So when it first came out, I was a big fan of Stuff White People Like. It made me laugh and cringe because it poked fun at a demographic truly deserving of it, i.e., mine, and the author’s. And then I read some comments posted on one of the entries, and I haven’t been back since.
While the most referenced social theory on the internet explains what elements are required for this bizarre behavior, I still don’t understand what people get out of swooping in and shitting on others. I think this is more proof that adults are constantly seeking some excuse to act like kids and the internet provides the perfect outlet for all the juvenile vitriol that didn’t manage to escape in those pre-teen years.
I understand that a big part of it, especially on the snarky blogs, is that too many people just don’t know where to draw the line. If saying the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes is funny, making fun of his genitals and his parentage is hi-larious.
Spirited discourse has been around on the net since the beginning. Everything that happens now in web discussion sites happened on Usenet 20 years ago. Except back then, people could actually spell and knew proper sentence structure. The people calling you out regularly knew more than you. Also, it took at least a couple of volleys back and forth before someone claimed to be oppressed and someone else brought up Hitler. Now we just cut to the chase.
On the Stuff White People Like blog, there was a smackdown over something really stupid, and two factions developed: the geeky, obsessive-compulsive faction; and the … well, the “get over it” faction. One of the commenters on the latter side looked at the others and said something like, “see, the regular folks have invaded the Web now, once again reminding you geeks that you’re still second class citizens, forced once again do our homework and watch as we steal your girlfriends”. And that person was right.
Now, most of the people that support you often shout their loud “me, too’s” because they’re members of your cult of personality rather than because they’ve actually thought about what you’ve said and can articulate why they agree with it. They’re only mildly annoying, of course, until their defending you to the hilt starts driving people that have something meaningful to say away. Your choir can be a great ego boost at times but they don’t add much to the all-important signal-to-noise ratio we obsess about.
We want to be surrounded by like-minded folks with a couple eloquent and intelligent members of the loyal opposition thrown in to mix things up and keep us on our toes. That really is what it was like in the early days, and still is when you find a site in its infancy. Instead, most of the big blogs have turned into the textual equivalent of talk radio: the host might have something interesting to say even if you disagree with it, but it’s not worth wading through all the ditto heads and tangential name-callers.