You're spot on about the missing context and the all talking at cross purposes that's arising from it on this thread.
But I'd also like to suggest that perhaps you're also miss a really key piece of context here. And this speaks to what I'm trying to tease out of this thread (gently, I hope) - which is that "defensiveness" really isn't invoked *because* some of us here are actually the greasy slavering marketing-brainwashed drones forever being implied, but that it arises instead from precisely the ad-hominem in this accusation.
And one of the merits of this thread is the transpancy which which it demonstrates the larger phenomenon that complaining about SF marketing on vi-c can't ever seem to ever stop with saying, "this isn't my thing", or "I feel it's hyperbolic", or "I don't really like these libraries", or "I have technical issues with the player" or "You know, I really need my trombones to go louder" or "I loath scandanavian minimalism", or even "people who like flauntanto suck".
Because of course, the thread starts with perfectly reasonably critiques of marketing - all perfectly valid critiques, many of which I share. No problem.
But then, the pile begins to emerge. And it's no longer enough to express personal critique or even distain for the marketing.
And slowly, comments start to project this distain not merely on the specific marketing being critiqued, but on anyone who has a different exprerience.
Seriously, read through this thread through the lens of not someone like yourself who's pretty vocal about not caring about SF libraries and the aesthetic spaces they open (which, needless to say, I totally respect), but instead someone who maybe has a dozen or so SF libraries and really loves most of them. And though this lies perhaps you can see a lot of the posts on this thread really can't help but being read as pile on of insult after insult.
Of course, slowly at first. With, I'm sure, perfectly unintentional implications and innuendo that of people who don't share the superior taste in libraries of the poster, and consequent distain for a particular style of marketing are mindless suckers, must therefore be brainwashed by marketing.
But then, as is the nature of such pile-ons, the moment builds as posters become more and more comfortable in make this project element of their attacks more and more explicit. Util people who aren't sufficiently contemptuous of marketing and maybe even actually really like SF libraries become "greasy" and "slathering" and "sock puppets" and "astroturfing" and "sycophants".
So I'm dramatizing a bit for clarity ( but, honestly, only a very liitle bit). And seriously, it's the internet, I'm not going to loose sleep over any of this.
But I do think it's worth trying to forground this dyanmic bit. Because, honestly, taken as a whole, and read though this lens, this thread actually contains some of the most vicious and toxic and personal attacks on a certain membership of this community that I've seen.
And note also that, when viewed through this lens - though I'm certain with no ill intentions - your above risks adding to this pile on with the accusation of "aggressively defensive".
Let me explain ...
Now first, I'm aware that I've been stirring the pot on this thread a little bit here. But I hope that it's clear that I'm really not trying to create conflict, but to understand the dyanams And equally clear that neither am I a "greasy" "slavering" "sock puppet" automaton expressing a mindless automaton corporate drone loyalty towards SF or any other corporate entity.
But I do think that the community as a whole might benefit from understanding how these dynamics quietly evolve into a space where these kinds of insults and personal attacks somehow becomes acceptable.
On the whole, the has been a (mostly) civil and restrained thread. But in general what happens on such threads, is that eventually someone will take offence at what are a stream of undeniable - though often somewhat submerged undeniable insults. And ... restrain will fail and they'll hit back - and we all know the toxic death spiral that invariably ensues.
And while I think it's perfectly legitimate for a certain portion of the community to take a very genuine offence at quite a lot of what's going on on this thread, this dynamic is very often submerged, and indeed many of the insults genuinely unintended.
And perhaps ... if we could just foreground it and discuss it a bit more clearly and respectfully, we'd all be a lot better off?
So again, I think you're absolutely right about the conflations and cross purposes of this thread in general.
But can I offer in particular - and in the interests of developing some resources in understanding the dynamics of and *avoiding* the ensuing toxic death spirals (and get back to discussion about actual music in which we can again benefit from our diversity of perspectives) - that while you're also right about the phenomenon of "aggressive defensiveness", the context that's missing is origin of this defensiveness. In fact, your post risks performing - unintentionally I'm certain - precisely the underlying sleight-of-hand that triggers this "aggressive defensiveness".
Here's what I think is the basic conflation:
If we try to empathize with each other's perspective here, I think we can agree that there are two distinct possible sources of this "aggressive defensiveness":
Theory 1. So first, we have allegations that a certain segment of the vi-c community are "sycophantic", "greasy" "slathering" "astroturfing" "sockpuppets", and generally corporate drones, also described (on other threads) by non SF enthusiasts as "fucking prick" which no valid critical opinions beyond theory mindless defence of "Daddy Spitfire". And of course also "aggressively defensive".
Theory 2. And then we have an alternate perception of this same segment of the vi-c community as people who ... well, just really not any of these things. But just people who's tragic flaws are really nothing more that really loving flautando.
Except that, well yeah, maybe they're a bit defensive sometimes.
And yeah, now that you mention it, I think you're probably right that they're maybe even sometimes the veer into the "aggressively defensive". Notably when hitting back at the sheer volume and viscousness of such slurs implicit or explicit in theory 1.
So what I'd really like to suggest here is that you're absolutely right that there's an aggressive defensive that sometime emerges on this kind of thread that is deeply unhelpful and that should be discouraged.
But at the same time, it's very important to not conflate :
a) an "agressiven defensiveness" arising from the ... lets call them the "flautando-positive" segment of the vi-c community ... arises because as people, they actually are the horrendous pieces of shit sorry excuses for human beings that Theory 1 describes them as being.
and
b) an "aggressive defensiveness" that arises not because the flautando-positive segment actually are the kind of people described in theory 1, but because theory 1 is really just aggressively offensive ad hominem.
Obviously, I'm dramatizing a bit for effect here.
And either way, I don't in suport this "aggressive defensiveness" that you observe any more that I condone the of slurs that triggers it.
We need to find a way to stop both.
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