Is the internet creating a new breed of scary basement dweller?

[slackerinabox]

I've noticed a new strain of vitriol out there, the once voiceless kids without futures or hope stewing in their anger and spouting bile for often very silly stuff. From cell phone discussions that get way too passionate, to spouting dehumanizing stuff about trivial topics ("a lite-news topic about Glee getting canceled? Let's call everyone fags that need to burn in hell!"), the net's always been a place for loonies to gather but these days it seems like you can't read a comment section on ANYTHING without some venom (it used to be limited to polarizing topics like politics, now you'll have hate speech on weather reports -"Those old liberal jews in Florida deserve a hurricane to wipe them out!"). What's going on here? A black president pissing people off? Is it the high unemployment rate in working class america? What's the unifying strand behind all this male anger?

It's usually people with conservative values, mediocre intelligence, shitty or no jobs, and absolutely no hope for girlfriends or social interaction besides porn - they seem to completely lack any empathy and view themselves as geniuses because they have fundamental computer skills. Part of it's the power of anonymity so yes, some of them will just die in their basements without bothering anyone - but I'm a bit worried, with video games training them (I don't blame the games, blame the players) and nihilism in their soul, anyone else worry that we have a bunch of Columbines coming in the future?

 

[tortillasoup]

All of my nihilism...

 

[Scotteq]

 

[slackerinabox]

Yes! They terrify me! Luckily I live in NYC where a lot of the single white men are gay liberals, and have excellent taste in music and fashion while just being nice people.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Didn't know Glee was cancelled. Yawn

 

[CPA]

It's usually people with conservative values, ?

Lost all respect here freedomsbeat. You were making some good points which I tend to agree with. But this was a fucking stupid, mediocre intelligent, venomous thing to assume.

 

[slackerinabox]

Lost all respect here freedomsbeat. You were making some good points which I tend to agree with. But this was a fucking stupid, mediocre intelligent, venomous thing to assume.

Not a dig against conservatives but stating unifying facts (same way most of these kids are male, I tend to not have much man hate - I'm a dude). You NEVER hear a liberal spouting "I WANT TO BLOW UP A BUILDING BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE EQUALITY!" The anger does seem pretty tied to older, conservative values and the posters do seem to associate with the tea party. I view tea partiers as a fringe/niche, and not the face of conservatism (though they are loud!), I hope it's just an awkward phase.

Man, I really yearn for the days of sharp dressed, super-intelligent wall street republicans, they were aspirational and kinda bad ass.Though my politics are firmly in the left, I have a whole lot of conservative relatives I can agree with and respect (I agree with the core value of smaller government, but would prefer more spending on social and educational programs than war), but social issues are something mainstream conservatives are a few decades behind the time on.. I mean, the LGBT community was born that way and all - "all men/women created equal" and all that.

 

[WelshBloke]

Lost all respect here freedomsbeat. You were making some good points which I tend to agree with. But this was a fucking stupid, mediocre intelligent, venomous thing to assume.

Its kinda true though. Racist, sexist, homophobic attitudes are conservative (conservative with a small "c", does that explanation work is the US?).

 

[nickbits]

Creating? Nah, they always existed.

They are probably mostly just immature and have poor social skills. I probably would have been part of the group you described but not so much now that I'm older.

 

[slackerinabox]

Creating? Nah, they always existed.

They are probably mostly just immature and have poor social skills. I probably would have been part of the group you described but not so much now that I'm older.

But didn't the anger use to be focused? The AMD vs Intel battles of yesterday were far quainter than the shit people spew these days, at least the way I see it.

 

[Markbnj]

You NEVER hear a liberal spouting "I WANT TO BLOW UP A BUILDING BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE EQUALITY!"

This is true. It takes an endangered species to get a liberal to want to blow up a building.

 

[slackerinabox]

This is true. It takes an endangered species to get a liberal to want to blow up a building.

Oh, you're right - the animal rights wackdoos are their own breed of crazy and piss me off.. But, let's face it - most of the men are in it for the hippy chicks I learned this after spending some time with Occupy Wall Street people - they're less likely to do something borderline terrorist because a lot of them are in it for social reasons (While conservative wackos/fringe show more anti-social/loner traits)

 

[z1ggy]

It's just part of the pussification of America and the fact parents are getting shittier (leading to the pussification partly). Kids are content to live off their parents until they are forced out, and spend way too much time indoors on their fat prediabetic asses.

I try to not let the trolling here affect me but sometimes it's just down right ridiculous the things people actually think and believe in.

 

[OverVolt]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/04/opinion/bennett-men-in-trouble/

Editor's note: William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, is the author of "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood." Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute. He was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.

(CNN) -- For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.
Now, society has rightly celebrated the ascension of one sex. We said, "You go girl," and they went. We celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very real decline of the other sex?
The data does not bode well for men. In 1970, men earned 60% of all college degrees. In 1980, the figure fell to 50%, by 2006 it was 43%. Women now surpass men in college degrees by almost three to two. Women's earnings grew 44% in real dollars from 1970 to 2007, compared with 6% growth for men.

In 1950, 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, 20% were not working, the highest ever recorded. Men still maintain a majority of the highest paid and most powerful occupations, but women are catching them and will soon be passing them if this trend continues.

The warning signs for men stretch far beyond their wallets. Men are more distant from a family or their children then they have ever been. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is more than 40% in America. In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. In 2010, that share had risen to 27%. Men are also less religious than ever before. According to Gallup polling, 39% of men reported attending church regularly in 2010, compared to 47% of women.
If you don't believe the numbers, just ask young women about men today. You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up. I've heard too many young women asking, "Where are the decent single men?" There is a maturity deficit among men out there, and men are falling behind.

This decline in founding virtues -- work, marriage, and religion -- has caught the eye of social commentators from all corners. In her seminal article, "The End of Men," Hanna Rosin unearthed the unprecedented role reversal that is taking place today. "Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed," writes Rosin. The changes in modern labor -- from backs to brains -- have catapulted women to the top of the work force, leaving men in their dust.

Hanna Rosin: Are women leaving men behind?

Man's response has been pathetic. Today, 18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys. While women are graduating college and finding good jobs, too many men are not going to work, not getting married and not raising families. Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?

So what's wrong? Increasingly, the messages to boys about what it means to be a man are confusing. The machismo of the street gang calls out with a swagger. Video games, television and music offer dubious lessons to boys who have been abandoned by their fathers. Some coaches and drill sergeants bark, "What kind of man are you?" but don't explain.
Movies are filled with stories of men who refuse to grow up and refuse to take responsibility in relationships. Men, some obsessed with sex, treat women as toys to be discarded when things get complicated. Through all these different and conflicting signals, our boys must decipher what it means to be a man, and for many of them it is harder to figure out.
For boys to become men, they need to be guided through advice, habit, instruction, example and correction. It is true in all ages. Someone once characterized the two essential questions Plato posed as: Who teaches the children, and what do we teach them? Each generation of men and women have an obligation to teach the younger males (and females of course) coming behind them. William Wordsworth said, "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." When they fail in that obligation, trouble surely follows.

We need to respond to this culture that sends confusing signals to young men, a culture that is agnostic about what it wants men to be, with a clear and achievable notion of manhood.

The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.

 

[OverVolt]

http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/FTL_FullReport.pdf

Failure to Launch

The on-ramp from education to full-time careers and family formation is delayed for many
young adults. The age at which young workers reach the median wage has increased from 26
to 30

Youth employment fell to levels
not seen since the early 1970s, before the mass inflows of women into the workforce had peaked. For
young men, the employment rate1
fell to a level not seen since the Great Depression.

Prior to 1980, the government
spent around 2.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on investment, but averaged only 1.8
percent between 1985 and 2009.2
Education budgets at the federal, state, and local level have already
been squeezed over the past decade.

etc etc etc etc etc.

 

[Jeff7]

Flaw in logic: More Columbines would require leaving the basement.

 

[Kaido]

Youtube and CNN comments show the underbelly of humanity.

It'd be interesting to see how much of a different place the Internet would be if we were required to use our real names on all websites...

 

[OverVolt]

It's just part of the pussification of America and the fact parents are getting shittier (leading to the pussification partly). Kids are content to live off their parents until they are forced out, and spend way too much time indoors on their fat prediabetic asses.

I try to not let the trolling here affect me but sometimes it's just down right ridiculous the things people actually think and believe in.

A career, not just a job would level them out. Oh wait.

 

[OverVolt]

Youtube and CNN comments show the underbelly of humanity.

It'd be interesting to see how much of a different place the Internet would be if we were required to use our real names on all websites...

It would be like facebook. So not all that different.

 

[OverVolt]

Creating? Nah, they always existed.

They are probably mostly just immature and have poor social skills. I probably would have been part of the group you described but not so much now that I'm older.

Yea I remember 30 year old men posting vitriol aol chatroom opinions, and angelfire webpage blogs all the time in the 1990s so its totally normal.

Wait, no I didn't.

Anyway to clarify I'm level headed about the whole affair it is just something I've known has been going on for awhile. Its getting to be super ironic. Its mostly affecting those 18-29. You seem like you are in your mid 30's so you really wouldn't know the wall that most are running up against these days.

 

[sixone]

Creating? Nah, they always existed.

They are probably mostly just immature and have poor social skills.

This. Add the fact that they can say things hiding behind their computers that they were never say to someone's face.

We see it here every day - the over-the-top reactions to someone who espouses a different point of view, the name-calling, the weak gotcha attempts to bring in unrelated threads to smear people with.

A scary lot of the people who do that are well past old enough to know better.

 

[Sluggo]

Lost all respect here freedomsbeat. You were making some good points which I tend to agree with. But this was a fucking stupid, mediocre intelligent, venomous thing to assume.

This.

 

[Anubis]

Youtube and CNN comments show the underbelly of humanity.

It'd be interesting to see how much of a different place the Internet would be if we were required to use our real names on all websites...

Youtube (google) is trying to start this by forcing you to use google+ ID to comment

 

[slackerinabox]

Youtube (google) is trying to start this by forcing you to use google+ ID to comment

That's a great idea, but even tying into facebook hasn't helped blogs.

 

[schmuckley]

Nobody factored in the fact that a HUGE reason teenagers/young adults have a hard time findings jobs is:
a)Government overregulation/taxation.
b)Illegal immigrants taking the jobs(largely Mexican)

It is what it is.