How to Annoy People on the Internet

While some folks make enriching hobbies out of cruising discussion forums and blogs and posting the comments that inflame, it is possible to enrage people on the internet, mortally wound their feelings, and cause them to question whether you have a 666 birthmark on your scalp, without that deep dedication.

Perhaps you've been thinking lately about how you can make more people blow a gasket during the course of their days.

Or perhaps you yourself are looking to become temple-throbbingly angry over words typed on the computer screen by complete strangers, but you're just not sure where to turn to get that fix.

Here are some tips to get that steam shooting from the ears without delay!
For writers/bloggers/forum participants:

• Type stuff. It really doesn't matter what. Eventually you'll hit on a combination of words that will make somebody believe you're a cruel and nasty individual trivializing their beloved pair of socks, the death of their childhood cat Mittens, or their lifelong love of cheese wheel rolling. Remember, this is the Internet, where colored pixels of light on the screen translate directly into personal insecurity and outrage.
  

• Be yourself. There's nothing that makes people on the internet more angry than someone who has ideas, or opinions, or types stuff (see above). It wouldn't matter if you were Gandhi, Kermit the Frog or Mr. Rogers. It's only a matter of time before someone finds you to be the most vile creature Satan ever shot into the Great Spittoon of Life. Be patient.
  

• Write the words that come to you without thinking of them from 47 different angles first. Be hasty. A careless, off-the-cuff phrase from you might just be the big Internet scandal that triggers loathing and threats against your nether-regions.

• Talk about controversial topics. Or lint. You might think that to really make people mad on the internet, you need to talk about things like politics, religion, gender issues, dog fighting or who should win American Idol this season. But you may not realize, you also have a great opportunity to make people spit blood by bringing up things like: breast feeding, animal breeding, favorite soups, the color puce, liking something, not liking something, and bits of fluff you might find in your armpit after wearing an angora sweater. The chance of annoying people regularly on the internet by talking about topics is virtually limitless.

For readers:

• Examine all content from news articles to blog posts to Twitter entries as if it relates directly to you personally, and all aspects of your life. Assume the writer was knowingly talking about you, even though the only thing they've seen of you is your screen name and your Winnie the Pooh avatar in the comments section.

• Fixate on one or two small details in a larger piece. Then super-size its importance for maximum impact. If you're skilled with this, you might be able to trigger a whole sub-discussion flame war where commenters on both sides begin to dwell on this minor issue instead of the topic the author actually intended. You may be working up a good froth for days!
  

• If there is nothing in a piece to fixate on, make assumptions that could be related, and rage about those. For example, if an article is about kittens and there is a white and a black kitten in the accompanying photo, you have an opportunity to discuss the author's obvious neglect of including tabbies in the piece, and how tabbies are just as good as black and white kittens and how the author is clearly an anti-Tabbyist. This places you in a very powerful position, because it is difficult to defend a statement that wasn't actually made in the first place. Your blood pressure can then elevate nicely due to their refusal to accept your accusations.

Yes, friends-- typing, words, thinking, not thinking... these things and more will soon put you on the road to annoying people on the web.


And for my guests today who have already begun this process, how have you inadvertently made others find their inner rage online? I hope you'll share with us today.

Portrait of Anonymous: An Interview

Who is the single hardest working individual online today? It must be the unflappable.... the infamous... the ever-present...

Anonymous.

Anyone who has a blog, a web site, or a forum knows him well. He's the one who makes sure your quality online acreage is covered with spam like cow pats on the back-set of Rawhide.

He's the one who lights up your comments section with the licking flames of misplaced rage and unique, out-of-the-box spelling techniques.

He's the fellow on forums, who slips in unfettered by pesky things like facts or context, and who can transform an everyday discussion on non-stick spatulas into a seething, spittle-flying, pro- and anti-Teflon situation in under ten minutes flat through persistence, precision name-calling and a Wonderland sort of rationale.

How does he manage to fit it all into his busy schedule? Well, Of Cabbages and Kings caught up with Anonymous this week, for the first-of-its-kind exclusive interview!


CABBAGES: You're a very busy man. Tell us: of your many online works, which is your favorite, and why?


ANONYMOUS: Well, it's apples to oranges, really. In terms of my forum contributions, I do feel there is huge value in spreading the "you suck, you're a bunch of losers" messaging across forums around the world.

I mean, I'm helping people completely entrenched in their narrow philosophies and obsessions with entertainment fan-dom look outside their small sphere of interests, and see there are other perspectives out there-- mainly those who think they suck and that they are losers.

That's important to help align their overblown self-esteem and encourage them to unmire themselves from an unhealthy fantasy life.

But I equally support the wide range of products I endorse. Getting the word out about "nekkd Britney Spears hot videoes of hotness now" or "Improve You Today In Bed All Night Longg Ladies will Pass Out" is really a humanitarian effort. I'm upping the quality of life of all those who my messaging touches.


CABBAGES: I notice you don't limit yourself to posting only on venues from one particular country. How many languages do you actually speak?


ANONYMOUS: Thirty-nine. I've been involved heavily in the Rosetta Stone language tutorial system, plus I use a number of online translators. I mean, while it looks simple, coming up with "I fren u, u fren me kay? nice blog" as one of my catch phrases took more time than you'd think. Largely because I needed something that would translate well into most languages.


CABBAGES: Except English.


ANONYMOUS: Yeah, I'm working on that.


CABBAGES: I notice in your messaging to the masses you don't stick to things like spelling, consistent punctuation or even generally accepted logic. Why is that?


ANONYMOUS: I believe people need to stop being such sheep when it comes to spelling, grammar and having consecutive thoughts flow logically from one to the other.

I mean, are you more likely to remember a message you can figure out by just glancing at it-- or one that's almost mystically mysterious, and which you have to decipher like The DaVinci Code?

Obvious-- the last one, of course! Why follow the crowd with how you express yourself when you can open up whole new worlds in the writing field?


CABBAGES: So you consider your spam art?


ANONYMOUS: Post-modernist, possibly, yes. Though more like poetry.


CABBAGES: When bloggers get comments from you, over and over again on the same post, saying the same things that don't translate well in English, they wonder why you take the time? It just gets deleted anyway.


ANONYMOUS: That's because they're not opening their eyes to the art. I am helping contribute new beauty, new thought, new ideas, fresh perspectives when I grace their comments section and tell them they shouldn't be born, to go to hell, or I choose to honor their blog with my ads.

But they're so self-involved they just don't see it. They see it only view it as a childish insult, or ads for cheap pharmaceuticals and illegal movie sites. But I also have the faith that they'll learn, someday. They'll see the sublime perfection of these communications. So I like to give them that chance-- and if that means I need to communicate with them every day, six times a day... then, so be it.

Yes, I believe in people. I want to give them every opportunity to change for the better. To find their own best selves through my comments, my products, my enhancement of their otherwise mundane work.

That's just the kind of guy I am. And it's because I don't want to look like I'm tooting my own horn, I simply have to remain anonymous. Revealing my identity would only take away from my selfless acts for bettering mankind. And we don't want that.

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Of Cabbages and Kings would like to thank Anonymous for taking time out of his busy schedule to be with us here today.

Now we'll take questions from the readers. Do you have anything you'd like to ask Anonymous? He'll be answering your comments in between adding his, um, post-modernist art to other blogs.

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Rubbernecking the Ridiculous: Tips to Reduce Forum Thread Outrage

You know how cars on one side of the road end up slowing down, compelled to get a glimpse of a tragic accident on the other side of the highway?

That's what I find myself doing in some online forum threads.

What inevitably I see there is the verbal equivalent of a ten-car pile-up. Something that might have once been a respectful point... decent adult discourse... a unique perspective... something we could all learn from... now pulled apart and twisted together again, turned upside down and made grotesque.

A nose where a nose should not be. A leg where an arm once was.

All tangled up metal and smeared with gore and not quite human anymore. Or perhaps all too human. Because I look at it and am still reminded of what it had once been. And mourn what it's turned into.

See, the thing is, I know going into particular threads that this is likely what I'm going to see. Yet I lurk, anyway. Why? Why do I do this to myself? Because each time I do, I feel my blood pressure jet-packing skyward.... I see my belief in basic human decency hitting the southbound express lane...

And I have only myself to blame for it.

Which got me thinking-- there have to be a lot of other folks out there facing the same problem. More silent folks who know we shouldn't look, but still do, due to our own personal weakness... our own compulsions... our own mysterious need to see the unfathomable. Folks who could cure our own ailments by simply hitting that X button in the corner of the browser window. And yet sometimes we still find ourselves crossing the county line from North BlissfulIgnorance to Lower Curiosity.

So I've pulled together a few alternate suggestions, of ways to deal with Forum Thread Rubbernecking for habitual lurkers. Ways to diffuse the irritation, to experience even the most divisive thread with a gladder heart, and to drive past the car crashes without a direct route to Depression. Perhaps one of these techniques will help you, as well:

• Pretend every thread is the next season of the hot new soap opera, As the Stomach Churns. Meet the insidious Lola, the two-faced Thad, the overcompensating Raven, the off-her-meds Angelique, and the contradictory and conflicted Javier.

• Bone up on psychology and play, "Name That Disorder." Uncover phobias, unspoken cries for help, inferiority complexes, covert narcissism and sociopathic mindsets.
  

• Make it into a drinking game, where points are earned every time name-calling occurs, stereotypical labels are flung generously, self-contradictions occur within the same paragraph and report buttons get hit. Chug when threads are removed by administrators.

• Imagine all the participants are giant cranky 2-year olds, complete with Dora the Explorer and Barney t-shirts, rubber pants and security blankies. Predict when naptimes will occur and when the next "time-out" will be awarded.
  

• Make a list of ten impossible-to-believe stand-alone forum quotes a day. Compile them into a best-selling coffee table book.

• Parallel different personalities with literary figures and compare where plotlines diverge.

• Create abstract art to represent each horrifying thread. Sell your work on Etsy, or at local arts fairs with titles like "Flame Warfare No. 12," "2Cute4U19's Confusion" or "Rage in Caps."

Yes, for those moments when you simply cannot make yourself X out, there are still ways to minimize the disappointment, the horror, the disbelief. By employing some simple strategies, it may be possible to get through social media with one's soul intact. Together, I hope we can make the Internet Highway a smoother, healthier, less road-ragey ride for everyone.

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Humorbloggers

Emoticonics Anonymous: A Five-and-a-Quarter Step Program

Since I've been posting regularly on a few forums I've come to realize that...

(sniff)

...I am an Emoticonic. :(

I am addicted to using the little semi-colon and closed-parenthesis symbol willy-nilly online to convey "I am joking here, friends."

As a result, I subject my fellow posters to rivers of smiley-faces dripping down their screen.

I can't help myself. :( It's just when posting, I become concerned that no amount of editing will ensure everyone gets the joke. I worry about angry mobs, villagers with torches pounding down my virtual door, all for the case of a misunderstanding or a casual opinion they might disagree with. :(

And in the stress of it-- I find myself reaching for that semi-colon or colon...

The parens are only a short slide from there. :(

And I know I'm not alone. Heck, hundreds... thousands... maybe even hundreds of thousands of people out there in cyberspace abuse emoticons every day. So how can we put an end to it?

Well, now there's Emoticonics Anonymous, :) the support group designed specifically to gently assist people with Emoticon Addiction and guide us along the path to reducing-- and eventually ending-- the unnecessary addition of smileys, frownies and surprised faces.

The program has easy, step-by-step instructions, that allow Emoticonics to live happier, more emoticon-free lives, no matter what type of feedback we expect to receive. And it all begins with the first step:


1.) Admit you have a problem.

Hi, my name is Jenn, and I am an Emoticonic :) I've abused emoticons for... oh... going on three years now.


2.) Apologize to those you have hurt through your addiction.

Blogcatalog friends, CottageLiving Forum buds, Friends of Cabbages... I owe you all a huge apology :( for littering your forums, and your blog comments, with an endless supply of unnecessary punctuation in the form of goodwill. :) It was my personal insecurity that my online compadres wouldn't understand my tone-- my sense of humor-- that led to such graphics atrocities. I hope you can forgive me. :) :) :)


3.) Begin by writing your first cheeky online sentence emoticon-free.

"If Katie Couric has one more eye-job, her chin will have a navel.".... : .... no.....: ..... must resist.... ;...... must not ..... :) :) :)

Ugh. Off the wagon again!


4.) Do not be discouraged if your first attempt at eliminating the emoticon is not a success. Don't assign blame. Just keep trying.

"If Mark Wahlberg can learn to raise one eyebrow, this means he'll have TWO facial expressions."... : Must try not to.... ; Must not semi-colon......... ;..... NO parenthesis.... NO... NO....

Phew! That was a close one.


5. ) Take emoticon reduction one day at a time. Don't forget to say the Emoticonics Anonymous pledge.

"Give me the strength this day to respect my fellow posters, to post wisely, kindly, logically, to communicate clearly and, above all, to post emoticon-free."


5 and 1/4) Find friends who also have issues with emoticon abuse to act as part of a network.

I hereby invite my fellow Emoticonics to stand up, and share their stories. When you attempt to quit smiley-facing, you do a very brave thing. :) .... (oops... I'll work on it.)

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