The Internet Is Like High School
A year and a half ago my mom (and the four other moderators who voted) banned this woman from a board because she was seriously harassing and stalking another poster. (Ack, parents on the internet! Weird!)
Now, this woman has been banned from every board ever created. She even got AOL for the dynamic IP addresses so she could no longer be permanently banned by IP. She posts with a million different usernames, but apparently you can always tell it’s her because of her writing style. Clearly, since she’s been banned hundreds of times from other boards, this one ban shouldn’t have been any big thing, right?
No. She went insane. For some reason, she targeted my mom and blamed her for the ban; perhaps because my mom has been the only one to stand up to her in the past. My mom and the moderators eventually just closed the board because they were sick of putting up with her friends as well.
Now when my mom posts at other boards about random completely unrelated topics this lady starts attacking her, accusing my mom of being obsessed with her1, makes extremely rude comments, spreads my mom’s personal information, etc.
Yesterday my mom posted about something–perhaps French toast2, I’ve no idea–and this lady started her attacks again except this time she’s gathered about fifteen minions and they’ve started mocking my mom for having cancer3.
You know what? Fuck. You.
These women are over 40 and they’ve spent the better part of 24 hours relentlessly spamming my mother and now two other people and acting as if my mom has no life. If you’re over 40 and you still gather your friends to gang up on one person and flame them, I almost pity you because you’re pathetic.
Oddly enough, my mom finds this all hilarious.
Ahem. And this is why the internet is like high school.
- Who’s obsessed with whom here? I mean, my mom never mentions this lady anywhere, but she goes about looking for my mom so she can attack her! Somebody’s brain is in off-mode. ↩
- Example of this lady’s madness: My mom will post about French toast. This lady will come along and go “G-D, WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH ME?!” and then proceed to spend the next few days flaming my mom. ↩
- My mom had surgery two days ago because she has breast cancer. She’s doing fine right now and will likely be completely cleared after she undergoes radiation therapy. ↩
5 Responses
Because the internet allows people to be rather anonymous, there are always going to be whack jobs like this woman using it. And because you’re not physically capable of slapping said whack jobs for being so stupid, they’ll say whatever they like even if it’s offensive.
It’s actually worse than high school in my opinion because they don’t get punished in any way and they continue to harass people.
I hope your mum isn’t too affected by what that woman and her minions said. It’s always hard when someone harasses you for something that needs support, not ridicule. :(
Weird thing is, my mum is fine with all of it. She finds it mildly hilarious, actually. She’s mostly just laughing that this lady keeps accusing HER of being obsessed when she’s the one being stalked.
Wow that is shocking O.o I can’t understand why teenagers do such cruel and immature things let alone adults!
It’s great that your mum is dealing with it in such a nice way. I know I would be a bit sad about it (I hate personal attacks and I have the tendency to think that what people say is true) but then again I still have to accept that people will only hurt me if I let them.
Nice blog you have here ^_^
The internet really is like high school, actually. Drama is *everywhere*, few people stand up to E-bullies, there are cliques (and I’m not talking about the ones you sign up for, but the kinds that happen without much intention), social hierarchy (again, not intentional, but there are some people most everyone seems to “bow down” to and vise versa), and you’ve got almost every stereotype present on forums and blogs.
It’s too bad your mom has got to deal with this crazy lady, but it’s a good thing she’s taking it with such a great attitude. Mocking someone for having cancer is among the stupidest, lowest, rudest, inconsiderate, insensitive, and idiotic things you could ever verbally do to a person. All her previous actions excluded, that alone shows what kind of person she is. Some people just have no life!
Oh, me too! I take things people say about me, even if it’s not supposed to be personal (which this clearly is), pretty hard. Since I write and make websites and definitely need to improve, I just have to suck it up in these instances. I definitely need to work on how I deal with criticism better. I just go curl up and get upset for a bit and then come back when I’m feeling more rational.
At this point, I’m pretty much homicidal and I’m against violence! When it comes to drama like this I can usually handle myself, likely because I have that snark gene built-in, but they’re still going on and they began five days ago! Now they’re saying if my mum has cancer, it’s karma. Clearly, these women need to be eliminated.
Thanks! I just recently took up blogging again and I’m definitely enjoying it.
Yours is great too. I really love your new layout and I filled out the survey you have up. :D I believe I said I’d like to see more of your reviews and articles. :)
Oh, don’t I know it! In some cases it’s like some people get away with everything because 1) they’re just plain mean and rude and 2) they’re popular despite #1. There’s a huge difference between snark and meanness, in my opinion.
I actually wrote an entry (as of yet unposted) about how my high school was never like it is in films. Generally everybody got along and the cheerleaders were actually nice for the most part.
The internet is definitely like movie high school. You’ve got you popular kids who are mean to all the underlings and people just take it without a word, usually. Nerds vs. “popular people” is something I never understood. There’s more nerds! How are they not winning?