[ALittleLight]

If I saw what the picture purports to show, a hipster in the park typing on a typewriter, I might smirk or roll my eyes or something if I did anything at all. However, if you want attention commenting on a post on reddit, or anywhere, you can't just say "There's a chance I'd subtly roll my eyes at this" - you have to go more extreme. In the same way that BuzzFeed described the picture as one that would make you "Black out with rage" you've got to go from "10% chance of smirk" to "I will smash this hipster-doofus's typewriter."

A lot of stuff in internet comments is stuff that would absolutely never happen in real life. If you saw a hipster on a typewriter and a crowd of people bullying him in real life, it would be absolutely clear which behavior was worse. Plus, none of those people in real life would actually do any of the extreme things they write about in internet comments.

The whole thing makes me imagine a forum of the future. Maybe it's more like a physical forum or park in virtual reality. There's a story at the center and radiating out from it are avatars that have been left behind by commenters. The avatars would be run by an AI that has been briefed on what point the commenter wanted to make. Other users, using the forum live, could wander through the park and interact with the deposited avatars or one another. Bringing some elements of reality to the forum experience - i.e. making it look like you are in a public space and interacting with people, may also bring in some elements of civility that we enjoy in reality and not online.

[ergot_vacation]

IE the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19). The bitter irony is that originally, mods and admins on forums did what they could to contain this kind of behavior. Now it's actively encouraged because rage means engagement, and engagement means more ad revenue.

[naravara]

Honestly, with Twitter and Facebook actually being more noxious than anonymous forums like Reddit or HN, I'm not so sure that anonymity is the driver.

[throwaway09223]

I agree with you and I'd take it a step further: I think there's considerable evidence that anonymity is not the driver.

Being out of range of immediate physical violence is probably a big factor, though. We have the "fighting words" doctrine for good reason.

[naravara]

Also the ability to disseminate posts to like-minded people creates a sense of false-consensus. Like if you mouth off in a town square the people hearing it and reacting are a fairly representative cross section of the population. If you mouth off on Facebook or Twitter the people reacting are either big enough fans to want to react or sufficiently hostile to what you said that they will lose their shit over it. It makes everything seem more extreme. Your detractors all look stupid, because the most motivated people to pick fights with strangers on the internet are, if we're being honest, more likely to be a little unhinged. Your supporters are also going to be pretty extreme in their agreement and unlikely to take you aside and tell you to chill out for similar reasons.