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by amself 1470 days ago
What motivates people to make up nonsense?
3 comments

My best guess is receiving positive attention to compensate for a lack of it elsewhere.

I you want to see this escalated to an Olympic level, watch Meta Stack Exchange over time. It has quite a few characters that are writing lecture-length posts on a daily basis. About...nothing of any remote importance or relevance. Usually concerning some petty complaint or idea about the site, none of which any actual user will ever know about.

In a way, they are 5 star trolls. The most difficult ones to recognize as they seem to well-worded.

They don't realise they don't understand it, and firmly believe in the nonsense they make up.
Irony?
For status. You can make up nonsense if you're a little bit clever without much effort and be a sort of Pied Piper for fools. Having status among fools is a kind of power as then you're able to manipulate them in other ways.