A minor realization.

[hannah]

I've seen and interacted with so many people online that outright, up-front, describe themselves as hostile, angry, annoying, spiteful, nasty, childish, spoiled, whiny, unpleasant to be around, generally pissed off, or some combination thereof, that when I see someone label themselves as insufferable or something similar, I won't know it's a joke. I'm too used to people being up-front about these things - with the internet being a reasonably safe space to mention it right off the bat - that I take it at face value, and immediately slot the person in as they've so labeled themselves.

Maybe I shouldn't do this...and on the other hand, enough people mean it when they say things like that maybe I should keep up with it. It's hard for me to say right now.

Anyone got anything?

Comments

Well, trying to think it through...

[parhelion]

...I've noticed people online are often up front but rarely complete. In other words, they're hostile [right now], angry [about this one thing], annoying [but could you suggest an excuse for it to them please?], spiteful [not because they don't think it's deserved but because they think they should still rise above whatever it is], nasty [inside their own head], childish [Whee! Yes, really!], spoiled [or at least saying they are might lessen their guilt for not correcting it], whiny [so please be warned], unpleasant to be around [which I keep telling my therapist, so I don't know why she asked me what could be odd about my then telling her how five of my friends did this subtle thing last night proving they *obviously* agree with me]. This makes the online honesty really kind of deceptive.

I guess I'm trying to say that online autobiographical writing is often very honest but selective because it lacks the context one gets hearing such statements in person offline. So, maybe, it's a matter of believing people are telling the truth but not the entire truth because they can't without writing chapters, and even then the reader lacks that immediate view of a speaker's surroundings that provides a second perspective. Perhaps all statements of this nature should be received with an automatic footnote of "probably true but could also be ironic/not the whole story/an honest mistake".

[hannah]

All very well put. It can't do much for years of confusion already directed at a few people, but when encountering new individuals, this will be good to remember. Thank you.