Campfyre Stories

I think that the internet brings out the worst in people. I know that it often brings out the worst in me. It must have something to do with the anonymity, but also with he desire to recreate ourselves. It brings out stupidity, rage, vengefulness, malice… quite a range of negatives in people, but no matter how we attempt to portray ourselves accurately, we inevitably fail.

I am a peacemaker in my real life. Conflict makes me tense and I’m constantly trying to find the middle ground. However, I am a troll on the internet. A well-spoken, subtle troll, but a troll nonetheless. I actively seek to pick fights and to piss people off - especially when I deem them (or, rather, their personas) as stupid.

I have a friend who is a very nice person 95% of the time, but not only is she an asshole on the ‘net, she even started a club for (internet) assholes. People who don’t know her IRL are shocked at how non-confrontational, generous and kind she turns out to be.

I think there’s some measure of self-preservation in it. We don’t want to expose our tenderness to people we don’t know. You have to have a thick skin and, at the very least, pretend that you don’t care. I pick fights online on a regular basis. I take pride in the ability to escalate a situation into something more interesting to read/watch and I do it pretty well. I write eloquently and choose my words carefully, putting barbs into the undertones. Trolling, when done well, leaves a lot of the responsibility on the person reading *into* your words. There is deniability that exists in the "but all I said was…"

This is why I stopped participating on message boards. I started to feel like I was becoming more bitter and angry off of them and that I was starting to take things a little too seriously. It wasn’t really an addiction, but the results to my personality were similar. But, when I think about it, I don’t think that I’ll ever fully stop. I just enjoy taunting the internet monkeys and wielding the power to rile people up a little too much