A funny thing happens on the way through a Forum.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      4 comments      link this post     


Online forums are as alike as they are different. Though each is populated with different people and different narrow focus, each forum is made up of the same characters and the same kinds of posts.

You have the You Go Girl character, who is unfailingly supportive and chipper, with a signature line of unfailing positivity found at the end of each post. This signature line is often a Gandhi quote, though the name of Gandhi will be misspelled. Y.G.G. is the most frequent abuser of emoticons and exclamation marks, and has made it necessary for forum administrators to offer registered users the option to turn smilies off. The Y.G.G. is often surrounded by Cheerleaders.

Cheerleaders are slightly different from Y.G.G. in that they are protoplasmic blobs with absolutely no spine and find their only strength in horribly spelled posts in support of the online version of the popular kids.

You Go Girl and the Cheerleaders automatically inspires the vitriolic You Shut Up Girl character who feels it is his or her responsibility to dole out doses of negative reality to Y.G.G. and any other pollyanna on the forum. Y.S.U.G. often uses sarcasm well and provides much laughter for the lurkers who never post on forums but read them for both knowledge and entertainment value. Without Y.S.U.G., there would be fewer readers on the forum.

There are the packs of Trolls, characters that have the most fun, usually passive agressive and thereby benefitting the most from non-face-to-face forms of communication. They surpass Y.S.U.G. in the meaness factor, but too often appear as beyond the boundaries of reason and sanity. Trolls post wild and crazy things simply to bait the rest of the forum into a screaming fight. Trolls often have animated avatars, often rude ones at that. Without Trolls, there would be fewer Lurkers. The best way to attract Trolls is to allow anonymous posting, or a registration-free forum.

The Man always makes an appearance on every board, a character who feels she or he is an expert in the forum's main focus. The Man will have a self-aggrandizing signature line and an equally obnoxious avatar. The Man takes the job of making sure everyone knows the correct way things should be done very seriously, and sometimes attracts the Cheerleaders when The Man goes after Trolls or Y.S.U.G. for saying something mean to Y.G.G.

The Newbie is tolerated differently on various forums. If the Newbie is female and has a cute avatar, she may get away with a stupid question or a question that's been asked before, particularly if it's on a tech board. However, the Newbie often makes good food for Trolls and Y.S.U.G. depending on the tolerance of the forum members for stupid questions and repeated questions. Too often the Newbie only visits a forum for one question and then never comes back once he or she has received help. This tendency is what fosters hatred for Newbies.

There needs to be enough Serious Posters to keep a forum alive. S.P. are there to post decent questions and thoughts, and ignore trolls and emoticons. When the S.P. leave, the forum eventually dies. If an S.P. stays with a forum too long, however, and becomes jaded by the predictable patterns of posting and the predictable reactions of all the characters, the S.P. will morph into the Y.S.U.G.

The final character is the Functionally Illiterate. You might think I'm talking about a person from another country with English efforts that are laughable, but that's technically not an F.I. The F.I. is a person unable to write a post without using LOL, ROTFLMAO, IMHO, and so on. The F.I. has never written the word "your" out in his entire life, preferring the quicker "ur". The F.I. has wasted much time creating pictures for his or her signature out of punctuation. The F.I. never contributes anything of worth to the forum, not even funny insults, always falling into a kind of Y.G.G. tribute to saying nothing with as many acronyms as possible.

Getting beyond the characters you find on online forums, you also have a few posts that appear with great regularity on all forums no matter what the focus of the forum is.

There's the I'm Wounded and Now I'm Going to Blather A Lengthy Goodbye post in which a person who has been consistently attacked by wolves because of excessive positivity, most often a Y.G.G., deems it necessary to limp on for 20 paragraphs about how awful they've been treated and why they are leaving the forum. The replies to this post will be mostly Cheerleaders with sad-faced emoticons, the phrase "bump", or some meaningless "hugs", though any good Troll knows his or her true job, does it with great alacricity, and takes joy in the soon-to-be absence of the forum member. Y.S.U.G. rarely replies because he or she doesn't really care and also seem to be getting their wish: someone is going to be shutting up if all things go according to appearances.

Another popular type of post is the dying cry of an S.P. about to turn into an Y.S.U.G., the You Can't Say Anything On This Forum Without Getting Your Head Bit Off And I'm Tired Of It post. This post is always a fun read, and the other Y.S.U.G.'s quickly circle the wagons around the new member of their character group, momentarily turning into Y.G.G.'s for the sake of acquiring new blood.

Newbie's are almost defined by their posts. They ask the same questions over and over, and though it is a new question for them, they are often too lazy to take the time to read the forum archives to find that their question has already been answered. Trolls, tired S.P.'s, and The Man tend to rip their guts out because of this laziness.

The gloating post can make an appearance by anyone, but the first to respond is always the Y.G.G., perhaps hoping some of the glory and good fortune could rub off on them. A gloating post might, for example, tout weight loss on a diet forum, or the sale of a manuscript on a writing forum. There's no need to share the information because there isn't actually any information of use to anyone in the post, but this boasting is always couched in a "you guys are such good friends and I just had to tell you..." which makes it palatable to all but the Trolls and Y.S.U.G. The gloating post, in fact, is what Y.S.U.G. excels at tearing apart. The Cheerleaders, of course, cheer, though many log in to the forum under their second registration and assume their Troll identity to get their real feelings out.

About two years ago, the most vicious online forum I knew of was the Crafts Report forum. That alone is funny. You'd think doilies and wood shelves wouldn't bring out the worst in people, but it was cutthroat. A close second was a forum on Moby's website. All I had to do there was throw out a "I voted for Bush. Both times." and I could sit back and watch the fireworks. But the Crafts Report forum was the best because they allowed anonymous posters for a time and I made use of it. I confess to abusing their anonymous poster option and creating a few different pseudonyms. One of my created characters was a horrid troll, and I had the most fun with baiting and pretending and watching each character respond back...in character.

An online forum is a complex world of typical human interaction. Too often it's all about tearing apart and shredding as much as it is about sharing information, but the predictability of human nature across the wide nature of the thousands of online forums out there is stunning. The same people make up the world, no matter if they are interested in pottery or Star Wars.

It's also great for passive agressive people like me. Admit it. There's a Troll in all of us. It's just that some of you out there prefer to think of yourself as "debating" when really, you're just the white collar version of a Troll.

Labels: blogging, essay, internet

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger  10/01/2005 02:36:00 PM   (4) comments   Links to this post    

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