Muppet Trolling (a comments & tweets post)

Last night I took my two older children to the local library to watch the "The Muppets (2011)."  The fact that this movie receives a 95% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes only proves that kids in this age range do not (yet) vote online. For while I was sitting in the corner cracking up at the regurgitated skits from my youth, the kids in the audience sat in singular silence.  


This experience gave me two thoughts. The first was about the movie's implicit joke -- that its intended audience were the adults. Consider the obvious: there were 0 identifiable kid characters; the timeline was about the Muppet generation 30 years hence; the audience for the "telethon" were overwhelmingly adults (most looking like they were on the back end of a beloved date night where going to Muppets theatre somehow trumps other more intimate acts).

This movie experience also reminded me of my never published post on science, trolls, and social media. Have you ever seen a Muppet Troll?

http://senorgif.memebase.com/2011/08/04/funny-gifs-statler-and-waldorf-muppet-trolls/

A while back a Muppet Troll got past the moderators at astrobetter on a  post entitled, "What's our Greatest Weakness," which asked what could be changed to improve the culture of astronomy.  Quite naturally this post precipitated a wide ranging comment stream, covering topics from the overproduction of PhDs to software skill to the work/life problems that come from the extant academic pipeline.  Late in the stream the troll struck at the apparent willingness of so many astronomers to take the time to read and respond to this post.

statlerandwardoff:  "People blog and think the social media is the end-all, but you know what? That comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

It was a Saturday afternoon, most of the kids were napping, and this kind of thing gets my blood up. So I submitted a reply...writing as Fozzie Bear...which naturally alerted the moderator that something was amiss.   Although the original troll was taken down, and my trollish reply was not permitted, I considered the prose worth keeping and posting somewhere else. Why? Because I hear the troll's sentiment expressed over and over again in real and virtual spaces whenever we try and/or convince scientists to talk about cultural change.

Talking about cultural change is hard. We might try to tackle the problem by focusing on generational divides, such as those reflected in either the intended audience of the Muppets or in the choice of two old white dudes as trolls. Certainly, abstractions of generational divides along side other variables like gender expression might let us understand cultural tensions a bit better: consider the two posts on the Committee on the Study of Women in Astronomy blog about "Women versus Women" that clearly pivot on generational (and gendered) divides.    

Nevertheless, assuming only "age" as a means to unpack the troll's sentiment is, I think, probably going to fail to make accurate predictions about how folks at different stages of their careers feel about defining what constitutes "doing science." I make this hypothesis by asserting that the academy is currently built upon a guild model for training.  A guild has a training model that resists adaptation in part by allowing, in this case, notions of scientific value to be imbued to subsequent generations without adaptation or test. The trainee or apprentice is insulated from testing the bounds of scientific value by knowing that maintaining the status quo will lead them to a higher place in the guild structure. 

I will save working through the concept of the academic guild for another post. Instead I simply wanted to point out that we may not safely assume that either the troll or his message reflect an older generation with antiquated values about "doing science."   Instead I will simply end with my never published astrobetter Fozzie Bear comment, shared with the hope that perhaps some of my silly replies will provide useful retorts for myself or others.  Consider the format of this post as a riff on Shouts & Murmurs from the New Yorker. Except in the blogosphere, maybe it should be called "Comments & Tweets".

Comments and tweets about doing whatever it is that doing science is:

Statler and Wardoff:  "People blog and think the social media is the end-all, but you know what? That comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

Dr. Honeydew: "People write papers and think that communicating their science is the end-all, but you know what? That LaTeXing and formating and figure-making all comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

Rowlf the Dog:  "People collect data and think that managing and preserving that data are the end-all, but you know what? That work with metadata and standards comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

Beaker: "Meep meh meh eh meep meh meep meep oh meep meep, erp meep meh meep? That meep meh meeping comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

Kermit: "People have spouses and even children and think that social relationships are the end-all, but you know what? That procreating and living come out of time that one could actually be doing science."

The Swedish Chef: "Peuple-a spend teeme-a cuukeeng und ieteeng und theenk thet celureec inteke-a zee ind ell be-a ell boot, yuoo knoo vhet? Seteesffying thet beseec hoomun need cumes oooot ooff teeme-a thet oone-a cuoold ectooelly be-a dueeng sceeence-a." (see also Google, Bork)

Elmo: "People sleep and think that suspended sensory activity is the end-all, but you know what? That dreaming and resting time comes out of time that one could actually be doing science."

Cookie Monster:  "Me eat cookies and think that, graargh, large doses of cookies be the end-all, but you know what? That cookie eating time comes out of time that one could actually be eating MORE cookies. OM-NOM-NOM-NOM..."

Wocka wocka wocka!