One thing that will be experienced by anyone who spends more than five minutes online is an argument with some fuckwad who asserts their superiority over you by asserting some "fact" about their "life". The utter pointlessness of this as a line of argument does little to diminish its popularity among knuckleheads who seem to really enjoy picking fights with people they're confident they'll never have to face in real life.
The first area where this argument usually falls down is that it rarely has any material relevance to the issue being discussed. It's usually self-aggrandisement for the sake of self-aggrandisement. The second (and to my mind more important) area where this falls down is that the facts are totally unverifiable. What the fuck is the point of saying "I have millions of dollars," "I have ten post-graduate degrees," "I had sex with five hotties last week"? You can't prove it (unless you're a well-known public persona - and if that's the case, why are you wasting your time arguing online?)
One of my favourite completely un-PC jokes I've ever seen on a website is "Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics - even if you win you're still retarded." I'm sure I'll get heaps of hate mail for using that one. Let's simplify things by saying if you hate me for using that line, you're right.
Having said all that, it's often very difficult to resist responding in kind. The most common attack launched on me is "You don't have a life, you loser! Get a job! You're obviously unemployed and don't have a girlfriend, that's why you have so much time to do all this stuff." This is usually nothing more than a generic insult with no meaning but some haters think they are justified in saying this because it seems logical to them. All of my output suggests to them that this is all I do.
I feel compelled to say that I'm an IT professional who makes quite a bit of money and has a rather lovely girlfriend but really, what's the fucking point? Anyone who launches an attack like that is obviously a fucking moron and should be utterly disregarded. Plus, I'm pretty much doing the same thing as them; making an unverifiable statement in an online environment and pretending that actually means anything.
Anybody who's had the fortitude to struggle through the mountain of abusive comments I've received on YouTube for having the temerity to post anti racists videos will see that my responses go in cycles (I've linked to these before). Sometimes I laugh at them, sometimes I taunt them, sometimes I respond with incredibly angry and abusive comments of my own.
My current mood swing has me saying to them "You know I don't give a shit about anything you say, right? You are totally meaningless." At the moment this feels like the easiest way to respond to them and it's certainly better for my mental health to not bother engaging with these idiots. I'll probably change my mind about this in another week or so.
One thing I'll never change my mind about: anyone who disagrees with anything I say is an ignorant loser who doesn't make as much money as me and doesn't get as much hot sex. It must be true because I said it on the internet.
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