[ Consider this one of my ongoing cafe raps about trends I see almost *everywhere* on the Internet, not just on FFL. Try to portray it as being *only* about certain individuals on FFL at your own peril. ]
I am far from the first person to suggest that our Internet Age -- with people spending inordinate amounts of time in "chat rooms" or on social media forums -- has caused some peculiar and disturbing behavioral patterns. One of those patterns seems to involve people regressing to the ages they were (both intellectually and emotionally) and the mindsets they wore back when they were in Jr. High School. And one of the things that most of us *remember* from those not-so-glorious days is how young adolescents, still "trying out" their fledgling social interaction wings, tended to form into cliques. In my memory, most of these cliques were female, and they tended to most often fall into the "mean girls" category that is so often captured in movies and TV and stories about Jr. High School and High School life. This is *not* to say that there weren't "mean guys clubs," too...there were. But "membership" in them (at least back in my era) tended to revolve around real-life accomplishments, such as being on the football team. The "mean girls clubs," on the other hand, more often tended to revolve around chronic narcissism, and the girls' conviction (often not based in any kind of reality) that they were more attractive, more popular, and just "better" than other girls. A fascinating sidebar to this trend, however, is that there were always a few guys who gravitated to and squeezed their way into these "mean girls clubs." And the mean girls allowed them to do this. Go figure. Maybe these guys just weren't any good at sports or at making other friends, maybe the mean girls just took pity on them, maybe they thought the guys were gay...who knows. But there *were* occasional guys who were members of the Jr. High School "mean girls clubs," and there still are today, in their Internet counterparts. One reason for this, of course, is that most of the activities of a "mean girls club" clique revolve around asserting their own superiority and putting down or ragging on anyone who is not a member. So the more "members" they could recruit *to* do this, the better. And to this day, in their Internet counterparts, the guys who are part of the "mean girls clubs" tend to toady up to the leaders of the cliques, to brownnose them and praise them constantly, and do what they're expected to do...which is, of course, to rag on the clique leaders' enemies. And it's the SAME behavior, whether it takes place in the hallways of a school or in cyberspace chat rooms. In both environments, the SAME things seem to piss off the clique members and provoke them into "attack mode." For example: Trying to sabotage their enemies' popularity or reputations. Almost *nothing* pisses off a mean girl (or her male minions) more than someone they don't like getting some attention from or having pleasant interactions with other people. They react by ragging on the victim, and trying to convince the people being friendly with these enemies that THEY'D BLOODY WELL BETTER STOP, IF THEY KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR THEM. Otherwise, they're likely to be added to the clique's "Enemies List" themselves. Same in cyberspace. Another thing that pushes the mean girls' buttons is seeing one of their designated victims enjoying themselves or having FUN, *despite* their attempts to keep this from happening. This just drives the mean girls CRAZY, because it's almost as if they are having no effect whatsoever on these intended victims. Almost as if. Again, you see the same thing on the Internet. A third big "button pusher" for the mean girls is seeing one of their enemies actually succeed at something, or gain recognition from others for having done something good. The mean girls tend to react to this by projecting all sorts of negative fantasies onto the victim. For example, hearing that one of their enemies landed a prestigious summer internship, they might say, "Well...I sure hope she doesn't get fired for being such a bitch," which, translated, means, "I sure hope she DOES get fired!" Or when one of their guy enemies makes the football team, they might say, "Good for him...I sure hope he doesn't break his leg," which again translates to "We sure hope he DOES break a leg, because any success he might achieve reflects badly on us and the fact that we never really DO anything, just bitch, bitch, bitch about the people we don't like." And again, this SAME behavior is echoed in the cliques that form on Internet forums. It all seems a little sad and embarrassing to me, but if acting like this is the only thing that gets these mean girls and their guy pets through the day, I guess it's better than them becoming, say, psycho killers. But it sure would lighten up the general vibe of cyberspace if a few of these mean girls could grow the fuck up, and start acting more like adults.
