amalgamut...3/8/02 | Rich and His Immature Ideas....3/16/02 | Boy Bands and Their Mind Controlling Ways(ARewriteofaPreviousRambleThatIStupidlyDeleted..) 3/24/02 | Family Organizations Who Think Way Too Much of Themselves and Family and What I Think They Should Do | The History of the Rich Facts 4/10/02 | LazyChristianReviewersandTheirLackofComprehendableAnswerstoQuestionsAboutTheirSloppyReviews4/18/02 | The Rich Fact Webmistress and Her Clumsiness 4/20/02 | Are You Lucky Enough to Meet Filter? Here's Some Tips You Might Need. 4/26/02 | Frank's New Look and That Guy Wearing the "I Am Richard Patrick" Shirt. 5/1/02 | Happy Birthday Richie!!!! Gee, you're getting OLD! 5/10/02 | Copyright CDs and You. Oh and that Guy From Nine Inch Nails' Birthday. 5/17/02 | Record Labels and How They Function And Farewell to the X-Files 5/22/02 | Where the FUCK is the MP3?????!!!!??? 5/31/02 | The Fred Durst Controversy 6/5/02 | Thank You Richard 6/7/02 | As the Shit Hits the Fan, remember this. . .6/10/02 | Beavis and Butthead Watch Take A Picture 6/14/02 | Where Do We Go From Here??? Let Filter Take You There. 6/21/02 | Bananas and Tea!! Rich is NOT Demanding! As If! 6/28/02 | Because I'm bored and feel the need to write about it. 7/5/02 | So I Still Have Nothing To Talk About. Okay, I Do. 7/11/02 | Pre Concert Rambles and Funny Stories About KKCK's Crazy Suckiness 7/18/02 | The RFW Gets Lucky In Iowa. . .A RFW Concert Tale 7/26/02 | Extra, Extra READ All About IT!!! 8/2/02 | The Rockline Files 8/9/02 | The Lost Cs: Conan and Carson. . 8/17/02 | The RFW Goes to Get Her Learn On 8/24/02 | How YOU can help Filter to do their job BETTER 8/31/02 | Wanna know what would be cool??? No really! Wanna know?? 9/7/02 | Walkie Talkie Mayhem. . .9/15/02 | Stations, what other stations?? The RFW Rants About Radio Hell that is KKCK. 9/21/02 | Another Pre Filter Concert Ramble by the RFW 9/28/02 | It's Been One Of Those Weeks 10/5/02 | Get Well Richie!! 10/5/02 | Would you look at THAT! A New Consider This! 10/26/02 | The RFW Wants You!!!! 11/9/02
As the Shit Hits the Fan, remember this. . .6/10/02

Now, as the fall out from Blabbermouth occurrs, take a step back and think about this whole mess. I know a lot of people are screaming at that board to the high heaven the demise of Filter and Rich and not to buy the albums and that they will go to everyone they know to ruin Rich's career, but I'd like to give you something to Consider.

They, as you and I, have opinions. Since we're all American and are human,(depsite what a certain poll person had to say in an old poll today) we do exercicse the right to freedom of speech as well as making mistakes with that. Rich even makes mistakes guys. I know, I know. While a lot of that rant is accurrate, I must say it is a bit of ego talking and that's understandable. Excuseable, no, understandable yes. Anyone under attack like Rich has been would react maybe like that. That's because he's HUMAN. Doesn't excuse him from not stooping to their levels of insults.

While a lot of them are slinging mud and declaring Rich an asshole, I don't think as many of them are looking at what they said before Rich responded and taking a look at it. I mean, I do agree we don't need to know how rich he is to validate why he's where he is, any more than they had to say he's gay or Fred's gay or any thing like that.That's when our freedom of speech makes a lot of us cringe, because so many idiotic things are said.

None of us really know Rich personally(save perhaps a few who come here) and therefore, while we have a right to say what we will about Rich's post, we can not judge him as a human being completely because of it. If that were true, then let's just judge everyone at Blabbermouth by the post here or there we've seen by them. We don't know any of them personally(Those of us who went there to stand up for Rich) so we shouldn't judge them. Neither should they judge us or Rich. Franly, I know there are a lot of athesists out there, but I think that we should never judge another since that is left up to a supreme being larger than ourselves.(Who ever that may be.)

I also think that as Filter fans, rather than wasting our breath(in this case our fingers) we should just ignore the mess. Every person on a message board would love to think they have the be and end all statement that can make or break any person who is famous. I've seen it at the X-File board and now I'm seeing it here. I saw tons of X-Philes post things like: CC just lost another viewer! The X-files will never be anything besides a classic TV show now! Riiiiight. Sorry, you have the right to express something such as this, but it isn't true, really.

The simple fact is this: The Internet is still a baby. Not everyone is 'wired' and can communicate online about things like music, TV, books or whatever they follow. I know there are a lot of fans who post at various message boards and they all have a mindset that they can control the people they are fans of because they have Internet access. Sorry folks. Not to rain on your parade, just because you post at a board doesn't really effect a famous individual. What does affect a famous individual is this: If the non-Internet base grows disillusioned ALONG WITH the Internet base, MAYBE, just MAYBE that could end a carreer of a person. But let's be realistic.

Not only is it up to the ENTIRE fan base of something to decide it's success or failure, it is the markets and the people who control an industry that decide who stays or who goes. I don't like a lot of famous people and I often wonder why and how on earth they got famous, but I do know that the Internet probably had nothing to do with it.


Here's another dose of reality for ya: Just think about ALL of the stars that became super stars before the Interent dawned. Wow, that's a lot of people we know by name. The Rolling Stones made it without Internet. The Beatles made it without Internet, Tom Cruise made it with Internet, Dustin Hoffman made it without Internet, ect. Think about it. What did these people do without people posting in message boards? Since they didn't exist they didn't bother worrying. If I was famous, I'd be kind enough to contact these people, but I wouldn't really be offended when they talk shit about me. They're only a minority.

Now that I've really probably made a ton of you mad at me, I'd like to say one last thing. While the Internet doesn't make or break anyone, since it is so few actually posting compared to ALL of a fan base, I think in the future we may see an online fan base being powerful enough maybe ten, twenty years from now. It's still a new medium. It's not the be and end all of the entertainment world. It just makes things more up front and up close.

So, before you go and start an internet war with Blabbermouth for their big talk about taking Richard out, think about this: It's only a message board. Much like any other. Just because someone says something doesn't mean it's true. They, Rich , you or me do not know the future. No one does.