why are people online so mean?
I was just reading the latest entry on Atourworst, Apparently Dreamweaver is a time-saving software, and it made me wonder not for the first time why folks online are often mean. On so many sites, I find sneering attitudes from nearly all the posters. If you ever read comments on Digg or Fark, everyone makes fun of everyone else, often harshly. If a person isn’t making ad hominem attacks, they’re completely rebuking your ideas.
On Fark, for example, the comments threads always seem take these stances:
- Christianity is stupid, therefore if you are a Christian, you are stupid;
- Bush is stupid;
- Government is evil;
- Children are worthless; see crotch droppings;
- All celebrities are morons;
- Everyone from Florida is brainless.
And the list goes on. Whether you agree with any of those statements/stereotypes or not is irrelevant; what I’m getting at is that there may be 300 or more comments about a story on Fark, and the majority of them all follow those ideas above. You’ll occasionally get a dissenting opinion, and it’s often more well written than the hundred others surrounding it. It gets ridiculous after a while; you read Digg or Fark comments long enough and you get to where you can predict what any random person will say.
What I want to know is if everyone online is just an asshole. I’ve talked with Todd before why he thinks so many normal people turn into jerks when they get on the Internet, and he and I agree it’s because of the anonymity. Sure, I may know you call yourself Jordan on your web site, but I don’t know if that’s even your real name, let alone if you’re completely making up your online persona. I’m referring to Jordan of Atourworst, who apparently gets enjoyment out of upsetting some other jerk online about Dreamweaver and web development (see the blog entry linked above). I guess I’m just wondering what the point of all of it is.
It seems like all the “e-drama” I find online within the sites at Perfection and Snark is caused by people that use lolcat terminology way too often. By that I mean half their sentences consist of slang like “srsly,” “ZOMG”, “plzkthx”, and other terms used in cat macros. If I find someone trying to point out the flaws in another person’s site or character, I tend to think they’re just in it for the hits if they’re talking like that, as opposed to writing a serious article about something they really believe in.
There’s entirely too much talk of how some random person is being a “complete n00b” and how they’re just ridiculous for using some application/believing whatever/acting a certain way. Have people like Jem, who has a huge following and frequently writes derogatory posts about other online identities and sites, made this sort of thing popular? I’d hate to blame Jem for this trend in its entirety, but I have to think she has a lot to do with it, at least in the little web scene I’m part of.
My theory is that a lot of the bloggers that visit her site try to emulate her, whether they claim to hate her because they received a Pants award or for some other reason, or because they like her writing. Like her or not, I bet a thought running through the mind of her copiers is, “hey, this site gets a lot of hits, maybe if I trash talk everything and present myself as a sassy, sneering grump, I’ll be popular, too!” Not to say that Jem herself is a grump, because she has seemed like a regular person when I’ve spoken to her via email, but on her web site, she certainly presents that same better-than-you attitude. Hell, her site’s motto is “ultimately better than you.”
In real life, you may appreciate someone’s sense of sarcasm, but I doubt you like hanging out with people that are always:
- Complaining about one thing or another;
- Putting you or others down; or
- Taking a scornful attitude toward everything.
If this attitude isn’t appreciated in real life, why is it so often found online? There’s a big disconnect between the common statement of personal bloggers, “I don’t care what people think,” and the reality that, if they didn’t care what others thought, they wouldn’t be posting their opinions, beliefs, and rants in such a public medium as the Internet. It’s as if some of the desirable qualities of a friend in real life are exactly opposite online, or at least some people act like that by portraying themselves as they do.
Maybe the e-drama trend exists for the same reason there are shows like The Soup and Best Week Ever, and blogs like The Superficial: trash talk sells. Those three examples all deal with celebrity scandals, and the hosts/writers mock said celebrities to no end. Anyone who ends up on those pretty much gets lambasted, and a lot of personal sites are like that toward other personal sites. Posting controversial content on your blog will generate comments, too, and it’s nice to get feedback on your ideas. I think a lot of people just try to stir up controversy for the sake of controversy, though, and that gets old after a while.
A lot of it stems from a lack of maturity, too, I think, since so many of the blogs whose owners are the most condescending are all of 15. I was a jaded, grouchy teenager myself, so I can understand how someone who is already pissed off at the world could use their blog as a place to vent about everyone that gets in their way. Then as some people have pointed out, some folks are just assholes, plain and simple, and that carries over into how they act online. It seems like a really jaded, unrealistic view of the world to see the majority of its inhabitants as being mean-spirited, though. I think most people take an indifferent to caring attitude toward others, based on my experience with people around me from different cultures, religions, and geographical regions.
What it comes down to is that a lot of people online, for whatever reason, don’t write civilly. They get hot under their collars and their arguments all show that. It’s like anytime you get on a heated subject, the Internet turns into an epsiode of the Jerry Springer show. Arguments happen all the time in real life, but you’re not perpetually surrounded by people yelling and throwing chairs, so why should the equivalent happen so much online?
Edit: TIME has noticed this trend as well: see their article Post Apocalypse. — 2008-07-13
I don’t know about whether or not people are trying to be like me (pretending to be humble here) but for the record, I’m exactly the same offline – a sarcastic, grumpy twat that’s always complaining about one thing or another – and I’m sure Amelie, Karl or even my boss would be willing to back that up ;)