Knowing you personally (full disclosure ^^) it makes me sad reading this, not only because I know how much time you have put into the tools and helping the community who use them, but also just knowing your character as a person, who not only is very open, honest and wears their heart on their sleeve (so to speak), but also who tries to see the best in others and always show others respect. I couldn't imagine anyone who knew you personally ever writing the words in the emails you quoted above, which maybe is even indicative of at least part of the problem - the anonymity of the online world. We often know so little about the people with whom we interact online that we are constantly forced into a situation of projecting our own preconceptions and prejudices into the mix - which is human nature, we seek to contextualize the world around us.
The problem that you are talking about is, imo, and extremely complex one that is very difficult to analyze or sum up quickly or easily. There are a wide range of contributing factors, but I do believe the very character and nature of the online world we have created has had a large role to play in the emergence of this culture of "trolling". Many people could now be said to live more of their lives in the virtual online space than they do in the real world, so much so that a new social standard is evolving and overriding the lessons we learn everyday in the real world. Our psychology, outlook and way of thinking is becoming increasingly informed by our online experiences and interactions as they take up an ever greater percentage of our days.
The online world is vast and fast paced, a sea of content populated by endless faces or avatars and with so many things competing for our attention only the most streamlined or noisy get through. In my opinion being constantly confronted the enormity life and social interaction on a global scale triggers a fundamental "angoisse" (upset or trauma) in most people, and the more we interact on that level the more traumatize we become. Although Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like all try to put us at the center of our own little worlds, superstar fish in our own virtual ponds, all spending time online really does is to remind us of our insignificance and lack of power. As biological animals (for those who accept evolutionary principles even if under the guidance of a intelligent creator) we require social interaction in order to survive (humans won over tigers and bears because we knew how to cooperate and work together to achieve things). And to cut a long story short, in order to function in a social pack we need to know our place. We need to understand how we fit in, what our role is and (probably most importantly) why we are needed at all.
In our everyday lives, family, friends, job etc we can very often define our role in a satisfactory enough manner to be "happy", however when we go online that definition is destroyed, because we have no role, no significance, no identity... we are just another piece of flotsam in an endless sea. And the more time people spend online and interacting online the more this idea starts to seep into their fundamental psychological makeup and sense of self-identity. Feelings of powerlessness and insignificance generally cause people to lash out and act in angry, aggressive and negative ways... emasculated is a good term for it, and although I don't believe it is by any means an exclusively male problem (as it speaks to something more fundamentally human than that).. there does seem to be evidence to suggest that much of the worst online harassment and "trolling" is perpetrated by men.
However I put the word "troll" in quotes earlier because although I totally agree with and understand what you are talking about, I am not sure that "trolling" is exactly the right term for it. To me a Troll is someone who is specifically just looking to provoke reactions and spread chaos, and who spends most of their time in most situations with that goal in mind. However I think that genuine trolls like that are rarer than the people you are talking about. I think what you are talking about, certainly in the case of the email you quoted, is someone who doesn't always go around looking to start trouble, but who doesn't think twice about reacting in this extreme and aggressive manner the times that they do feel "wronged" for some reason. Maybe it isn't important but I feel that although tangentially related to trolling, what you are referring to here it isn't exactly the same thing as genuine trolling, and therefore it could be useful to define it differently.
I very often wonder though, how many of the worst perpetrators of this kind of behavior online (all the idiots telling Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn they wanted to rape and murder them) are actually just "kids"... minors, adolescents etc. who as I am sure we will all admit from personal experience say and do some very dumb things sometimes. Of course there are some horribly minded adults out there too, but I feel there is no doubt that there is a catalyst effect that goes on... being exposed to the worst of these comments then tends to make essentially more reasonable people also become intolerant and go too far. I don't think it takes that much to start poisoning the well and online negativity has a sort of resonance effect where a bad interaction influences the next for the worse and so on. This is another problem with the anonymity online... I wonder Shawn, if that email you quoted above would have effected you less if you saw the person who sent it and discovered that they were actually just an awkward unpopular spotty 14 year old. I am not criticizing at all by the way, I still get upset, wound up and annoyed by people online and every time I say the same thing to myself but it doesn't really help - because you simply do not know.
L4D2 has a reputation for having a toxic community and yes, while it really does often dismay and shock me the percentage of players who do genuinely seem to just have a "f**k the world" attitude and just seem so instantly bad minded without the slightest provocation, I don't think that is the whole story. Beyond that there are quite a number of players (myself included sometimes I will freely admit) who come across as toxic not because they really think that way, but just because they are so often exposed to it they become oversensitive and defensive (which in this case is compounded by the fact that L4D2 is a game which lasts and hour or more, you can often spend a long time waiting around for game to start, and can literally by ruined by one person in the space of 10-20 seconds). The point is the negativity propagates, and certainly in part because of the anonymity behind which is hides. In the end it is almost like everything online which upsets or antagonizes us belongs to the same amorphous mass, one generic entity which encapsulates everything which threatens and or complicates our lives, and in the end a letter to the developer of an online tool becomes an emotional outlet for all the frustrations, anger and resentment the causes of which cannot be directly addressed. Writing and angry hateful letter to you or spoiling a game of L4D2 will probably make someone feel as if they are having some impact upon the world and taking back some of the power they sacrifice each day. It is also an interesting example because L4D2 is very much a game which can leave people feeling impotent, powerless and emasculated (moreso that quite a lot of other games) and I think this is also one of the reasons L4D2 tends to see a disproportionate quantity of extremely negative and destructive behaviour.
Anyway, great article Shawn. A subject that I feel is becoming (or has been made) very important over the recent past. I feel we have seen a massive tendency towards disdain, contempt, hostility, aggression and dismissal in online culture, arising maybe from a dissonance between an increasingly narcissistic, self-affirmation, "I am the center of the universe" expectation of self-identity within a framework/system which constantly undermines this same expectation. Maybe as you say it isn't an apocalyptic problem, but when I see the way so many people seem to talk, react and interact online it really fills me with despair, and I would like to believe we are capable of so much better than this.
The problem that you are talking about is, imo, and extremely complex one that is very difficult to analyze or sum up quickly or easily. There are a wide range of contributing factors, but I do believe the very character and nature of the online world we have created has had a large role to play in the emergence of this culture of "trolling". Many people could now be said to live more of their lives in the virtual online space than they do in the real world, so much so that a new social standard is evolving and overriding the lessons we learn everyday in the real world. Our psychology, outlook and way of thinking is becoming increasingly informed by our online experiences and interactions as they take up an ever greater percentage of our days.
The online world is vast and fast paced, a sea of content populated by endless faces or avatars and with so many things competing for our attention only the most streamlined or noisy get through. In my opinion being constantly confronted the enormity life and social interaction on a global scale triggers a fundamental "angoisse" (upset or trauma) in most people, and the more we interact on that level the more traumatize we become. Although Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like all try to put us at the center of our own little worlds, superstar fish in our own virtual ponds, all spending time online really does is to remind us of our insignificance and lack of power. As biological animals (for those who accept evolutionary principles even if under the guidance of a intelligent creator) we require social interaction in order to survive (humans won over tigers and bears because we knew how to cooperate and work together to achieve things). And to cut a long story short, in order to function in a social pack we need to know our place. We need to understand how we fit in, what our role is and (probably most importantly) why we are needed at all.
In our everyday lives, family, friends, job etc we can very often define our role in a satisfactory enough manner to be "happy", however when we go online that definition is destroyed, because we have no role, no significance, no identity... we are just another piece of flotsam in an endless sea. And the more time people spend online and interacting online the more this idea starts to seep into their fundamental psychological makeup and sense of self-identity. Feelings of powerlessness and insignificance generally cause people to lash out and act in angry, aggressive and negative ways... emasculated is a good term for it, and although I don't believe it is by any means an exclusively male problem (as it speaks to something more fundamentally human than that).. there does seem to be evidence to suggest that much of the worst online harassment and "trolling" is perpetrated by men.
However I put the word "troll" in quotes earlier because although I totally agree with and understand what you are talking about, I am not sure that "trolling" is exactly the right term for it. To me a Troll is someone who is specifically just looking to provoke reactions and spread chaos, and who spends most of their time in most situations with that goal in mind. However I think that genuine trolls like that are rarer than the people you are talking about. I think what you are talking about, certainly in the case of the email you quoted, is someone who doesn't always go around looking to start trouble, but who doesn't think twice about reacting in this extreme and aggressive manner the times that they do feel "wronged" for some reason. Maybe it isn't important but I feel that although tangentially related to trolling, what you are referring to here it isn't exactly the same thing as genuine trolling, and therefore it could be useful to define it differently.
I very often wonder though, how many of the worst perpetrators of this kind of behavior online (all the idiots telling Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn they wanted to rape and murder them) are actually just "kids"... minors, adolescents etc. who as I am sure we will all admit from personal experience say and do some very dumb things sometimes. Of course there are some horribly minded adults out there too, but I feel there is no doubt that there is a catalyst effect that goes on... being exposed to the worst of these comments then tends to make essentially more reasonable people also become intolerant and go too far. I don't think it takes that much to start poisoning the well and online negativity has a sort of resonance effect where a bad interaction influences the next for the worse and so on. This is another problem with the anonymity online... I wonder Shawn, if that email you quoted above would have effected you less if you saw the person who sent it and discovered that they were actually just an awkward unpopular spotty 14 year old. I am not criticizing at all by the way, I still get upset, wound up and annoyed by people online and every time I say the same thing to myself but it doesn't really help - because you simply do not know.
L4D2 has a reputation for having a toxic community and yes, while it really does often dismay and shock me the percentage of players who do genuinely seem to just have a "f**k the world" attitude and just seem so instantly bad minded without the slightest provocation, I don't think that is the whole story. Beyond that there are quite a number of players (myself included sometimes I will freely admit) who come across as toxic not because they really think that way, but just because they are so often exposed to it they become oversensitive and defensive (which in this case is compounded by the fact that L4D2 is a game which lasts and hour or more, you can often spend a long time waiting around for game to start, and can literally by ruined by one person in the space of 10-20 seconds). The point is the negativity propagates, and certainly in part because of the anonymity behind which is hides. In the end it is almost like everything online which upsets or antagonizes us belongs to the same amorphous mass, one generic entity which encapsulates everything which threatens and or complicates our lives, and in the end a letter to the developer of an online tool becomes an emotional outlet for all the frustrations, anger and resentment the causes of which cannot be directly addressed. Writing and angry hateful letter to you or spoiling a game of L4D2 will probably make someone feel as if they are having some impact upon the world and taking back some of the power they sacrifice each day. It is also an interesting example because L4D2 is very much a game which can leave people feeling impotent, powerless and emasculated (moreso that quite a lot of other games) and I think this is also one of the reasons L4D2 tends to see a disproportionate quantity of extremely negative and destructive behaviour.
Anyway, great article Shawn. A subject that I feel is becoming (or has been made) very important over the recent past. I feel we have seen a massive tendency towards disdain, contempt, hostility, aggression and dismissal in online culture, arising maybe from a dissonance between an increasingly narcissistic, self-affirmation, "I am the center of the universe" expectation of self-identity within a framework/system which constantly undermines this same expectation. Maybe as you say it isn't an apocalyptic problem, but when I see the way so many people seem to talk, react and interact online it really fills me with despair, and I would like to believe we are capable of so much better than this.
