Saturday 25 May 2013

Why is the internet full of haters?

What is it about forums, blogs and annoymous posts that brings out the superiority in people?

angry forum


When I first set up this blog, I tried my best to promote it on forums. I would make a thoughful answer to a conversation, but link my blog to my answer. Or, I would start a thread and encourage a conversation, but also provide a link to my blog.

This worked. People often clicked on my link to see what the site said. I thought, great, more people get to see my blog and can make a decision whether they like it, and perhaps want to follow me. If not, they close the blog, no harm done. However, very quickly I got very angry messages stating that I should not post my blog on the forum and that I was a terrible person with a rubbish blog.

Why is that people feel the need to be so angry and superior on forums? Do they go around being like this to people's faces? Or is it a place for those that are particularly angry and superior to interact and judge the rest of the world and feel like the best people in society?I would never tell someone to their face that what they had written was crap. Why is it ok to say that on the internet?

It's experiences like this that mean that I no longer try to publicise my blog. There just aren't any ways to do it that don't seem to annoy people. I don't see what's wrong with promoting a blog, but if so many people write such horrible things, it becomes an ordeal to tell others about it. Because of that, I don't think I have much of a following - at least, I don't seem to have a huge amount of followers, which means I lack motivation during the busy times to update my blog. It's difficult when doing a Master's, working full-time and walking the dog for two hours a day to find time to log on and write a new post.

These cases of unpleasant comments aren't even isolated to those that publicise their blogs. I have read many forum conversations where people have written terrible things to others. I can't believe that people have the capacity to say such rude things and to cause hurt to others. Many people who use forums are socially isolated (although, of course, many aren't) so sending abusive messages to vulnerable people is dangerous and may be quashing their only possibility of connecting with others.

Of course, there's nothing we can do about this. It's just a real shame that there seems to be a large amount of people who seem to enjoy dashing other people's confidence and writing negative things. 

Please don't leave a comment trashing this post, and confirming my point. If you can't say anthing nice, don't say anything at all. 

1 comment:

Niels said...

I agree, the internet is filled with trolls :-).