Flaming Online - Analysis not Compaint. Feel free to flame me, I know its coming
I don't know how many people will agree (and I'm sure I'll get rather graphic responses from those of you who don't) but the iSONEWS forums seem to be a place where flaming isn't so much condoned or even tolerated (well, it is tolerated). To set things strait, I've flamed countless numbers of other anonymous internet users in my day. I'd be stunned to learn of many active/regular 'net users who haven't at one point while "surfing the 'net".
I don't mind flaming. Flame away. Are you pissed off right now? Are you thinking about bitch-slapping your hoe of a girlfriend right now because she fucked your five best friends, in the same night? Take it out on me. Save yourself the jail-time. Call me an asshole, a flaming butt-fucking homosexual, or a ped0phile l4m0r n00bie that should go home. Yell at me, get your aggression out. It won't piss me off and you'll feel better, won't you? That does seem to be the ultimate (yet clouded) goal in flaming a person. You, for that instant when you feel better than the person you flamed, you feel good. So like I said, flame away at me and don't even bother to read the rest of my post. It will just piss you off more and you'll have to waist another 30 seconds flaming me a second time, to make you sure that I'm aware you consider me a retarded, no-life, cock-sucking newbie moron. I'm aware. I was aware last week. And I'll be aware when I click the "Submit New Thread" button. So don't be the real retard here yourself, and maybe spend the 30 seconds you were going to use to flame me to just lightly consider a single one of my ideas. And then, if you still hate me, flame me a third (or if you are slow, a second) time.
My question, which I'm going to speculate the answer to and give you my ideas on, is a single word. Just one. A basic, simplisticly-stupid question that most of you will look at and ask yourself, "Why even bother asking that?" My question is this. Why?
Why do people flame. There is a motive behind every action a human over the age of (lets say, for mental growth's sake) 13 years makes. We breath for a reason, we need to in order to survive. Our motive to breath is survival, but we don't think about breathing. My point in this paragraph, as sketchy as I've put my explaination together, is that there is an inevitable motive that people will have to flame. Different stimuli may trigger flaming, and each stimuli will react differently with each person that combine it with. A comment about someone's mother, girlfriend, or them directly may encourage flaming in one person, and a very different response in another (they could ignore it, come up with a 'calming' comeback to it and thus lighten the hostile atmosphere, etc.). Anyone putting a minute's thought into this I believe would come up with the same assumption.
So you have an end result (flaming someone) that is common in all people placed in the same environment (the internet. large scope/context to take into consideration/study, but there are countless numbers of places that any person is capable of flaming another on the 'net, not just the iSONEWS forums). You have a means of reasonably/methodically reproducing this end result. So the next logical step would be to formulate a method of producing the result, using your various stimuli (however many different kinds/genres of posts/messages you can place on the 'net that will bait at least one person to flame you) and then recording your results.
What I'd do from there is examin the top 80% of stimuli that produced more flames, or the same number of flames, as all the stimuli produced on average. In that 80%, you'd need to locate at least one common factor/element, and then see if that(those) factor(s)/element(s) placed in any stimuli will produce a flame (at least 80% of the time, but 93%+ recommended if you want your data accepted by others).
Lets say someone actually takes the time to interpret what I've just written, and hasn't either pulled out their hair or shot themselves in the process. Lets just say someone finds conclusive evidence that there is a 'communal stimuli that when applied to internet users, they will flame the source of the stimuli'. If we found that, I'm ultimately curious what you think that stimuli would be?
In simple terms. If there is a single thing that will make every internet surfer flame someone, what do you think it is?
So if you are going to respond to this, answer that final question. Tell me what you think would be the "cause" of flaming on the internet, if such a cause existed.
And if you are going to flame me. Have fun. I may even screenshot the funniest of the funny. A good flame is capable of giving me a good laugh, even if its directed at me. Funny is still funny.
P.S. - If you think I'm a retard (I'm sure you'll be a flamer if you do) my apologies. I chose iSONEWS to post this one because its infamous for flames. I admit, it could be that I'm just a fucking moron. I don't rule out that possibilty. I just had a moment of curiosity, and I let my thought-process become this post. ;-)
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