We’ve all seen it (haven’t we?). Go check out wikipedia first if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
The internet. Yet another way for short or bullied kids to get on and attempt to gain power. Emotionally, physically, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe they’re ignored by everyone else and strive for attention. Maybe their parents divorced, died, or ignore them. Whatever the cause, they are here, today, on the internet.
Their mission: Power and attention mostly. Often mini-modding or backseat-modding forums and messageboards, they want a sense of control. I find that these people will also often beg for moderator positions as well, and I dare not allow anyone like that to get the power on my own sites.
I personally believe that if you ignore these types of people for a long enough amount of time (which you should), they will turn into “griefers”. These are the types of people that go around games and websites puposely attempting to anger others and disrupt order. It’s all about them, after all. They strive for attention and power so much that they resort to such low methods of getting that attention, and in the end, just get banned from the website or game. Another common method is to steal others’ works. Many people are amazed at what that pathetic excuse of a human is capable of doing until someone else comes along and points out that it is not, in fact, their work.
Why the internet? It’s the easiest place to go. I don’t know any exact statistics (and would love one, if any readers happen to find one), for the number of kids who are growing up with 1 or more computers in their house and with some type of internet, DSL seems to be quite popular. Because they already have the tools they need – internet, a computer with a keyboard, off they go searching for a place they first want to call home. How do they determine which site(s) they want to infest? I don’t know. How do we choose which sites to frequent?
They’re out there. Sensitive, and probably alone in the world. Ignore or comfort, your choice. I’ve never had any success with trying to confront, comfort, or befriend them. They’re unbearable and will spam IMs, e-mails, and PMs on forums/message boards when they finally begin the change to the aforementioned “griefer”. Then you will most likely be forced to leave them. Too unbearable, even for you! They’ll probably get worse, I suppose you and I may never know. What I think they really need is a good school counselor and a loving home.
