Serious question (which I DO actually get to, eventually):

People here frequently fling turds at each other over petty minutia. This is by no means unique to LGF. I’d wager that every website that allows readers to comment experiences a similar phenomenon. I’ve seen it on forums devoted to sci-fi literature (some of the most heated bitch-fests have to do with whether a particular work is Real Science Fiction or not). I’ve seen it on forums and mailing lists devoted to extremely esoteric computer-related stuff (read any forum or mailing list pertaining to OpenBSD). I’ve seen discussions about chili peppers suddenly devolve into apparently serious, murder-threatening arguments over whether Quebec should be part of Canada.

I think that the human species is just generally fucked up.

But I wonder - is spewing this shit on various internet forums a release valve, or is it kindling the crazyfire? I definitely use the internet as a release valve. I spew my dumbest and most useless brainquakes into it. Sometimes I whine and cry about how hard I have it, having been born a white man in the world’s richest country. But once I close the last browser tab, I’m over it. I can get all dumbassed-up in a forum thread, but it doesn’t carry over offline.

How does this work for others? If you had an Internet Argument that day, do you go to bed still worrying about it? Does a thread full of stuff that you personally find egregious affect you beyond the confines of the thread itself? I can easily understand how someone could be affected in such a way, and I can think of some reasons that it could be valuable - please don’t think I’m implying that “letting it go” is better than “hanging onto it”.

I’m just curious. If you spend a good couple or three hours trading invective with someone, how does it affect you after you log off?