A-Logs
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PROTIP:
Expressing disdain for Chris following his (alleged) appalling actions against his mother is not the same as A-Logging. A-Logging is still as unadvisable as it was before the leaks; don’t do it.
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“ | What Saddam did in the Gulf War was small potatoes to what Chris has done. | ” |
A-Log providing a helpful example of A-Logging, by comparing Chris to a war criminal. |
“ | He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. | ” |
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil |
A-Logging, named after noted Chris-Chan critic Anthony "A-Log" LoGatto, is a term used to describe the act of overplaying or exaggerating the negative traits of someone lulzy at irrational levels. This often (but not always) includes expressing disproportionate levels of hatred for someone and/or wishing physical harm on them, usually for perceived "crimes" that they are "guilty" of. A-logging also typically involves comparing oneself to someone noticeably lulzy or dysfunctional, and claiming that they're not as incompetent as said lulzy person.
People who are suspected of doing this are often referred to as "A-Logs" or "A-Loggers", and are considered at the other end of the spectrum from white knights; where white knights try to defend Chris from trolls and help him to improve his situation, A-Logs hold the belief that Chris is deserving of whatever scorn and harm he is subjected to, and then some.
While once fashionable, especially when Chris was a relatively new internet phenomenon, A-Logging has become associated with people trying to "trollshield" themselves, like the original A-Log, and therefore is looked down upon by Christorians. The shocking revelations that came to light during the Incest Saga saw A-Logging come back into vogue to some degree, though actively wishing death or physical harm upon Chris is still considered by many to be crossing the line.
Etymology
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A-Log | |
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Information | |
Name | Anthony Logatto. |
Date of birth | May 8, 1985 |
Gender | Male |
Race | White |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | YouTuber Comedian Voice Actor Podcast Host |
Anthony "A-Log" LoGatto [1] is a YouTuber and "voice actor" who, at the heyday of Chris's classic era, gained infamy for making what can charitably be called "commentaries" on Chris. Commentary videos are meant to refute bad points and offer opinions on an opposing view; what A-Log did was make videos where he reacted to Chris, pointed out the obvious, and went on tangents about how Chris is an awful person (and how he, A-Log, is better) who needs to have harm inflicted upon him. However, A-Log's monomania led trolls to wonder what he was trying to hide, leading to them doing a bit of research on him.
The result was that A-Log became known as "Chris-Chan 2.0" because, as it happened, he had many, many faults similar to Chris himself, and could easily be considered worse than Chris. Among other things, he is a furry porn connoisseur, has made terrible erotic fanfiction, is doing a laughable college radio show (from which he was almost fired after being caught watching porn in the studio), was the subject of a leaked video of him doing a painfully bad stand-up routine, and much, much more. Ultimately, A-Log became subject to trolling himself, and is the inspiration for this very term. At one point, A-Log even received his own wiki called the "Logattopedia"[2], which was relatively short-lived and unpopular. He also spawned the phrase "Hi, A-Log!", used to mock A-Logs and other Internet "tough guys".
Types of A-Logs
There are a few types of A-Logs, and many of their behaviors can be seen in the original A-Log's commentaries.
Trollshielders
Often times, people who A-Log Chris do so to trollshield, that is, to avoid becoming subject to trolling themselves. Like A-Log himself, they tend to have many traits in common with Chris; they generally have an autism spectrum disorder, still live with their parents well into adulthood (which is somewhat more justified now due to the instability of the housing market in the United States compared to when Chris graduated), are unemployed and/or are living off welfare, are sexually-frustrated virgins, have trouble socializing and forming relationships, and/or are fixated on cartoons, toys and other things that most people their age would have little interest in beyond their nostalgic value. Some perhaps have even more faults than Chris, especially bizarre fetishes, as seen in the case of A-Log himself. However, A-Logs will argue that at least they are "not like Chris" and are fervent in their vitriolic condemnations of Chris so that people don't troll them instead. More often than not, as in the case of the original A-Log, this backfires and they find themselves becoming the subject of trolling.
Anti-Devotees
Anti-Devotees are those who view Chris or other lolcows as a sort of "anti-role model", serving as a kind of "guide" on how one should not live their life. As the saying goes, it's good to learn from the mistakes of others, so trying to avoid doing what lolcows do appears to be a good idea in practice. However, this only works in moderation, and requires some degree of humility to pull off properly. Otherwise it snowballs into exaggerating his bad traits and the person becomes a flavor of Warrior.
Intimidators
Intimidators are those that people usually associate with the term "A-Logging"; those that wish harm on Chris or believe that he deserves the worst. While Chris is definitely not a good person and has done some horrible things, including cursing his ex-friend for trolling him (which of course, she didn't), hitting a game store owner with his car, macing an innocent Gamestop assistant manager, and having sex with his own mother, it is still somewhat ironic that A-Logs think the best recourse is to wish him death and curse him back. Not to mention, they tend to ignore the many factors that led Chris to behave in this way--unsurprisingly, unbridled malevolence is never one of them, as discussed in further detail below.
Some would argue that it is sinister and just plain wrong to mock a mentally deficient person such as Chris. A-Logs therefore try to justify trolling him by arguing that, regardless of his autism and other undiagnosed problems, he has shown that he is a bad person who "deserves" to be trolled. Some A-Logs are themselves autistic (or at least claim to be so), and they can often be heard making arguments along the lines of Chris "giving autistics a bad name." Others will appeal to his many instances of bigotry (most of them debatable) as reasons to troll Chris. By establishing that Chris is a bad person, it seems to justify that Chris not only deserves the treatment he currently receives, but also deserves physical and/or psychological harm inflicted on him.
Warriors
Another type of A-Logs are Warriors. These promote the idea that bashing Chris is somehow to the benefit for marginalized groups that Chris is a part of, most notably autistic and transgender people. The argument behind this, in an A-Logger's eyes, is that it needs to be pointed out that Chris does not provide an accurate representation of those kinds of people and their communities, and that as such, he needs to be ostracized. Of course, doing so is to little benefit of the groups that are actively being oppressed and instead comes across as a flimsy excuse to aim at low-hanging fruit rather than to do something genuinely worthwhile to helping those kinds of communities. It should go without saying that making fun of or directly harassing a mentally-ill weirdo on the internet is not going to help anyone's cause.
Arguments against A-Logging
While Chris is, to put it very mildly, far from perfect, it is generally accepted that calling for him to be harmed or abused like A-Logs do merely legitimizes Chris's sense of victimization, and makes the A-Logs themselves look sociopathic and unbalanced.
Chris is not a Hitler-level monster
We really shouldn't need to point out that, while Chris is guilty of actions that could be considered foolish, immoral, or downright reprehensible, being compared to people like Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein is at best hyperbolic, and at worst, utter insanity. Hitler was responsible for the death of nearly 11 million civilians during World War II.[3] Hussein actively persecuted and murdered almost 200,000 Kurds and Shiite Muslims.[4] Chris's antics, depraved as some of them may have been, hardly compare to the atrocities committed by two feared and reviled dictators; for much of his life he was just a gullible idiot who spent his time trying to hit on women (very badly) and make them his sweethearts, crossdressing, and playing vidya.
The revelations relating to the Incest Saga caused many A-Logs, both past and present, to crow that they had been right about Chris all along, and that anyone who had defended or tried to aid Chris to any degree during the past decade-and-a-half was guilty of White Knighting him and enabling his actions. While we won't argue that Chris's actions towards his infirm mother are totally indefensible, it should be noted that Chris's prior criminal activities largely consisted of things such as public disorder, traffic violations, trespassing, and petty assault. Arguably the worst thing that he had previously done was his hit-and-run on Michael Snyder, and even then, the court appeared to view Barb as the primary guilty party in the whole affair, judging by her getting the heavier sentence of the two. It's no exaggeration to say that there's a massive leap in severity between any of Chris's prior crimes and what he is currently accused of, and while many Christorians may have been naive as to the extent of his depravity, A-Logs can hardly use actions no-one could have reasonably foreseen as justification for their behavior.
There's no legal defense over attacking Chris for real
We really should not need to tell you that inflicting, or threatening to inflict harm on Chris is nothing short of being illegal. Perhaps the best reason against A-Logging is the legal liability (i.e. being charged with and possibly convicted for stalking, terroristic threats, assault, or a myriad of other possible charges). Whatever feelings you may have against Chris, there is no legal defense for taking the law into your own hands, and chances are you will end up with a life-changing felony conviction. In addition to this, part of the charm of watching Chris is in his eternal rage over a nonexistent enemy. Committing actual violence would only legitimize Chris's victim complex, and likewise would, in such a circumstance, make you the villain.
Like A-Log, you can make yourself a target if you try too hard
Chris does share traits with a lot of people, and some of these traits are quite disturbing and embarrassing. It's a fair assumption that a lot of people who follow Chris's antics are unemployed losers on the internet, for example. A lot of people have seen Chris and uttered in their minds "Finally, here's someone who's more pathetic than I am!"... But make no mistake, that is a very low bar to clear. If you extensively go into how much you hate Chris and try to insert yourself into his shenanigans, the same people that you're attempting to impress will likely consider looking into your own shortcomings.
As much as Chris is far from being likable, responding to his every move with unconditional hatred can make you come off as being just as much a target, if not more so, than him. Saying that you are better than Chris is not at all impressive, especially when you take into consideration just how much Chris fails at everything he does. Therefore, you should not be using someone else’s character flaws in order to justify and excuse your own. This is especially true if that very same person has no bearing on your life as a whole, and are only comparing yourself to a relatively well-known lolcow to feel a little less shitty in comparison.
Before you fall into the fallacy of believing that vociferously condemning Chris will save you from his fate, remember that having embarrassing traits like Chris's doesn't automatically make you subject to the sort of trolling Chris has had. It may make you subject to ridicule, but what's more important is how you respond to the ridicule. You could be like Chris and get BLANGRY at every traitorous troll under lucricities, and give the trolls power over you just like Chris did. Or you could laugh with them at your faults, or even just ignore them and go about your business. Trolls generally aren't interested in people they can't coax a reaction out of. All in all, if you don't want to end up like him, A-Logging isn't the way to do it. But avoiding the myriad of mistakes Chris and A-Log made is.
Chris has stopped worrying about the hate he gets
Chris is too busy entertaining fantasies of godhood and the totally-real Dimensional Merge to pay attention to tryhards who want to be remembered as the next Clyde Cash; and, really, wanting to be remembered as someone who attempted to intimidate a disabled person is absolutely nothing to be proud of, or worth aspiring to. Chris will be too distracted by the latest drama or monetary issue in his life to even pay attention to people who are obsessively angry with him, and even assuming that you actually get attention, there's little guarantee that you'd be able to engage with him on a long-term basis.
What's ironic is that Chris has been so desensitized by his many enablers that it's not likely he even cares about the amount of hatred he receives by A-logs on a daily basis. Therefore, A-logs are often considered some of the most lulz-worthy of the Quintet, particularly in the regard of them obsessively raging at a practically non-existent enemy and only succeeding in making themselves even more of a laughing stock; much the same as what happened with classic-era Chris against his own trolls. If whatever Chris does really bothers you, then the least you can do is calm your ass down, and try to avoid making a fool of yourself from your obsessive hatred. Otherwise, you could easily become "Chris Chan 4.0" yourself.
Being better than Chris is not and never has been an achievement
As mentioned earlier, the incest allegations (and accompanying embezzlement of approximately $750 from Barb) are now considered by many the point where Chris crossed the line from being a buffoonish, sometimes morally-questionable but mostly harmless individual, to someone truly detestable and indefensible. By that same logic, however; trying to aggrandize one's self by A-Logging Chris is even more of a waste of time than it was previously, to the point where it will have exactly the opposite effect. Trying to make yourself look better by comparing yourself to a fat, anger-prone manchild with incontinence issues and elementary school-level drawing skills well into adulthood is the kind of juxtaposition that always rung hollow at best, but saying you're better than an incestuous sex criminal with a nose-diving grip on reality and close to four decades' worth of unsavory information to his name is something so pathetic, it can only make anyone attempting it look laughably insecure.
The Hall of A-Logging Shame
In this section, the CWCki has compiled several comments (and plenty more to come) from A-Logs on YouTube and elsewhere.
ExpandHall of A-Logging Shame |
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See also
- Weening, another type of failed trolling, and a key aspect of A-Logging
- Michael Hirtes, a prominent A-Log
- Isabella Loretta Janke, an example from 2021 of how A-logging Chris has backfired
References
External links
- Archive of Anthony "A-Log" LoGatto's article on Encyclopedia Dramatica, including a list of similarities to Chris.
- YouTube: The A-Log Archive
- An article from Forces of Geek about A-Log, and a more in-depth look on A-Logging.
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