Chat wave season!

Being the steriotypical anti-conformist that I am, my blog will not pertain to spring in any way, shape or form. How's that grab yer patootie?

It's that time of year again though, dispite the topic I'll be avoiding. It happens 3 or 4 times a year. Can any of you guess what I'm talking about? No? I didn't think so, considering 90% of you aren't nearly as dorky as I.

It's chatwave season. That few weeks out of the year that you get a huge influx of people that are complete e-tards at anything that has to do with internet and chatrooms, not to mention being politically correct in any fassion.

You know the type, I'm sure. They're the ones that run around talking about how stoned they are, or how much the blacks suck. The ones that think all southerners are toothless hicks, or the ones that think any sarcastic remark that they don't understand is an invitation for an argument.

I always get a male strain of PMS when this season comes around, because I frequent a chatroom that is mildly popular to a teen scene. With the not so recent merging of teen rooms and adult rooms on the Yahoo chat server, this room has been given a huge shot in the arm for the past year or so considering the teen version of the chatroom died. It's absolutely horrible.

In spirit of this I'm going to list a small number of guidelines that you can follow to help yourself from getting into an argument with someone who is more techno-savy.

The most important thing to remember is this : You Are New. Deal with this like you would any other situation. You wouldn't walk into a new job and act like the king of all nations would you? Some of these guys or gals have been comming to this place for quite some time. These people are called Regulars, or Regs.
Regulars aren't any more important than you. Hell, some of them aren't even worth talking to, but there is something that you've got to remember. You are not thier friend... yet. It's not important that you make friends with these people if you're just passing through the chatroom, but if you intend to stay a good first impression is just as important in a chatroom as real life.
Find a font that fits you, but is not annoying.
Don't use all caps. It is the chatroom equivilant of yelling at the top of your lungs. It's also just plain annoying
Make an attempt at good spelling and sentence construction. It may be a pain in the butt, but it makes text easier to read and understand.
Use color! There can be 50-150 people in one chatroom, and if the place is popular more than 80% of them will be active. With that much text flying around, color helps friends define who you are. Be unique, but be kind. Bright yellow on a white background hurts eyes, and will make people upset.
Don't act stupid. Sexist, racist, generalized or drugish comments are for your friends, not a group of strangers. It's ok to have a sense of humor, but if you don't know who you're talking to it's doubtful that your humor will be grasped.
Be patient. If a chatroom dies for a second, let it die and go do something. Idle around long enough and it'll come back to life. The chatroom is not there for your entertainment, so don't get upset when nobody talks. We all have lives too, you know. We're not all chat nerds.
Take your time, get to know people. Use your best judgement, and your ignore feature. Idiots will continue to be idiots, and nice people generally stay nice.
Don't use numbers in your Chatroom ID. It's not cool, it's not 1337, and it does nothing (and I mean nothing) but say "I'm immature". This is not the kind of message you want to send your future friends.

That's about it. Happy Chatting!