re: #85 BigPapa

WTF is the matter with people? Absolutely insane.

Psychological issues.

I’m not speaking about them in particular, but of a general kind of pathology that the net enables. It’s an offshoot of organisational or group psychology, in a way.
The anonymity makes it possible for some people to really cut loose in a way they never would in real life. Everyone has seen that; the general manifestation is the vicious troll who says terrible things online but is a quiet, picked upon person in his real life, or a relatively nice one (presumably).

Something very freaky happens in web communities, though. People start assuming they ‘know’ someone, or what someone is like, and the distance and anonymity make it possible for them to project all kinds of fantasies onto that person. Often they’re rage-filled fantasies. How often does anyone see (or get) a completely inappropriate, highly personalised, vitriolic response — for no real reason?

And as for what happens here…it’s extremely strange, to be sure, but something like it happens in many web communities. Extremely inappropriate feelings of attachment to the host. Bizarre reactions of rage when banned or blocked.

In the comments I’ve been sent from teh Village of the Banned, a common theme seems to be moaning about how ‘unfair’ it is to be banned, and how ‘unfair’ it is ‘not to have a chance to defend myself or respond’.
That is some seriously messed up response there. It’s a huge internet. Start your own damn blog if you have something to say.
And this notion of ‘defending myself’…how strange is that? It’s an internet persona, not one’s real life. But too many are deeply invested in that persona, to the exclusion of real life, and are using it to work out unresolved issues.

This is a wideopen field for psych research by the way, and I know a couple of people working on papers/dissertations about it. Fascinating, if appalling.