Behind a wall

The internet.

Fabulous invention don’t you think? Being able to communicate with anyone in the world instantly, surely that can only be a good thing?

Well, it certainly has its good and bad things about it. One of the main bad things that stand out for me would be the anonymity.

Yep, because people are safe in the knowledge that they are behind a screen and that the people they encounter on the internet, they’re not likely to meet them in real life so why be pleasant, why not put up a facade and well…be a troll and do things you would never do in real life, do to random people who you can’t see what you’ve wanted to say or do to people in real life because when others get mad it’s funny right? Well, that depends on whoever’s viewpoint you decide to look at it from.

Now I’m sitting here thinking about some incidents I’ve witnessed and experienced using the internet and as a person that likes to frequent certain forums because I like to hear people’s views on events and other happenings and it never ceases to amaze me how  different and extreme some people can act on the internet.

The first place I thought of was BBC 606 forums because that never cease to give me amusement what with all the really pointless arguing and bickering over…hmm…nothing? It really is in my mind always going to be a failure of a debate when you decide to discuss who is the better team out of X and Y? Not only this on this forum  but on other places they will “discuss” topics such as “who is the better actor?" “Whether the Nintendo Wii is good console for hardcore gamers?” Or one topic that crops up time and time again and it’s one I hate and that is “Which is better? Rock or Rap?”.

People will bring out statistics, facts, opinions, insults about someone’s intelligence and just argue for their cause. Sometimes I’m tempted to wade in and simply say “Hey, isn’t it all subjective, therefore you can’t really say whichever one is better?” “Each to their own” and all that but I get the feeling that the moment I do so they’ll stop their arguments just for one second to simply reply “Yeah we know that, so what?” and then get back to arguing anyway. I think I like to hold onto the belief that they know that it’s a futile argument. Why they continue to do so I’ll never know but they do.

Now, the hatred that spews forth from our anonymous person’s keyboard is something that puzzles me as well because I’ve witnessed quite a lot of it recently on…surprise surprise, Formspring. I think it’s fact that it empathises the fact that you can be anonymous on that site so people ask questions that they would never ask in real life. Even then, they still don’t want to ask with their username showing so then it just becomes a question asked by nobody.

I just think that if someone is going to be anonymous for reasons such as they want to say something outrageous that they’d never normally say but don’t want the recipient to find out who it is then for me is just pointless as then it just becomes unnecessary and add more hatred in a place where everyone just hates too much.

Now on the other side you have the people who get all hot and bothered by it, I guess it’s the nihilist in me that’s wondering why people get so bothered by it. People getting angry because of me really do make me laugh especially when I’m being calm and rational about things but I think that’s what makes it even more antagonising. I’ve had teachers and peers tell me that I was more than capable of being a shit stirrer of sorts and I’ve wound up a fair few people simply by not having an opinion and being indifferent to things.

But why does it rile them so much? Why are people so bothered by what some person millions of miles away from them think of them? It’s not as if they’ll ever meet them and even so, isn’t what you think of yourself more important? The hate that people receive on sites is quite frankly ridiculous but it’s just as ridiculous as the people who take it to heart and get bothered by it and hate back… and then there are the people that hate on the other person even when they are making a valid point but because of whatever reasons they get angry at this and just…ugh I don’t want to even talk about it anymore because it’s ridiculous. Maybe I should talk about something more positive or something because people in the world isn’t going to get much better for me, so I may as well brush dirt of of my shoulder and continue along doing what I like without a care in the world.

The only thing that annoys me is when some person steals your fish, I mean how frustrating is that…