Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hanson]

I know I'll probably get lit up like a Christmas tree, but here goes.

Why are some posters here so aggressive? I can understand a rant here and there (we've all done it), but to attack other posters? I often see one poster calling another poster an idiot/stupid/moron/etc... Obviously the anonymous nature of this board allows for some things to be said that people would never do in a face-to-face situation, but I'm genuinely surprised at how little it takes for some posters to go off on one another.

In the words of Jack Nicholson in "Mars Attacks":

"Why can't we all just get along?"

[Swiss James]

that's the internet in general though isn't it? Something about the anonymity of it I suppose, just like when people are in their cars.

[periwinkle]

Fighting's fun. Actually, I'm not good at debates or arguments- I avoid confrontation. I express myself better through writing. On the board, though, because I don't have a personal relationship with most of the posters, I feel more confident when expressing my opinions, etc. There are so many people that read this board, SOMEONE is bound to have the same thought or opinion! As for getting too aggressive, though, I try to be careful of the TOS (I don't want to be banned!).

[sparkx]

To ensure i'm not a hypocrite, I do this in real life too. I spend countless hours sitting alone on a crate outside What the Book? completely dressing down customers that walk through the door. I put emoticons on cue cards too just to emphasize my shiat talking.

Just last night:

"Hey dumbass, is that a Michael Crichton is your hand??!!"
holds up cue-card showing ""

"Hey moron, are those Harlequin Romance novels you're trading in?"
raises cue-card "" followed immediately by ""


Hobbies are good

[eamo]

I like the bickering if it's done with intelligence and imagination (rare, but not unknown).

I don't believe we should all get along. That would be weird. Everybody agreeing all the time? Weird and boring.

[periwinkle]

[desultude]

[tzechuk]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Are you talking about me?

[billybrobby]

[SuperHero]

Annonymity goes a long way to this problem. I think it also has to do with some people being incredibly short-sited and narrow minded and in real life you can't always speak your mind without repercussions. So obviously this (and other) forums are the place to do it.

[Corporal]

[JongnoGuru]

I think nearly every poster has probably thought about starting a thread like this one at some point. I know I have. It's a big board and no-one can or wants to read every thread. So chances are, you're going to read a string of mean-spirited posts/threads -- so many in a row that they create a very grim, if distorted, picture of everybody on this board.

I lurked Dave's a few times a year since the late 1990s, when it seemed exclusively about and for teachers. But each time I'd drop in for a lurk, I'd see more threads about non-teaching subjects, I'd see more posts by people who weren't English teachers, and I thought, 'Hey, if they can join, why not me?'

Then around the middle of last year when I was trying (and failing repeatedly) to get myself registered, I started reading Dave's more thoroughly and following threads over a few days. That's what made me nearly give up the idea of joining -- this place looked like a madhouse around then. Everyone was bonkers "mad" or enraged "mad" as far as I could tell, and I wondered what the point was of registering for a place I wouldn't even care to lurk?

Maybe I had misread the atmosphere here at the time, or maybe I didn't and either certain posters were removed or tamed. In any case, the loud-mouthed psycho ratio seems well down since then. I suppose there will always be a few, but nothing nearly so extreme as it seemed to me last spring/summer.

And then there are those posters who don't intentionally disrupt, sabotage or troll the boards, and who'd never do something to get themselves banned. But yet they have a very prickly side to their personality. Maybe they've been done down and are bitter about it, or about something, or about everything. And while you won't see it in every post, there's a constant welling up of petulance and unpleasantness about them. The OP says "aggressive", though I think I'd call them "combative" and ... hurt or broken down deep. ("Uncorrected personality traits that seem whimsical in a child may prove to be ugly in a fully grown adult". -- Robyn Hitchcock)

Not so broken or hurt that they can't function in daily life or be very well-read and worldly and witty, and indeed many are among the leading intellectual lights of this board. But for all that, they seem incapable of having a good laugh unless it's at the expense of someone else's feelings. More importantly, I'll wager they've never once (or at least not since they've been on Dave's) had a good hard laugh at themselves. In front of others, I mean.

Now, some may theorise that people use the internet to let off steam, and the expat community in Korea has more steam than most, and that the people I'm describing, really they're all fine, normal, nice individuals once you meet them in real life -- nothing like how they come across here on Dave's. And to that I respectfully say, Pfffft!

Lest anyone think I'm picking on a particular "type", let me say that the group of posters I've described include Korea-bashers and Korea-huggers, liberals and conservatives, meat-eaters and vegans, Canadians and Americans and Europeans, teachers and non-teachers. Oh, they come in all shapes, sizes and flavours, but I can assure you this: They're no Gurus. And I ought to know.


(Phew! Feel like I've walked a mile just to kiss my own arse! And you know something? It was worth it! )

[Pyongshin Sangja]

You can kiss your own ass?

What else can you do?

[JongnoGuru]

Oh, we Gurus can do many wonderous things. Such as... umm... well actually, the ass-kissing is about it, really.