Tired of Middle-Aged "Adults" Acting Like Trolls on WP

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I wonder when Jacoby is coming back.

Same.

i think he did come back for a while.

FWIW I'd miss your humour and insight if you left.

Havent followed the converstions being alluded to and complained about so I cant take sides.

But I will say that the web is different from real life.

And its not quite the same as reading a book, or magazine article either.

Its new terrority. And no one really knows how to act in this new frontier land.

Have been on both sides of the equation on the Web: been the person accused of being a young whippersnapper, and been the person livid at folks I perceive as being young whippersnappers.

Hard to explain. But IRL you might defer to authority ( a professor say). Or you might defer to book author as an authority. But if some member on a website says the same thing that the professor, or the book author says, you might not give it the same respect. And conversely if you are on a website and you quote a professor, or a book author, you can be momentarily dismayed that others don't give the same statement the same respect that you gave it when you first heard/read it. Age may or may not be a factor.

Hear! Hear!

Did I burst into tears because DARTHMETALKNIGHT called me stupid for not agreeing with his ridiculous Communist political rants?

More importantly, did STARKID come to my defense when that happened? 'Cause if so, I missed that part.

So it's okay for other WP members to verbally assault me - but when I express sarcastic frustration with someone positing the notion that Autism and Aspergers Syndrome are not "real disorders" and we're all here faking and whining our way through life, in need of a little tough love behavioral therapy - I'm the troll? Beyotch, Puh-leeze.

Maybe you delicate flowers just need to suck it up and learn to tell the difference between a little lighthearted brutal honesty and an actual ATTACK. I think I've been more than gentle and understanding and supportive here with people who needed and deserved it.

But tell me my lifelong disability is imaginary and I'm gonna tell you what I really think of that asinine idea. If you're traumatized by that, then stop insulting handicapped people.

Starkid wasn't at your defense, because you're not an impressionable minor being berated by a long term older adult member of the website who is choosing to use their emotions as justification to ignore the house rules and not set a good example.

LOL (wink)

I wind-up here, sometimes, when I have the time to refresh the "Active Discussions" page (or, whatever it's called), a few times----but, that's not very often.

Thanks Cat. Your insights always help. In my personal case as you know this has boiled down to like 5 people. Only one of which is currently active. Usually it is something that bothers me at the time while it is happening. My not holding grudges is more of a memory thing for me and not keeping track of things very well. It's like I forget to be pissed off with whoever.

I don't know why I should bother trying to figure out why a few certain people seem to develop some kind of weird infatuation or whatever with me. I guess I just get under their skin or whatever. They act like they need to teach me a lesson or whatever and keep after me. Maybe they are just trying to bully me away. I really should not care and most of the time I don't. Sometimes like around now I am going through a period of depression and things affect me differently.

But you know who and what I am talking about and not just making it up as one or two moderators have accused me of doing. If I said I was being "persecuted" by a bunch of people that would be one thing. But I am only talking about a select few. With all the people I get into proper debate arguments with this is never an issue. Even tough I argue with them and criticize things they say, like they do with me, neither is ever attacking the person themselves or actually being rude to each other. There is a difference.

A problem with modding as you pointed out, is if you are on the wrong side of their personal beliefs, and they let that affect how they deal with people, they are not doing their job properly.

Places like PPR wouldn't be of any use if everyone was in agreement and just stroking each other all the time. Mods should welcome those with viewpoints that oppose their own and be unbiased when it comes judging personal attacks and actual harassment of a person.

Last edited by EzraS on 25 Jul 2017, 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm one of the older ones here.
And I finally figured out (may have taken me longer due to being autistic)
that sometimes when people strongly disagree with your politics or religion,
they don't even see you as a human being,
they just see you as an enemy,
someone to be attacked ...
many times, they don't even know who you are,
nor do they care.

I've taken a bit of a break from some of the nastier sections of WP too,
because like Campin_Cat,
I see what you're describing.

As for Jacoby, I recently sent him a link to a forum by PM
where people hang out and discuss the latest news.
It's an NT forum,
and yes, there are older people there (you can tell by how they post),
but you know what?
I really enjoy the atmosphere there.

The handful I am talking about make it extremely personal. They pretty much make it clear they are going after the person because of how they perceive the person and talk about me personally on a personal level, like we are supposed to be in some kind of a personal relationship or whatever. It's weird and creepy tbh.

People identify so personally with a brand of politics or beliefs that they take an attack on their ideology as a personal attack. They then see this as just cause to get revenge. Their thought processes then paint you as a form of comic-book villain in order to vilify and dehumanize you. Then the attacks occur. It is their story of them, the hero, triumphant over the villain. Forget that you're not a fully fledged adult. Forget that you're new here or to forums. Forget that you recently lost people in your life. Forget any actual things that determine whether you're a good person or not. This is all that matters to them.

It is an ironically oversimplified way for people who handle complex discussions to process their thoughts, but there is a collective guilt here of seeing black and white more than all the shades in between.

As embarrassingly pathetic as that all sounds, I urge you to hang in there and not let people like that dictate the future of what has the potential to continue being a valuable support network and community overall.

Yes, EzraS, I know what you mean ...

... their attacks are personal.
And by attacking you so intensely,
their whole goal is to depersonalize you,
and their reason for attacking is because
they don't care who you are,
they just know that they can't stand the beliefs you hold,
and they see you as those beliefs
rather than treating you with the decency you deserve as a human being.

Yep.
I was trying to post what you just did,
and you said very eloquently
what I wanted to say.

Another thing that comes to mind in this is threse people attck my mental process and how I don't form what I say properly and use terms like "mental failing" which I think is a disturbing way to treat someone with relitively severe cognitive impairments (and they all know I have them).

When I pont this out I get the "hey everyone here is autistic and has cognitive impairment to some degree, stop thinking you're special this isn't a competition" etc.

I know most everyone here has autism, but I think level of severity does make a difference. The people laying into me that way probably don't require constant assistance like a small child does they way I do. I think considering the basement level of ability and performance I have in many real life areas, I do pretty at well in forming and wording my opions online for someone like me.

So I think it's pretty appalling for someone to pick on me that way on a continual basis. But they and no one else seems to see it that way.

Wow ... for anyone to direct a remark such as "mental failing" at anyone else on Wrong Planet, of all places, should not be allowed. At a bare minimum, posts containing those kinds of attacks should be deleted.

You know what though, EzraS? When people pick on you this way, it might actually be a sign that they feel threatened by you or insecure, so they take the low road and just say mean things because they can't defend their position with logic. Because in my opinion, you communicate yourself quite well. I would never have guessed you had "severe" autism or needed a high level of care.