The Psychology of this message board - Part I

ohh also whatever people post is a reflection of themselves, so maybe they are getting to you ? (and your securities?)

just an idea

pete

heres the deal, most people will do what they can get away with, big deal. since there is no law here, more or less, and there is little intrinsic motivation for morality what would you expect, this is what america is.

it is amazing to me and also frightening in a way, to think about the inner natures of people. how people act when there are no consequences whatsoever. they can test themselves and find out if the do have a little bit of that mythical toughness that comes with survival. im not saying that this is some kind of serious survival of the fittest message board or something, but if you discuss something here, you will almost assuredly be heckled in some way or another. im not saying it is right or wrong. i enjoy taking part in it. i would never get into confrontations like this in real life, because i know i would probably have to physically fight someone. but to know that i can see if i have the ability to stand up to someone with my words and "trash talk" without getting my ass beat, thats really interesting. (maybe someday ill do it in the real world! ha!)

Hey Hesse you have heard of FREEDOM? Think about it.

I regret beginning this thread with my judgmental opinions. It would have been better to just say something like this . . .

What insight can we gain about human pscyhology from anonymous forums such as letsrun?

If we hypothetically imagine that this board existed could have existed 100 years ago, I wonder if it would have been just as negative? i am try to separate out the human nature aspects (relative constants) of this board and the aspects that are related to the culture that we live in (relatively dynamic).

I just find this letsrun a fascinating place to explore the human psyche in this modern version of community of some sorts.

it is my impression that most of the posters here are white people from the suburbs. which is fine. so am i. we get a bad rap sometimes. but most of the time there is no opportunity to ever get in a legitamate war of words with people. everybody just embellishes stories and stuff like that. here it is the next step towards "real" because we are actually doing the talk, even though its in an anonymous, somewhat phony arena.

It's a social psych phenomena that has been described in the literature for a while. It's called deindividuation and you see more remarkable examples of it when people riot in crowds. I've also heard it used to describe people when they drive in their cars. To make a long story short, if people don't think they can be identified, they will behave more aggressively. I would say it's part of being human. Something we have to overcome. Don't forget the age component. On these forums you're dealing with a lot of kids. You can't expect them to behave with maturity:)

People on this board are so totally jealous of the elite runners which is why they bast them. They would do anything to have the life of an elite runner, but they can not. So, they bash and bash. Pure jealousy.

Obviously people are free to do whatever the hell they want on an anonymous message board, so they will do whatever the hell they want, and won't think twice about it. There's no reason to. The people with the real problem are the ones who take these boards too seriously and get offended cus some jerk-off randomly insults him. If you wanted a completely serious running message board, then there would be no anonymity. Even then, its the internet, and people can hide behind their computers and do as they please. No need to take it seriously.

But then why be mean?