What is the Mopologetic "skinny-l" Listserve?

[_Mister Scratch]

I have received quite a few PMs as of late from people very curious about this mysterious "skinny-l" listserve. This is an email exchange venue whereby a small group of apologists pass along private email conversations and plot assaults on critics, often with the express intent to mock and ridicule. Here is the tentative way that Prof. Peterson explained "skinny-l", a.k.a. "The Skinny List."

The Skinny list is very small -- roughly ten people, I think -- and is not based at BYU nor even in Utah. It is, in fact, a private little thing run by a friend out of state.

It turns out that this "private little thing" is owned and operated by the notoriously rancorous and foul-tempered apologist named Gary Novak.

[James White--object of Mopologetic ridicule and harassment] knows that SKINNY is not an "intra-BYU list." I own SKINNY. It is run from my ISP and is paid for off of my nickel. It is not associated with BYU other than a few members happen to be employed by BYU. As I write, SKINNY list members live as far away as New Zealand and Israel, but also in Georgia, Colorado, Missouri, Oregon as well as Utah. What is "Dr." White's point? He doesn't have one, except, perhaps, that he does not care for SKINNY.

The quote can be accessed here:

http://www.shields-research.org/Novak/james2.htm

Very interesting, and revealing in terms of who the likely participants are/were. I would guess that, in addition to Lou Midgley, Novak, DCP, and Hamblin, the list also includes Pahoran. I would wonder if Kerry Shirts were also on board.

What is perhaps more important to take note of is the way that "skinny-l" is used. During the exchange between James White and DCP, it became clear the the emails were being passed along among the members of the list. In other exchanged (apparently initiated by DCP), the list was used to boast about the various "exploits" of The Good Professor. There is a good deal of evidence on SHIELDS to suggest that the apologists were trolling the Internet, looking for easy targets to ridicule on their anti-anti-Mormon website. In at least one very ironic instance, one of the recipients of DCP's derision referred to The Good Professor as a "creepy stalker." This incident occurred sometime during the late 1990s.

Ultimately, it is really hard to see how the "l-skinny" served/serves any good, Christian purpose. Then again, as Novak admitted elsewhere "this site [and the "skinny-l"?] is intended to mock you—I am laughing at you." Indeed, I am sure his laughter is echoing all the way up to the Celestial Kingdom.

[Guest]

Great post Scratch. A few days ago I came across a thread at "Times and Seasons" about apologetics and I asked a question regarding "Skinny". I didn't get a response from them. I chalk that up to the difference between that crowd and MAD, who would have choked on their own blood and then banned me over it.

I'll repost it here since you might find it instructive,

Hi guys,

I am an anti-Mormon, I will state that upfront. I found this discussion interesting, and for those who have stated apologetics are usefull if “accompanied by the spirit”, I was wondering, what Mormon publications might fit that bill? For instance, have any of you read the repository of email exchanges at SHIELDS? What goes on is something like this: An “inner-circle” apologist stumbles across an anti-Mormon website (or alternatively, a lay minister or troubled born-again Christian teenager writes a harsh email to an “inner-circle” apologist). The apologist at once drops his routine duties at the Maxwell Institute or other place of employment and trips the “Bat Alert” by firing an an email to a secretive list service known on the clandestine inside as “Skinny L”. At once, whichever senior members of the group can suspend their employment activities or other commitments for a time heed to the higher protocols and set the wheels into motion of an operation that might either be carried out all afternoon or for the next two weeks depending on the resilience of their mark. Simultaneously and tirelessly, these men log into their email accounts and begin typing, “Dr. So-and-So shared with me the following email you wrote, and I’d like to add a few of my own comments…”

As if it were the FROB responding to a single three hundred page book over the course of thousands of pages and endless articles, each single line of the unaware critic’s accusations are responded to in paragraphs by each of the senior members of the operative. Certain matters are corrected at once, belabored in tedious detail the apologists expound upon the definition of a Christian and the doctrine of Faith without works. But these factual corrections are only the beginning and seem hardly to be the ends of the activity, a cooporative competition ensues to see who can respond with the quickest wit and the most biting sarcasm to the critic. One favorite tactic is to move immediately in on the critic’s education level while boasting their own credentials and dropping tidbits on the important engagements they have coming up overseas or the next important paper they have been neglectful in writing. The open fire seems to continue so long as the critic can muster the strength to respond.

But before the smoke even has a chance to clear, the entire corpus of the correspondence from all members engaged in the operation is posted on the website known as SHIELDS. But then oddly, instead of touting the exchange as a proud defense of the religion they love and as a encouragement to discouraged members, it is made clear that none of the exchange had been taken seriously at all and that the entire time, the “A-Team” had been consumed with uncontrolled side-splitting laughter and exaggerated “high-fiving”. Overly concerned that the reader might have mistakenly thought that the apologists considered their activities a worthy use of their time and their correspondence a serious battle in the name of the Lord, it is made clear that their own amusement was the only objective, the ineptitude of their mark is usually prefaced, and a picture of an ape displayed along with slogans like, “Yes, I am laughing at your right now”.

Anyhow, that’s kind of how it goes down, and I was wondering if the spirit was involved with this process?

http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=4602#comments

[_Mister Scratch]

You know, Gadianton, one thing I observed was a strange, almost fetishistic desire among DCP, Novak & et. al. to bait their interlocutors into cursing. That's it. They wanted to get these people to use profanity so that they could then carry on about how superior they all are. Imagine it: So grand! So A-list! All because they don't use the 'S' and 'F' words! Heck, that was the way southern Utahns justified the slaughter of the Fancher train! They were just vulgarians, don't you know?!? Can't you just feel the Spirit???

[_Mercury]

right now, on the news that Scratch is finally on the case of the apologists private newsgroup and email system (probably the latest reincarnation of an old ARCHIE/GOPHER/BBS/EMAIL system) a poor dishevvelled grad student that is handuffed to the radiator in a BYU faculty office building is shaking and bleeding. His particular task tonight is complete, degaussing and running a drillbit through old hard drives that used to service this mysterious "skinny-l" listserve.

Now that the existence of an email and message board system utilized by academics operating as pseudoacademics is common among our small pedantic group, I'm sure the backups are now a liability. Hence the grad student handcuffed to the radiator. You see, hes been done destroying the drives and all the tae backups.

While he was destroying them though, he read the notes that were also burned later. The early messages defending sex with 14 year olds and nibleys massive child porn collection, especially of Martha Beck...that was the real testimony killer.

Daniel opens the door to the small room, smelling like a grease fryer. In his hand was a knife from the archives. It had tasted human flesh before when young men attracted the eye of girls already promised to a second cousin.

Behind him was another grad student, ranting about his colleague knowing too much. He is the son of a GA and as a result is spared for knowing the dark truths and dark arts used to protect the secrets of Mormonism from the world.

He swipes the blade several times on his apron, a tapir emblem now stained with blood. He slits the captive grad students throat and has his tongue buried in the salt lake at the high water marks.

All this because some nosy grad student started asking questions, ANONYMOUSLY, on a message board critical of the church.

Teehee

[_Gadianton]

There are some dark parallels to incidents in Mormon history as you suggest. Funny how this is itself evidence of one of the most base and vulgar human traits there is, I'll call it the Hannibal Lector revenge fantasy. This term refers to the sympathy an audience has for villains like Hannibal, who while vile and evil, strike a chord when transparent, vulgar characters display relatively minor offensiveness and for it suffer horrible, mutilating deaths. This fills a void left by denied vengeance, for everytime a jerk cuts you off on the freeway and doesn't pay for it with a horrible car accident and death. It's really, really sick Scratch.

There is another dark, very dark pscyhological motif going on here too. I don't have a name for it, but it's so dark and sinister that I'm afraid that by revealing this our critics may be too afraid to interact with apologists in the future. Take note of the side-splitting laughter by apologists at all those silly things the critics do - it's so downright amusing! You saw this fristhand when your refcent post was responded to and pinned up at MAD and all the apologists got on to shoot off laughs and one liners like, "Hey, where's my check?" Ha Ha Ha Ha. It's all such a joke. Why don't we go out and rent the Godmakers and watch it for family home evening? And spend the whole night laughing to tears. The critics must have been put on this earth just to amuse us! What a gas!

But Scratch, while it may seem just kind of lame, the truth is this is evidence of the deepest kinds of pathological cult brainwashing. When I was a kid, I was at home sick one day watching Geraldo. This particular episode ended up being a famous one where many high-ranking Scientologists were invited. The discussion was about psychiatry, and Scientology's opposition to it. At the beginning, some relevant and serious criticisms were brought before the Scientologists and you'd just hear this psychotic and forced laughing coming from the crowd. "Oh! That one again! LOL! You really must do better! Haw Haw Haw!" They just couldn't control themselves, the entire episode was filled with these guys just uncontrollably bursting into laughter at any questioning of the religion or inability of the critics to see how stupid Psychiatry is and how important Scientology is. Using extreme laughter and humor to live in denial over serious issues that involve you personally. a true, cult-conditioned mentality.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Skinny-L is a wholly run subsidiary of the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and a vital part of our overall plan to conquer the universe.

[_Mister Scratch]

Skinny-L is a wholly run subsidiary of the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and a vital part of our overall plan to conquer the universe.

No, "Skinny-L" is a repulsively sophomoric forum for you and your pals to yuk it up about your stalking and harassing critics of the Church.

[_CaliforniaKid]

In at least one very ironic instance, one of the recipients of DCP's derision referred to The Good Professor as a "creepy stalker."

lol. That is a bit ironic.

[_christopher]

Skinny-L is a wholly run subsidiary of the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and a vital part of our overall plan to conquer the universe.

What a dick.

I'm not sure what is more pathetic....that you continue to respond to these kind of threads in the manner that you do, or that you hold yourself up as a bishop and academic and yet stay involved in a gossipy listserve.

One would think you could rise above it, but I guess not. From your history I think you get off on it.

Chris <><

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Hilarious! Danny Peterson on a SKINNY list?

Hows that?