I've hated Edison with a passion ever since I saw it. I have no stomach for Edison electrocuting larger elephants. I'll always remember how trustingly the baby elephant fondled the handler's leg.
Edison was lower than the lowest vermin on the planet. Lower than Edison is anyone who could enjoy watching him electrocute an elephant.
I didn't know anything about this until now. Good god, I'm glad I never saw that footage.
Destinata, is that you? The same Destinata as on IMDb? I hope so!
Hey, Catbookss! How are you doing? So glad to see you again! Is this where you've decided to perch? Is there a better message board out there that you've run into?
Apparently there's also film of Edison electrocuting puppies. The man was a monster. I'm glad I never saw the one with the puppies. I'd certainly never seek out this movie.
I'm doing well, how are you? I'm really glad to run into you here too! Jeez, it's like being a survivor of a disaster, with all communication out, and running into familiar faces, almost randomly, through the gradually clearing dust :D
Yep, I've checked out all of the other alternatives, and while I registered on PreviouslyTV, and am still considering tMDb, this is my favorite by far.
Good god, I was unaware of this side of Edison. The baby elephant was bad enough, and electrocuting an adult elephant who was most likely merely misunderstood and acting out in attempt to defend her/himself against his/her human captors and tormentors. But puppies too?! Elephants, in particular, as I'm sure you know, are highly intelligent.
I realize this was a different time, and that there are people even now who engage in things such as dog or cockfights, who not only don't mind seeing the suffering of other animals, but actually enjoy it, but I have a very difficult time understanding it, and certainly do NOT applaud anyone who engages in it.
It is quite like living through a disaster, isn't it? Even if we were warned two weeks ahead, we only discover how much a part of our lives it really was after they pull the plug. I was in the middle of writing what I thought was an epic essay (yeah, right!) and when I went to post it, I discovered ol' Col Needham had pulled that plug, then announced that he'd done it the next day. He might have told us that he meant midnight, English time. The little drip is based in Seattle, I thought. But it was Amazon's site, and since they couldn't figure out how to really make the boards pay, it was Amazon's to shut down.
Although I really blame Colin Needham. Needham had at one point made it clear he not only resented the boards, but hated most of us using them. Or maybe that was just a fit of pique -- his first message to the troops was an hilarious hissy-fit/meltdown about how the boards were NOT the reason for IMDb [insert stompy foot here]. The Passion of the Christ board had forced him to add more servers because of the load. This was before he decided to add the posting quotas. Amazon wasn't forthcoming with cash. Needham was given full rein on how to run IMDb, and he'd let the boards go to blazes because he had no commitment to them. He then uses the excuse that it would take megabucks to revamp them as one of the reasons why he had to shut them down. The other was the trolls -- but he had no real interest in getting rid of the trolls, either. He could have done more to police the boards, but he wanted to do as little as possible to keep the boards running, using as few people as he could. The Pro side was his pride and joy -- that, and how journalists always came to IMDb to look up info on anyone. But since the users could modify the info, it was not much more reliable than Wikipedia. If they only knew....
Anyway, happily for him, the two issues -- money and trolls -- came together to give him his excuse to just shut the boards down and get them off his back forever. We all knew it was a man-made disaster, but it was one that could have been easily avoided if Needham had wanted to. He didn't.
Wow! I've never even heard of tMDb! I should check it out! A bunch of people from the Food and Drink board started one board that looks like it's going to die the death. But it has my favorite little emoticons! I had no idea how much I was going to miss those little guys!
And I do wonder where makesmewantoholler finally ended up. I lost track of her entirely! She was a hoot!
No, Edison wasn't the stuff his legend is built on. He must have been a pretty repulsive human being -- to be so sick as to film it, just as if he thought he'd done something smart! It's disgusting!
Yep, it feels like post-disaster all right. Two weeks wasn't enough notice, and they didn't even keep their word on that! You're right, it should have been based on USA Pacific time, which is what everyone reasonably assumed. I blame both Bezos and Needham.
I didn't know Needham had said he resented the boards, and actually hated (really?) the community that had he himself had provided a venue for. I agree a lot more could have, and should have, been done to stop -- or at least strongly curb -- trolling. For that matter, they could have found ways to monetize their boards.
I guess I'm not surprised the new Food and Drink board is going down. I understand the GoT forum is going the same way, even though the plan was to make it a general replacement for IMDb boards.
Do check out tMDb board. I don't like the busy interface, and like the culture better over here, but it's the only other place that has boards for all movies/shows/actors.
I lost track of Holler too. Can't say I miss her though. She was a strange one.
I'm glad to know this side of Edison, although I wish it didn't exist. Guess whose biography I'm *not* going to be reading?
"Topsy was originally owned by Forepaugh Circus where she killed a drunken spectator who burned the tip of her trunk with a cigar."
Jesus f'ing Christ!
You can watch it on YouTube, your favorite place for news and views.
No one’s “enjoying” the killing of an elephant. It’s just an historic piece of film footage. Holy crap, chill out with the dramatic chest thumping. Let some hairs grow on it.
And nice job being led to this random page because I posted here.
My point being I wouldn't give it a thumbs up.
Being a woman, I don't want hair on my chest -- so I'll continue to thump it, thanks.
I often click on what's "trending." That's how I got here. It was pure coincidence that you were giving this movie a thumbs up.
And finally, no, I wouldn't watch someone electrocute an elephant if they paid me. I go to YouTube to listen to -- but not watch -- music videos, and occasionally to watch news clips, NOT to watch people torture or kill animals.
I didn’t give this a thumbs up.
I put a comment on the page, which made it appear to trend. There was no coincidence -- my comment made it appear in the list of recently updated pages... and you clicked on the title out of morbid curiosity.
> morbid curiosity...
That's why I'm here... Moving on!
Anyway, nowadays an elephant like Topsy would have been put down, because she killed a spectator.
Instead they sold her to a Luna Park and there she still had an "attitude problem".
So they decided to kill her.
Being the greedy fucks they were they wanted to put on a big show and hang her, but the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals prevented them to do so. So she was poisoned, electrocuted, and strangled in front of a bunch of guests and journalists. Sad thing is, she died from the electrocution.
Also, guess who took this footage? The Edison Manufacturing movie company.
(Wikipedia is a wonderful thing.)
So anyway, I know you didn't give it a thumbs up, but Destinata is allowed to be pissed. This is plain animal cruelty.
Destinata can be pissed, but she’s just showing off -- virtue signaling. “allowed to be pissed” -- yeah no shit. Stop being patronizing, and consider maybe there is an actual reason why I would be talking to Destinata the way I was.
And yeah, we know about the story -- no need to “guess who” etc. If you see the film you know. If you comment here, you already know what the film is -- except for the people just clicking on this title because it came up in their feed. So no need to narrate the story to me or be sarcastic about Wikipedia. Jesus Christ, try to put two and two together.
I just love your passive-aggressive attitude :-)
See ya.
"And yeah, we know about the story -- no need to 'guess who' etc. If you see the film you know. If you comment here, you already know what the film is -- except for the people just clicking on this title because it came up in their feed. So no need to narrate the story to me or be sarcastic about Wikipedia. Jesus Christ, try to put two and two together."
He was perfectly polite and didn't deserve a word of that. He gave you the mildest of criticisms and you go off on him like he'd just run over your dog. It's hard to get people to believe there's a "reason" why you talk to me this way when you talked to him the same way, if not worse.
BTW, if "Great Classic Flick!" isn't a thumbs up, I don't know what it is. Understand that most people won't read what you wrote about the electrocution of an elephant after a title like that.
I don’t appreciate being patronized. There is a bizarre tendency among some posters to make verbose posts explaining things to people that should be obvious—things that the people that are having the stuff explained to already know or else they wouldn’t be here. If someone’s posting about a movie, and if they haven’t said otherwise, a good rule of thumb is to assume they’ve seen the movie and know the basics about it already. The only thing that confused it was your own clueless posting, which opened the door to Traveler to think the people here were generally clueless. Both of you were duped: You by your need to jump into situations and moralize, and Traveler by your post that missed the whole point of this movie.
And because I won’t patronize you, I won’t explain what satire is. Suffice it to say, my post entitled “Great Classic Flick!” was not an endorsement of the killing of the elephant. The fact that you saw this title in the “trending” feed and felt compelled to randomly share your moral objection to killing elephants is laughable. And Traveler’s naive and patronizing (however unintentional) defense of your “right” to share that moral objection (as if the right was ever in question) was also laughable. I laughed at both and I’m still laughing. End of.
He didn't strike me as patronizing. He struck me as polite. You strike me as a little too eager to find fault and lash out at people.
I hesitate to point out the obvious since you seem to think you're master of it, but there are an outrageous number of people on the Internet who honestly think things like electrocuting an elephant is an okay concept. As Catbookss pointed out, there are people out there who even get off on it. You seem to walk through life thinking everyone is just going to KNOW about you, exactly how you really feel, and that simply isn't the case.
You assume some things that you shouldn't, and you don't assume some things that you should. A thousand pardons for not being able to read your mind from the title of your post to know you really didn't mean that title like it sounded. Everyone else knows exactly who you are and exactly what your real feelings are on the subject. After all, who would doubt that you and your views are that well-known? Certainly not you and your size 99 head.
Now get all ticked off on the patronizing condescension, but if you were smart enough, you'd know you'd earned it. In spades.
"Also, guess who took this footage? The Edison Manufacturing movie company." I know. Edison enjoyed filming his atrocities.
"Destinata is allowed to be pissed. This is plain animal cruelty." Thank you. It is.
I'm not sure what gave me the impression he was giving this a thumbs up, but I'll go back to his original comment to see. Not all "thumbs ups" mean they think it's morally good. A lot of critics loved Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," but they didn't endorse what she was propagandizing. They just thought she'd done a good job of it.
ETA: It was his title. I didn't read his post. The title was, "Great Classic Flick!" It's easy to mistake that for a "thumbs up."
Glad to hear you're not "enjoying" the killing of an elephant.
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