How Punishing Others In Your Mind Makes You Sick
Spite spurs the imagination to create scenarios of punishment towards a given person(s). These imagined scenarios evoke feelings of schadenfreude in the spiteful imaginer. This releases dopamine. It is a quick high. It is instant emotional gratification.
Basically imagining someone feeling bad and hurt in response to your stabby retort can be a form of instant emotional gratification. And like other things that produce instant gratification, it can become an addictive habit. Trolling can become an addictive time thieving habit.
Unfortunately spite drives user engagement on social media. Divisive posts get user engagement. Engagement boosts ranking of given post and more people see it. Influencers know this and many thrive on this. Engagement = views = money. Spite provokes spite. One snarky hyperbolic comment can invoke a vitriolic category five excrement storm. Have you seen one? Perhaps you have participated in one?
There are the usual denigrating comments like calling someone a “Karen” or the attaching of a “tard” to the opponents perceived political orientation (horrible). To me such comments signify that a genuine debate is not possible. But it can get much worse. A simple search of a target’s profile can give a hater plenty of ammo. Typing out the cruelest thing is the game. Punishing with words is the…
