Wednesday, July 11, 2012
When "Mean Girls" Don't Grow Up
I was never the target of bullies when I was younger (thank goodness), and luckily I'm not now, but I've been noticing, over the past year, a lot of "mean girl" behavior on a popular forum on which I have been a pretty regular lurker.
I see the same women over and over, ganging up on new posters and people who express differences of opinion. Several of these "ladies" don't post anything that adds to the regular discussions, but will dog-pile on anyone they think are "abusing" the boards. To my way of thinking, they are the ones being abusive, but I'm not stupid enough to weigh in on this behavior. I'm afraid of being "banned" or becoming a target for their vitriol.
I can easily see these same people being the mean girls while they were in school, and it is very disheartening to realize that these types of people never really grow out of it. I always assumed that when people got into the "real world" they would see how juvenile and cruel their behaviors were and change for the better. Not so. I've noticed that they have just found a new outlet. Maybe they find the relative anonymity of the internet a permissible way to offload their ugliness. I find that very sad.
Is anything going to change? Probably not, but I do know I am less and less inclined to visit those boards. That's really a shame since I've discovered many new books and authors through them over the years.
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I've left a lot of forums because of that type of behavior.
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