“So I am old enough that when I was a senior in high school, I worked at Starbucks.”

This is always my first impulse in hearing about or seeing these situations. But really think about it. You think people like this are ONLY abusive to servers? Picture what it’s like actually being a family member or coworker of theirs. Now tell me the server’s hour of misery is worth more than the weeks of misery…

the teenager who took part

Good thing you kept him anonymous while publicly shaming him.

Wow, blast from the past. This was one of the very first stupid arguments I had in the Gawker universe. You could keep reading if you wanted, but it doesn't get any better.

I'm trying to tell you that it's wrong to use idol and mascot interchangeably. When people in either culture say "mascot" (or ゆるきゃら or マスコット as they case may be), this is what they mean:

Idol does not mean mascot, not in English nor in Japanese.

Let's focus on the only substantial claim you make:

Or you could just stop metastasizing the discussion to escape defending your own points, and stick to the actual topic at hand. Sure, there are relevant criticisms of my tone here. Those are tertiary points that take us away from what we're actually talking about, though — not refutations of my initial criticisms of…

Your points are all valid, but your tone is unjustified. Serpenz never said "no one," and reading the comment to be a universal statement about all humans everywhere seems deliberately exaggerated or just sloppily interpreted. And in the very next comment Serpenz clarified unambiguously that he/she was talking about…

Lonely at the top there, eh?

That doesn't at all sound like something someone would say when they've noticed they're in the middle of doing something totally irrational and need a way to slip out without feeling like they're doing something insanely stupid. Do go on.

This is what you initiated this argument to do?

Amazing.

Because only one of us has absolutely nothing of substance to say, and she's already said lots of nothing. Bitch, you don't like me or the things I have to say? I'm perfectly okay with that. I just want to make sure you leane knowing that I've noticed you have nothing to say. and you didn't even when you picked this…

Any time you're ready to stop, there.

Sunday already where I am, with a typhoon, but yeah, vaguely passive aggressive fake nicety right back at you, with a creepily-intimate-in-an-unwelcome-way pet name on top!

Yawn. Okay. I guess we're done here then.

This is a perfect example of why we can't have an actual discussion about this.

Did you have this education in schools? Obviously not, or you wouldn't be arguing for it, because it would already exist and be a given. And yet you have the information still somehow. You're a walking refutation of your own argument.