Why is internet rage so appealing?

[Burst]

I'd really love to see a proper academic study about this. I've never understood the attraction to just RAGING about everything and anything on the internet, and increasingly in real life too. It can't be just venting, because people are just going out of their way to find things to be disproportionately angry about, especially things that, offline, really probably wouldn't be affecting them that much.

It's sort of like accidentally bumping into someone on the sidewalk---you just excuse yourself, maybe chuckle, and move on, vs accidentally bumping onto someone on the highway. One induces apologies and maybe laughter, one induces disproportionate rampages.

The biggest recent example I can think of is all the Penn State insanity; without making this thread about that, it's not so much about what's right or wrong than just the internet bloodlust; people want to see the place nuked from orbit, the ground salted, extending to the entire state of Pennsylvania to the entire Midwest, depending on who you ask.

I know all about the GIFT, its existence is all too obvious, but seriously, I'm getting sick of the overdone snark, of the rage. It's getting to the point where it's almost making me sick of the internet as a whole just because of how omnipresent it is. It can't be a good thing to be seemingly getting so much ANGRIER as a society, but man, it sure looks like we are.

[RPD88]

I think it might have something to do with you can't behave like that in everyday society, if you said some of the things to people's faces, that has been said online, things won't end up in just a banning or your account getting deleted.

(I know that you can get arrested and even prison time from things said online. I was mainly referring to someone taking exception and handing out an ass beating).

Maybe it is the only way people can vent their frustrations, I'm mainly just thinking out loud here.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

I don't think the Penn State backlash is a good example of overblown rage/snark. Considering the severity and surrealness of the situation, I'm not surprised by people expressing themselves the way they are. Perhaps a slight amount of joking hyperbole can help with how tragic the details are.

Now if we're talking about raging and getting into heated flame wars over a movie being remade, which no one has to see if they so choose, that'd be a great example. It depends on where people's priorities are.

[Burst]

Jul 12, 2012 23:29:40 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

I don't think the Penn State backlash is a good example of overblown rage/snark. Considering the severity and surrealness of the situation, I'm not surprised by people expressing themselves the way they are. Perhaps a slight amount of joking hyperbole can help with how tragic the details are.

Now if we're talking about raging and getting into heated flame wars over a movie being remade, which no one has to see if they so choose, that'd be a great example. It depends on where people's priorities are.

Yeah, in hindsight that wasn't the greatest example, but the desired disproportionate retribution was freshest in my mind, which is probably why I went with it.

But yeah, better example. That, the rage over anything any software company does, the inexplicable hate between fandoms... With wrestling and Nascar alone, I increase my hate potential by like 400% on the 'net as it is...

[Deleted]

I don't think we're getting angrier as a society, it's just that we have a more prominent place to vent that anger. It's better to have pages of pages of people blowing off steam on forums then it is to have people hold all that anger in. And while it may appear that we're raging more irl as well, crime rates are actually lower.

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

Because a mostly anonymous, consequenceless forum to vent frustrations often turns people into overblown cartoons. Things that people wouldn't normally discuss/get genuinely pissed off about in a billion years suddenly become "completely necessary" social crusades on the internet, and, if you're capable of keeping a cool head, seeing people blow their s*** over a joke as a prelude to the downfall of society(as an example) can be INCREDIBLY entertaining.

[Deleted]

I think there's a multitude of things that go into it but chief among them is that it seems like internet anger seems to get a lot done with minimal effort. Between Daniel Tosh and his rape-jokes, to f***ing Rob Lowe of all people for calling Winnipeg a shithole it seems like there's some surefire instant gratification to come along with being angry on the internet.

[01010010 01101001 01100011]

I think it's the anonymity. You can sit behind a screen and say whatever you want with no consequences in most cases. Things that normally would be stewed upon alone or just talked about between one or two people is now open to everyone with internet access and when you throw in converging interests and differing opinions you have a powder keg ready to blow.

[Spankymac is sick of the swiss]

Jul 12, 2012 23:52:01 GMT -5 @nichotine said:

I think there's a multitude of things that go into it but chief among them is that it seems like internet anger seems to get a lot done with minimal effort. Between Daniel Tosh and his rape-jokes, to f***ing Rob Lowe of all people for calling Winnipeg a s***hole it seems like there's some surefire instant gratification to come along with being angry on the internet.

Pretty much. Someone offended by the Rob Lowe thing(which I didn't even know was a thing, btw), would never in a million years call Lowe out on it to his face, but they can get on a forum and call him a douchebag in 10 seconds.