Why are people so mean on the internet?

This was a query I typed into Google on Sunday.

The reason?

After posting up some pictures and comments on my work Facebook and Twitter which I manage I was hit back with a barrage of abuse, swearwords, sexism and similar.

As someone who manages a company web page all I am offered is a chance to delete the posts, the block the users, and that’s it. No come backs. No chance to say what I want – which is ‘If you don’t LIKE us why did you CLICK the like button?’

Why are people so cruel on the internet?

I use 9gag. A site for comedy posts and interesting images etc. A place that memes spread like wildfire and everything is an ‘in joke’. There’s banter, yes. ‘Women in the kitchen’ and so forth, which becomes a meme in itself rather than derogatory when used in the right way. Most people can tell which way things are being used. I give you ‘the N word’. You can really tell if that is being used on an equal level, or when it is being used in the derogatory fashion which means I have to use the 3 pieced version of the word. But there is also a lot of trolling. A lot of vitriolic comments that are not acceptable. These are bullying comments. Racist. Sexist. Any comments that are meant to harm you and your values and sense of self.

Online newspapers aren’t safe. I’m beginning to feel no place with a comments or review section is in the all clear when it comes to cyber bullying. The guardian is full of people who actively hate things. Who comment to express this hate and their superiority.

(Don’t get me started on the Daily mail, the comments section should be IP monitored to weed out the worst characters online. )

From forums to chat rooms to Youtube right through to Twitter and Yahoo Answers (a place where people are told to kill themselves more often than I care to think about), since using the internet back when I listened to the Dial Up tone to do so, I’ve seen it come from unfriendly sites (Rotten, anyone?) where you could expect this sort of abuse because, hey, you clicked on the site, to a change in the internet where people are very negative – Just for the fun of it.

I understand the basis. Anonymity plus opinions plus boredom less repercussions= Trolling or Agression online.

But WHY?

Doesn’t it feel better to have a nice online community? To save your rants for the forums they are designed for? What pleasure is there in attacking an overweight person online, a woman, a picture of someone who looks unconventional?

What is the fun in liking an online social media page only to act like you are better than the company running it? To taunt the people behind the page, when you WISH your job was that persons, when you WISH you had something to occupy yourself that didn’t involve megapixels and an ISP.

Perhaps by not having found the joy in this, I’m ‘so 2001’. Well so be it.