I’ve posted quite a bit on here since I created my account, posts I consider non-controversial, since I’m not interested in arguing or getting into heated topics like politics. Even so, I still get the occasional snarky comment. Out of curiosity, I sometimes check the person’s post history when I see something like that, and without fail, their profile is full of snarky, negative, or hateful posts overall. It always makes me wonder: do people like this genuinely get enjoyment from surrounding themselves with negativity? What’s the thought process behind it?
I think it’s the same as with being toxic irl. I would guess it’s a sort of revenge against society that has hated these people for doing something before. Or maybe people feel injustice when others do what they can’t. Sometimes, your peaceful opinion might be an attack for somebody if it represents something they fight. It also may make these people feel less helpless and more self-worthy, i.e. compensate for the hate they’ve received themselves. Trauma, to put it simply
do people like this genuinely get enjoyment from surrounding themselves with negativity?
it’s an emotional outlet. they can’t regulate their emotions without lashing out. I just block people that don’t know how to get along well with others.
You guys, make sure to upvote Abbadon above, but don’t respond to him. It will drive him absolutely CRAZY.
Who?
WHY WON’T YOU TALK TO ME?!! I NEED ATTENTION!!!
Or they’re regulating their emotions all the time and use a pseudonymous message board to vent.
It’s not regulation if they are hateful. It’s abuse.
They get their Russian payments.
Why would a country from the other side of the globe care about quite a niche social network that isn’t present in their cultural bubble?
They are definitely trolls, paid or not. But I suspect you are correct. Causing Americans not to have a place to enjoy or feel comfortable in, has worked quite well to cause division. I have sources, but I don’t feel like digging them out right now. Hey trolls, if you dare me to, you’ll be sorry *because the material opens people’s eyes.
I wouldn’t read that far into it. American defaultism is such an omnipresent phenomenon across most of the popular internet, it feels like most places are catered to Americans in some capacity.
What I can sympathize with are the communities that restrict US politics, or politics in general. Other than the echo chamber/circlejerk nature of it, it often just becomes an anxiety-inducing spiral into nothingness that sometimes people, American or otherwise, just want a break from. Because it’s already everywhere else.
There are 100% paid trolls out to cause as much disruption as possible, this has been repeatedly and reliably documented. This is a fact, not conspiracy.
Is every single asshole you meet a paid troll? No, that’s highly unlikely, but it is absolutely true that there are campaigns run by governments and corporations to astroturf all sorts of shit from elections to what products you buy.
The Alt-Right Playbook: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
- Astroturfing Information Megathread- revision 8 (old-reddit link)
- Link within previous thread and archived- “Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream – people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people, or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).”
- Russia and the Menace of Unreality-How Vladimir Putin is revolutionizing information warfare
- Russia is using the power of ‘Black PR’ to destroy political reputations and spread disinformation in the West
- The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias
- What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán Understand About Your Brain-Why do some people who support Trump also wind up believing conspiracy theories? There’s a scientific explanation for that.
- Political Misinformation Game: Harmony Square-it’s an actual game
- Max Fisher on How Silicon Valley Has Rewired Our Brains | Offline Podcast
- Amygdala hijack occurs when strong emotions “take over” the thinking part of your brain.
- Asch conformity experiments
- Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services
- It’s My Right to Hold This Turd
- 5 studies about fact-checking you may have missed last month
- This Video Will Make You Angry
I’m not saying astroturfing doesn’t exist, just questioning the idea that Americans are being left without a place to enjoy or feel comfortable in. If anything, I see astroturfing doing more of the opposite, shoving the American propaganda machine into every crevice it can. Which “coincidentally” happens to align well with Russian interests, too.
The whole point of making american politics omnipresent is to make it uncomfortable. The american right lives or dies by its ability to make its audience fearful and angry, to channel those uncomfortable feelings into either infighting or apathy, and to reinforce those feelings constantly. It’s not designed to make americans feel comfortable even if it reinforces already held beliefs. It’s supposed to keep people off-balance.
just questioning the idea that Americans are being left without a place to enjoy or feel comfortable in.
You’re just questioning the idea, eh? The “American propaganda machine” is the right wing who coincidentally aligns with Russia and the Russian mob for decades.
Yes, the right wing who goes out of their way to make the internet feel as “America First” as possible, that’s what I said. Again I ask, how does that not make Americans feel comfortable in online spaces? Unless you’re referring to one of the “wrong” kinds of Americans that the right-wing doesn’t approve of, I suppose.
How do we make sure the Americans don’t have a place to enjoy or feel comfortable in?
So, you’re admitting you’re a troll? Interesting.
Nope. Just don’t like Americans.
What country are you from?
Canada, why?
Okay, that makes sense. lol. If you’re Canada, Mexico, Greenland, or Ukraine, you get a pass.
Affirmation.
They’re generally desperately insecure and unable to find anything of any value in themselves, so since they can’t build themselves up, they try to tear other people down.
And it doesn’t work very well, so if they come to depend on it, they have to do it virtually nonstop.
Well said! I think it’s like jealousy. You destroy those who are better than you to be closer to the top.
I mean I have always been sarcastic and I can be snarky without really meaning anything mean about it. although not all my comments are snarky.
Sure pal
Is this comment snarky?
I don’t know anymore.
Recreational word sayer is the preferred term (by me lol)
It’s all egotistical and to appease what social insecurity that they have against anyone. Some entitled users, think they’re disrupting some status quo they believe that they see, so they think that being an asshole, they’re disrupting it and ‘making it better’. It’s all arbitrary bullshit.
dopamine
Hate is easy.
There are a lot of reasons for this. Some people never learned how to manage their emotions or how to disagree in a mature manner. A lot of people feel frustrated, angry and powerless in their everyday lives, so being nasty to others online provides a weird sort of catharsis for them. Others simply never acquired the necessary social skills to successfully function in society to any significant degree. Still others are narcissists who derive feelings of power from making others feel small. The list goes on and on.
It also works on the flip side. Lots of immature people think anything they find disagreeable is awful and anyone who challenges them is hateful.
Like telling a child that candy is bad for them and they can’t have it for dinner. Usually the child doesn’t go ‘gee thanks mom, you are right.’ They throw a tantrum and ask why their parents are so mean and awful to them.
I legit know a few people who seek conflict in any and every situation. Always baffled me. I think maybe they’re in constant fear or smth.
People often focus their anger at anything but its object to avoid feeling impotent… you know, like when people are having a bad day and thsy snap at something random.
Edit: it’s a power thing… you know, “if i can torture/correct/make fun of internet randos then i am not completely powerless, which is what i fear because i feel i have no power over that thing that actually hurts me. I hurt people to feel control over a hostile life.”
yeah. this is common with road rage incidents. person takes out their latent rage about something else on someone who isn’t driving fast enough or something
I think some people feel alone and helpless; life can be really cruel to some people and if you’ve been brought up in an environment of constant negativity, perhaps neglect, and you don’t have much of a support network then it isn’t always obvious that there’s an alternative.
I don’t know that anyone really gets enjoyment from expressing constant negativity, but it could be a symptom of depression or similar.
Being angry is a very easy to access motivated place. I suspect some of the nastier folks just aren’t good at motivating themselves otherwise
Dopamine.
As someone who had a phase where my day consisted of saying snarky stuff to stupid people on a forum known for stupid people, its about your self worth being so bad that you start seeing others as subhuman for not knowing such a basic thing
At the time, I was not sure if I would pass high school, and since I needed the degree for the thing I want to study (system integration), I was pretty much suicidal, although only passively/only wanting to jump off of a bridge, not doing it
And since my self worth was already zero, I saw others who knew even less as the unsaveable bottom of humanity
some miserable people think they’ll feel better if they make everyone around them miserable too. most of the time they don’t, as evidenced by the fact that they incessantly keep up with the bullshit. of course, yes, there are complete psychopaths who genuinely enjoy putting the whole world down. best to just avoid/ignore/block them
