Why are so many people here angry?

[Redd the Sock]

First off, don't o to gamefaqs. I just saw someone question Nintendo's logic in needing to unscrew the back of the N3DS to change memory cards only to get insulted about being too good to buy a screwdriver.

Honestly, in addition to Zuhkov's thing, it's a bit of human nature to fight. My Mom had this problem in real life for volunteer work: certain people couldn't work in the same area with each other for a few hours without getting into it. The internet enables those conflicts to fester. We know the topic will make certain posters mad, but we do it anyway. We know our reply won't change anyone's mind and just come off condescending, but we post it anyway. Here, there are those that will chime in just to say a more polite version of "this topic is stupid and so are you for making it." It isn't that most of us can't keep from rocking the boat, but the few that can't seem to have a vested interest in making sure that certain topics don't go uncontested. So a lot of conversations don't get started, and a lot of us don't bother with bait topics, or individuals we know are more about trying to shoot down a train of thought that empathizing and conversing with someone they disagree with.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

snip

Many people on this website has changed my arguments and I've seen people say the agree with me, usually through finding a common ground (at least on non controversial topics)

Then you are a rarity, and you should be happy about that.

It's part of the human condition to resist change. A lot of people also tie their ego, even their own personal identities to their view points. Even my ownself, I admit, I have a tendency to have a desire to not change unless I feel in the mood to do so. I just have that rebellious nature.

But I've always found it to be much the waste of my time at least, and exhausting. Fuck it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Not sure. It's almost like it's "in" for people to try and one-up each other on who can be the greatest edge lord. I've noticed that when some people here dislike something, they need to write about it in such a way that they're almost implying that other people are idiots for disagreeing with them. It's like they write something that's right on the edge because they want someone to get offended and start arguing with them.

Usually you can avoid it by just staying away from any topic that might be considered controversial, but it can seep into just about anything. If you're getting tired of it, I highly recommend checking out forum games. It's a pretty universally happy area.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Ya'll people just need some kittens all up in your shit...

Sorry, i would put them in spoilers, but that risks more people not seeing these adorable cuties. How could anyone stay angry beyond these??

 

[Something Amyss]

Ya'll people just need some kittens all up in your shit...

Spoiler

That cat looks super sad and that makes me angry. Fission Mailed.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Ya'll people just need some kittens all up in your shit...

Spoiler

That cat looks super sad and that makes me angry. Fission Mailed.

That is not sadness, it is more like "did i leave the cooker on before i went out...what was I even doing? Where am i again?" look. Therefore fission...err, mucceeded?

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I keep seeing the whole skirting the rules thing as a common theme in these posts, and it clearly is a bit of an issue. I've seen it myself. So, that's one thing that could be fixed. I'm sure the mods are aware of it... Is making changes to the rules to fix that issue just too blanket of a thing to be deemed reasonable?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Sometimes people mistake passion for anger. And vice-versa. And its not always 3rd person perception-based mistaken viewpoint, its sometimes first-person perception-based mistaken viewpoint.
In other words, sometimes people mistake another person's passion for anger, or anger for passion and sometimes people mistake their own passion for anger or anger for passion.
Its sometimes easy to forget where the line is drawn.
I've been down a long hard road of typing a reply, reading it all the way through as if I were the recipient and attempting to judge the perception and possible misperception of my words. If it comes across as angry, snarky or otherwise negative without anything redeemingly critical, I may not send it. I do my best to make posts that aren't a teardown of another's viewpoint without sufficient positivity.
Its stressful, but less so than firing off a forgotten string of sentences laced with raw emotion and knee-jerk thoughts.
Are people angry here? I'd bet that some are, some are frustrated, some are rabble-rousing and some just genuinely have passion for their views, and the tough part is sorting all those various folks out. We all may fall under that category somewhere, depending on our own introspective tendencies and whatnot.
I remain hopeful and optimistic about the culture of gaming, the current state is worrying to a degree but having been part of a long standing viewpoint, I have a tendency not to look at the immediate but the consequential, seeing the dawn long before it cracks the night.

 

[IceForce]

I keep seeing the whole skirting the rules thing as a common theme in these posts, and it clearly is a bit of an issue. I've seen it myself. So, that's one thing that could be fixed. I'm sure the mods are aware of it... Is making changes to the rules to fix that issue just too blanket of a thing to be deemed reasonable?

How would one outlaw 'passive-aggressiveness' via the rules, though?

Tone is difficult to interpret over plain text at the best of times, so how do you differentiate between people who are deliberately baiting from the people who are just naturally argumentative, passionate, or simply having a bad day? Unless you give the moderators mind-reading capabilities, I'm not seeing how it could be feasibly done.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I don't know if I've seen that many angry people on here. Most of the posters recently I find to be more downers than anything, always being rather cynical and bringing down the mood with negativity and skepticism. It's one of the reasons why I haven't been coming to the site very often, because of there being a lack of fun and optimism. It got to a point where I actually started using the ignore option because some users' posts were constantly bringing my mood down when all I wanna do is wind down and relax.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, there's a lot of serious issues which directly affect people's lives being discussed, which leads to passionate debates, often with people who've no idea what they are talking about, but really want to stick their oar in.

 

[Something Amyss]

That is not sadness, it is more like "did i leave the cooker on before i went out...what was I even doing? Where am i again?" look. Therefore fission...err, mucceeded?

But now I am saddened at its conundrum.

Can't you see your cat pics are tearing me apart?

 

[Something Amyss]

How would one outlaw 'passive-aggressiveness' via the rules, though?

I'd add that passive-aggressiveness is basically an outcropping of the rules as written. There will always be people toeing up to the line and there will always be people complaining, and there's no real way to handle that directly.

Well, there's a lot of serious issues which directly affect people's lives being discussed, which leads to passionate debates, often with people who've no idea what they are talking about, but really want to stick their oar in.

Oh, come on, who wouldn't want to be accused of mental illness or weakness because a bunch of armchair psychiatrists claim to know more than the entire medical community?

 

[happyninja42]

Ya'll people just need some kittens all up in your shit...

Spoiler

Sorry, i would put them in spoilers, but that risks more people not seeing these adorable cuties. How could anyone stay angry beyond these??

But I don't want kittens up in my shit. Why would I want shit covered kittens? Why would you want to do that to poor kittens?! You sick bastard!! Just cuddle the damn adorable things! Don't insert them rectally into people!! What's wrong with you?!?

OT: I dunno. I think part of it is the random nature of the forums. Yeah this is a gaming site in theory, but a large amount of the topics discussed are everything but gaming. So, you get a diverse topic base, with a diverse range of opinions on said topics. So yeah, you're going to have heated arguments. Perhaps User 27 doesn't get angry when discussing video games, or movies, but you bring up transgender issues and they lose their fucking mind into a frothing rant. So just by sheer law of averages, if we have topics ranging the entire gamut of topics, you're going to have somebody raging about it's discussion. And thus, all the threads seem to have a level of rage to them.

That and I suspect that the average age for the users here probably falls into the teens/20ish range. Which, if most posters here were like me at that age, were somewhat unhinged emotionally, and far more prone to lashing out. Now before people start replying to this with "I'm 30+ so your statement is wrong", please note I said "average". I'm well aware that others will not fit that age category, and my statement could be entirely wrong anyway. Like I said "I suspect" that is the average age of the community. I've never done the metrics on it, so take that statement with ahuge grain of salt.

Also, some of it I think is simply the miscommunication of inflection that is a problem on the internet. Sometimes people will say something that is totally benign, and they said it from a place of calm reflection/speculation. But, since we can't see their faces, or hear their tonal inflections, we mis-read it as hostile or confrontational.

This skit is a good example of what I mean.

NSFW

 

[-LiQUiDPoWEr-]

Not everyone is meant to get along. And that's okay, cause we live with these tools that allow us not to have to.

This is literally the line of text that every single person on the internet and most of the people outside of it need to get tattooed to their foreheads.

 

[The White Hunter]

Because they all skip breakfast and are hungry. They should grab a snickers or something.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not everyone is meant to get along. And that's okay, cause we live with these tools that allow us not to have to.

This is literally the line of text that every single person on the internet and most of the people outside of it need to get tattooed to their foreheads.

Nice sentiment, doesn't work so well in practice. A lot of the issues people are arguing about online overlap with issues lawyers and politicians and priests argue about in courts and seats of governments and churches, and directly affect people's lives. Hard to just get along with people wanting to pass laws to restrict your rights.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Not everyone is meant to get along. And that's okay, cause we live with these tools that allow us not to have to.

This is literally the line of text that every single person on the internet and most of the people outside of it need to get tattooed to their foreheads.

It's brilliant isn't? I heard it from that director, she directed Punisher: Warzone, when Max Landis found out she didn't like him and he asked why and she just went full on complete jerkass mode and was all "No one is entitled to have any sort of relationship with anyone else!" blah blah blah.

And I thought, ya know what? I don't agree with her how she said it, but that is a pretty smart thought.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Not everyone is meant to get along. And that's okay, cause we live with these tools that allow us not to have to.

This is literally the line of text that every single person on the internet and most of the people outside of it need to get tattooed to their foreheads.

Nice sentiment, doesn't work so well in practice. A lot of the issues people are arguing about online overlap with issues lawyers and politicians and priests argue about in courts and seats of governments and churches, and directly affect people's lives. Hard to just get along with people wanting to pass laws to restrict your rights.

Well... I did actually mean it more for online communication rather than real world. In real world's a little different, but the internet has block buttons. Glorious glorious block buttons.

 

[sageoftruth]

Earlier this month I saw this story on the BBC news website titled "Why are Americans so angry?":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35406324
On Tuesday there was http://www.citymetric.com/fabric/one-chart-explains-why-young-londoners-are-so-angry-about-housing-1840
and a quick google search brings up http://www.vice.com/read/why-san-franciscans-are-so-angry-at-the-super-bowl
http://tvruckus.com/2016/02/18/scandal-why-is-the-jake-olivia-pope-sex-so-angry/
and of course http://www.skynews.com.au/culture/showbiz/movies/2016/02/08/why-angry-birds-are-so-angry.html

It seems like everyone's gone aggro lately! I don't think this site is so bad, I just think the whole planet seems to have got its collective knickers in a twist lately and it really needs to

Spoiler: Chill the Fuck out!

I read something similar in the Economist. I'm not certain exactly how long ago this started, but this trend of anger has been here for awhile. It wasn't as strong before, but as BBC mentioned, politicians saw the trend and sought to capitalized on it, and wo and behold, people got even angrier. Like lots of public feelings, anger tends to beget more anger.