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What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 6:07 pm
I have been called some incredibly hurtful things on the web. Mostly on Facebook. Probably because when you engage someone in a debate attempting to use logic they do this thing where they sift through your Facebook profile to find a "flaw" in you because they have no other arguments. This is one of the reasons I don't engage people anymore on Facebook. No matter how idiotic of a statement they have made.
For instance, today I made statement that angered those raging patriots on Facebook. And boy, the nastiness sure comes out. It was like a shark feeding frenzy.
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 6:10 pm
It's the "anonymity" angle. It allows for one to act differently online than one would in real life.
But your situation is more akin to overly zealous patriotism; those people just need to get their priorities straightened.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Relative anonymity and distance.
Now move along poopy head.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 7:08 pm
I remember the first thing I ever did on an internet chatroom, and probably the first thing I ever communicated to another country through the internet was type "hey dickhead" to a random american man and I sat there laughing my head off with my friend when he replied with "hey what's your problem?". I think I was 13 or something at the time.
But anyway to get onto the question, I think there's different levels and reasons. In cases like my situation when I was 13, some people are immature and the internet is new to them and calling someone in another country a dickhead is the funniest thing ever.
In other more severe cases I think it can be because there's a lot of people out there with mental disorders, to simply just people who are fucked in the head who want to cause people suffering.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 7:39 pm
Anonymity and untouchability makes people feel much braver than they should be. well, near untouchability. You screw up bad enough on the internet, and anonymous will find you.
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 7:41 pm
(This post was last modified: October 23, 2017 at 7:42 pm by Foxaèr.)
(October 23, 2017 at 7:08 pm)paulpablo Wrote: I remember the first thing I ever did on an internet chatroom, and probably the first thing I ever communicated to another country through the internet was type "hey dickhead" to a random american man and I sat there laughing my head off with my friend when he replied with "hey what's your problem?". I think I was 13 or something at the time.
But anyway to get onto the question, I think there's different levels and reasons. In cases like my situation when I was 13, some people are immature and the internet is new to them and calling someone in another country a dickhead is the funniest thing ever.
In other more severe cases I think it can be because there's a lot of people out there with mental disorders, to simply just people who are fucked in the head who want to cause people suffering.
My first experience with the internet was as a teenager in high school, and it was on a Dawson's Creek forum, because that was the show everyone was watching back then.
I remember reading some of the comments and thinking, "Oh, this is fun".
My first experience with the internet made me a life-long addict.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 7:58 pm
To the OP: you suck.
<insert profound quote here>
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RE: What is it that makes people so mean on the internet?
October 23, 2017 at 8:04 pm
I went through a phase on BevNET years ago, which was a site I actually did like, and went by "Hans", and would respond to anything by taking a thing of text in English, running it through Google to some other language: Hebrew, Icelandic, Urdu...anything. And then running it back. And then picking out the untranslated stuff and weird punctuation so that is sounded kind of like a word salad, I guess.
Some people actually found it hilarious, but it pissed off others. I guess I just enjoyed the attention.
But then the other day I used my insta to very simply complement somebody on a modeling pic, and she completely ripped me apart. It could have been that everybody following her was a personal friend, and I'm not. Or she could have been having a bad day. Or she might have been writing into what I said. Or it could have been me, but I was kind of taken aback.
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
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