Forum Insults

It's interesting to me how the ultimate forum insult (pulled out to use after insults about armor, gemming, arena ratings, and lack of progression haven't had any effect) is physical. When forum trolls (and in-game whisperers) decide to move on to the ultimate showdown, they say "you're fat and ugly," often in all caps and repeated for emphasis.

Let's start with the incongruity of this insult -- for the most part we only know each other as pixels on a screen, in those character representations drawn by game developers. Our interaction is because of those pixels....and has nothing to do with our real-world shape or beauty. Yet fat and/or ugly is seen as the ultimate in forum name calling. And those insults are used even if nobody has seen a photo of the person being insulted (the troll logic being that the lack of photo proves they're both ugly and fat).

But here's the funny thing about those specific insults...in the real world we grew out of them. Yep, it's true that back when we were between 10 and 14 these were the insults that devastated us -- but at some point we moved on to insulting intelligence, taste in clothing, social standings, and all the rest. Oh, those may still have been thought by us, but we didn't say them out loud....it just sounded too juvenile to resort to those words compared to other much more witty insults.
There's no denying those insults really hurt back in our preteens and early teens -- we were still getting used to our bodies changing, and (even if we weren't) we FELT ugly and fat. So of course it hurt. And sadly it can sometimes hurt now, even though we're older (some of us much much older) and have our self-worth wrapped up in other items like our brains, our health, or our wealth. It hurts because just for that moment we are 13 again, with all the discomfort and social stress and worry that goes with being that age and at that state in our lives.

But what does using those insults say about the person doing the insulting? A lot. It says that they're 13 -- even if their body has aged past that stage, their emotional maturity hasn't. And if you know anything about 13 year olds it also tells you how to fight back....by not fighting. That emotional age feels they win if you respond. Doesn't matter if you respond with logic or emotion, with facts or with better insults, they won. And if you do ANYTHING in the real world in response (take your photos down off your myspace for example) they really really know they've won.

Does this mean you should ignore them completely on the forums? No, because they aren't the only people reading the forum posts -- which means there may be times you want to speak up and say your piece for other folks on the forum to read. But only do it once, then be done -- because one of the key signs of having that 13-year-old emotional maturity is the need to repeat things ad nauseum.

The best part about understanding the emotional immaturity of these insults, tho, is you can now make a mental picture of who is writing those things. Because of course, 99.999% of the time those forum posts (and in some cases in-game mails and whispers) are by anonymous level 1 alts of people who aren't brave enough to show their real character on the forum when they're doing that insulting. Since a level 1 alt could be anyone of any age, you had no idea who was calling you fat and ugly. But now you do. It doesn't matter if they're still physically trapped in a body with pimples, braces, 10 pm curfews, basic algebra classes, and a future that includes drivers training and P.E. or not. They're emotionally trapped there, the poor things. And every time I see a ranting "you're fat!" posting by one of them I get to remember that I don't have to ever take another embarrassing P.E. class shower (and have grown past obsessing about them, unlike the ones stuck at that maturity level), and I smile gleefully and move on to read something else.

So, g'head, and call me fat and ugly on the forums, kiddo -- but you might want to use a little pimple cream on that face of yours tonight because I'm sure all that anger will result in a breakout. And remember that every time you call me those names, my brain (and the brain of everyone else reading your attempt at trolling) is saying "pimple face" and assuming you're the kid everyone made fun of in the P.E. showers.