Psychology of mean commentors
I always wonder what drives a person i have never interacted with, never even seen or heard of, to suddenly post a mean comment on a post.
Like, why? What did they get out of it?
So this morning, I did some quick research on why people post mean comments with no known connections.
Not surprisingly, a study was done and it was found that that majority of random mean commentors are psychotic. (https://www.psypost.org/people-who-post-hateful-comments-online-are-characterized-by-high-levels-of-psychopathy/)
That's fairly scary, to be honest. There's a lot of people suffering from this, if this is the case.
The other, less severe but nonetheless disturbing, reasons are:
Attention seeking: any attention is good attention in their book
Asserting dominance: if you can't control your own life, you can at least make someone else miserable
Inadequacy or insecurity: this is a fixable solution that a good therapist can help you work on
Anonymity: people don't know you, so you have the freedom to be as big of a jerk as you like to help fulfill one of the above parts.
Deindividualism: forgetting that there are actual feeling, thinking, existing humans on the other end who don't deserve the garbage, which leads to
Lack of empathy: they literally cannot even dredge up a modicum of care regarding how their comments could potentially hurt or harm someone. They just dropped "truth". Not their fault someone else can't deal with it. Not their problem, despite the fact they caused a problem that never needed to exist in the first place.
Venting: honestly, venting only creates more anger. Try problem solving instead.
I don't respond to negative comments. I just delete them. I'm sure I'll get to prove that on this one, mostly because these people can't not take the bait.
Luckily, I don't have to care any more than they do by deleting their existance from my post.
Like, why? What did they get out of it?
So this morning, I did some quick research on why people post mean comments with no known connections.
Not surprisingly, a study was done and it was found that that majority of random mean commentors are psychotic. (https://www.psypost.org/people-who-post-hateful-comments-online-are-characterized-by-high-levels-of-psychopathy/)
That's fairly scary, to be honest. There's a lot of people suffering from this, if this is the case.
The other, less severe but nonetheless disturbing, reasons are:
Attention seeking: any attention is good attention in their book
Asserting dominance: if you can't control your own life, you can at least make someone else miserable
Inadequacy or insecurity: this is a fixable solution that a good therapist can help you work on
Anonymity: people don't know you, so you have the freedom to be as big of a jerk as you like to help fulfill one of the above parts.
Deindividualism: forgetting that there are actual feeling, thinking, existing humans on the other end who don't deserve the garbage, which leads to
Lack of empathy: they literally cannot even dredge up a modicum of care regarding how their comments could potentially hurt or harm someone. They just dropped "truth". Not their fault someone else can't deal with it. Not their problem, despite the fact they caused a problem that never needed to exist in the first place.
Venting: honestly, venting only creates more anger. Try problem solving instead.
I don't respond to negative comments. I just delete them. I'm sure I'll get to prove that on this one, mostly because these people can't not take the bait.
Luckily, I don't have to care any more than they do by deleting their existance from my post.
