4 AM and disappointed in humanity

Before I begin, the following is not directed at all nerds.  Just rage nerds.  I'm pretty nerdy myself in a lot of ways, but I don't flip my damned lid about things that people disagree about nor do I actively go online JUST to pick fights about my pet projects.  If you're a nerd that isn't into becoming a screeching banshee at the drop of a metaphorical hat, thank you in advance for NOT being the subject of this joyless screed.

So, I have had a long, aggravating night.  I have had to put up with a lot of annoyance, for a lot longer than I was expecting to, and then I come home and find out my boyfriend's been working on one of his more stellar projects.  Picture what I come home to when this is the research project: Find a modest sample size of people with nerd rage personalities on current media topics and basically poke them with one or two posts counter to their point to see if there are patterns to their behaviour.  Log datapoints, run statistics, turn in.  He fortunately limited this to just over 250 different examples thanks to overwhelming results, as opposed to say, a thousand.

For those of you who know where this is going, it's worse than you think.   Feel free to cringe now though, and get warmed up for the rest of this.

For daring to disagree with things which he literally just looked up the lamest of possible counterpoints to because he's so out of touch with popular culture these days, he got about three responses, and of them one was evidently overwhelmingly the common one: the nerd rage-strawman-pretending to be totally neutral and detached trifecta of stupid people everywhere.  We're talking like 80 to 90 percent range, by the preliminary numbers.  That is a LOT.

On top of that, on multiple sites there has been various threats of violence and in one case death threats (duly reported to the proper authorities on said sights where such is disallowed).  A number of people have threatened to hack our accounts on various platforms, and just about everywhere this was checked in, the messenger services have exploded with notes, chats, and tells of raging individuals trying their hardest to be passive-aggressive, strawman the heck out of my boyfriend, and at the same time try to look like enlightened and pleasant people who somehow wish everyone happiness and rainbows.  I'm not strangling my man for this crap so I must surely love him.

Folks, I want you to consider something here okay?  Just do me this favour and think about this.  We have received threats, endless walls upon walls of text, hair-splitting arguments that often disprove themselves, and illogical responses, even downright stalkerish behaviour from people for what?!  My boyfriend saying things like 'No, I think Iron Fist is pretty decent, really!  Here's a couple of vague points that are, at their strongest, opinions.' or 'I don't really like Superman much, I think he's kind of a puss that needs to man up some!' and then when the inevitable nose-in-the-air sniff of a response comes in about how incredibly wrong that is because how dare someone have a different opinion, he writes some observation based on broad knowledge and bull.  Cue boiling nerd rage.  Sometimes he took it to a third step.  Cue explosive verbal diarrhea made into text.  Invariably he shrugs and says 'Ah, thanks for being a statistic, have a nice day' and you bet your panties in comes the spewing volcanic rage or the petty personal insults and projecting attempts at high school-level psychological branding.

Then I come home and I have to sort out this crap.  I've deleted three accounts on various websites completely.  Here there was  I guess one shmuck who can't take his own stupidity and was blocked, so thankfully that's no hassle.  DA, thank you for not being full to the brim of insane nerds, just the much more lovable type!  In other cases, I'm in the process of deleting over a thousand responses or notes.  Again, there was only 250 or so people involved in this and they have generated four times that number of illegible, insufferably arrogant garbage rants JUST among the sites I'm still keeping.  So far.  And this is stuff that has come up in the last few hours since he went to bed.  All this to learn that yes, 90% of rage-nerds will use the nerd trifecta of arguments when they get unreasonably offended that someone doesn't agree with them.  Ban/block lists, whoever invented you wasn't paid nearly enough.

This is your internet.  So lesson one, performing research is a crap job.  Lesson two, humanity should be ashamed of itself.

The following is a rough list of things that set people off the worst.  Avoid these topics.  Just don't even talk about them online.  Spare yourself having to deal with these unstable minds.

Game of Thrones, books and show (mostly arguing against due to popularity)
LOST (Yep, people still get enraged about this to the point of insanity)
Any super hero movie, show, or comic book (for and against adopt the exact same stances, and they all try to either reference one another or cut one another off whenever it is convenient for their argument)
Twilight (much f-ing screechier than the rest, same nonsense, so girl nerds are just as insane and stupid if not worse)
Triple A games.  Any of them. (This is why I own a PS2 and nothing more)
the Black List (I think it's a tv show? I don't know, but man some people care way too much)

Now, one of my subs got upset when she got online and saw some of these idiot-fests and lashed out at one or two of them.  She's young and doesn't get that sinking to their level of moron just encourages them.  She'll be dealt with for that.  Likewise, for not even informing me he has been doing this for the last little while, my boyfriend is going to get screamed at tomorrow until he is in severe risk of tinnitus.  But right now, I'm here cleaning this up and I thought I'd share some triggers to avoid with those of you who stop in to say hi.

Some fun facts though.  Apparently rage nerds like to share pointless personal facts and anecdotes.  Often scarily personal, like marital status, daily activities, favorite foods, and worse.  Apparently sticking to the topic is beyond them but filling up several lines with things I just don't care to know is fine with them.  Also, despite most places we go having clear notification that two (or more) people use our account rather than having several of the same accounts kicking around, people just don't understand that point.  Even when flat out told.  Agreeing to disagree and hold different opinions while perhaps discussing what few points of common interest there are in something related NEVER seems to be an option.  In addition, there's a wave of people who seem disinclined to understand that, by arguing, you are in fact attempting to change someone's opinion to your own, or at least closer to that.  Evidently internet tough guys are still a thing as well.  Bringing up the race card, even in a discussion where there is no racial component until the raging nerd identifies their race and then promptly straw-mans the other person as a racist, often in the same BREATH, is still a thing.  And when clearly beaten by an opponent who is not moved by screaming toddler like fits and arguments thought out over a total of 1.1 seconds, resorting to flinging around various racial titles and terms, accusing people of being gay or feminists, or various references to a certain german group of the 1930's are inevitable.

All this over books and shows that nobody in my house has read or seen or cares about, because research on internet rage nerd behaviour is apparently needed.  Results: many sad little humans in need of freakin' therapy!

The funniest bit though (for a given value of, you know, 'funny'), is that after a generally pleasant well-wishing fare-ye-well from my boyfriend, a man who genuinely does wish the best for basically everyone in the world regardless of who they are, almost every single one acts offended and then immediately rages about it, before turning around and trying to sound like they are in fact genuinely caring and pleasant people.  Showing these people even the remotest kindness and well wishing is so offensive to these fight-seeking internet landscape stains that they grow furious about it like they have been personally offended in the worst possible way, but it is SO NONSENSICAL to be this way even THEY understand it, so they try to act like THEY are that kind of person.  Yes, because anyone reading anything you say is going to believe you wish anything good for anyone at that point?  I really don't think so thanks.  I'm starting to think the internet causes delusions in people and should not be allowed to be accessed by people until they are old enough to vote.  It's clearly deranging folks.  Seriously, people could at least attempt to have some dignity at the end instead of trying to pretend they haven't been steaming dung-heaps of rage and vitriol.  Many even try to flower it up so they're even NICER people!  Because being 'genuinely' or 'legitimately' or 'quite honestly' full of crap is more convincing I guess.  It works for politicians.

Anyways I'm getting to the end of the deletions here, and I'm due in bed.  If this seems rambly and unfocused, I'm tired.  I'm done for now and the only reason this is as long as it is comes pretty well down to 'that's just how much lovely hate mail simple disagreements with nerds online gets you'.  So if there's anything you take away from this, it's: just don't bother.  It's predictable to a disturbing degree (literally 60+ percent had the exact same points in the exact same order with the exact same techniques, regardless what was being argued or for which side).

And if any of the people involved in this experiment manage to track this down (and I expect one creeper around here at least will do so, as he evidently bragged about reading these journals): Nobody here cares about whatever the hell it is.  There are no people in this household that give the least of shits about your pet project.  So don't bother.  You were nothing more significant than a statistic, like you are to billions around the globe.  The only person who would have fought with you is going to learn not to in a real hurry, mark my words.  And the only person who wishes you well, you probably have spent hours directing hate at.  I wish you would go live in a cave far, far from the internet and develop a healthy friggin' brain.  Now piss off.

For the rest of you, have a good night, day, whatever.  I'm going to bed and making a mental note to reverse Dagger's knees with a crowbar if he ever accepts an assignment like this again.  Nerdling freak outs are literally NOT WORTH MONEY to deal with!  I will have to be getting paid in curvy supermodels with wads of cash stuffed in their large collections of slinky swimwear before I EVER let him do internet culture research again!  And these people are so tiresomely idiotic and demented that even THAT might not be enough.

G'night, and can we please all review the 'sanity' part of my usual ending line?  Some people really need it.

Nacha