I was known on stormscale and the maelstrom back in the day for being a mad troll.
And I went through a personal growth phase along with going to the gym and realised that my depression and low self esteem were just feeding my “need” to wind people up on the internet and in real life.
I got rid of all the negative people from my life, left social media. Had a family, settled down. Bought a house, retired at 40 and became happy in my own skin.
Stop being concerned with the lives of others and you’ll enjoy you own life more, and your toxicity will stop.
Karma is a wonderful thing. Being a troll never improved my life in any way,
Being genuinely nice to people has improved my life massively in intangible ways that I can’t even being to explain.
It’s all a reflection thing. People who troll hate themselves on a profound level. You can disagree with me as much as you want but I can assure you all , this is the case.
You don’t see successful happy people trolling on the internet.
Again it all comes with maturity and knowing that you need to grow emotionally
I mentioned it in another thread but I think it’s rooted in players who are goal oriented who do not enjoy the process of achieving the goal. If you’re having fun in the act of play, sub-optimal outcomes will not be as frustrating.
But when you’re doing something you don’t take intrinsic pleasure in, and you fail, you may feel (correctly) that you have wasted your time.
When the end goal is all that matters, other players are simply a means to an end, which prompts a lack of empathy.
Players are engaging in modes of play that they do not intrinsically enjoy, potentially because the structure of the game and the culture/community is oriented towards valuing status, progression and prestige, which pushes some players to feel if they don’t pursue high end goals, they are wasting their sub.
One of the most positive things I’ve done for myself was to remove social media from my phone, and delete the accounts.
I had massive anxiety to the point of needing sick leave at one point in my life, having deleted my social media, and just using phone calls (imagine that) and discord to keep up with the people I chose to keep in my life, I feel a lot better, and interestingly, have far fewer arguments online.
A low self esteem doesn’t necessarily equate to a small ego. It can be quite the opposite in fact, where expectations of yourself are so high, to the point where you will never be happy with yourself. Goes hand in hand with developing (covert) narcissistic defense mechanisms.
There’s no consequences. Sure,you can get your account suspended(but rarly lose it fully) but nothing reflects back onto you as a person. No matter the abuse you go home free without any consequences.
This whole thread reads like facebook boomers who are out of touch and only interact with WoW, maybe their family and work instead of rest of the world
I’m not sure the vast majority of people were ready for life that is permanently connected. I feel the smart phone is another part of this picture, pre 2006 ish, I had a regular “dumb” phone, and as such I only had access to notifications, messages and comments when I chose to use those applications on a computer, when I was offline, I was offline. Today, those notifications (particularly negative ones) haunt the user 24/7 in the form of smartphone notifications.
“So what?” you might say, well the subliminal affect is that those judgements (and fears of being judged) are always there, and very hard to escape from.
This is interesting. Great insight.
There is a huge difference between failing a +6 with pugs and failing a +2 with friends laughing, and this might be a reasonable explanation for it. Thank you.
It will definitely play a factor, but also just how people are.
Like it not, some people just tend to be more negative overall with their attitude and behavior or simply value other things.
Rest of the world doesn’t mean actually the whole world, what I mean is that people ITT are just in their own small bubbles and its no better than someone terminally online in reality.
