When did being a jerk become cool?

[Chicago Ted]

I'm normal and kinda shy around people I don't know.

However, if you're a friend I usually act like a jerk and jackass. Mostly for fun though as it's my way of joking.

 

[Manhattan2112]

And what's the deal with extreme racism on the xbox 360?! I was playing a game of Halo, and I was losing, and all my TV kept shouting at me was "Damn N*gger Jew Punk! Stop being such a Jew!" That's riddiculous! Stupid people.

 

[killereddy]

when? about 1989

 

[The_Chief]

good question. some kid spent a whole class yelling swear words at the teacher and though he was funny...and whats worse is me and 2 people were the only ones not laughing. i wanted to put him threw the window.

 

[Vomax]

Jerks aren't jerks because they are anonymous. All the big douchebags have women flocking to them.

/thread

 

[TheSunshineHobo]

I'm an ass is real life, not just on the internet. In fact on the internet i'm nicer than normal. I'm a bigger dick in person than on the internet.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

Well, living in Ottawa I see jerks almost 24/7. Everyday I watch people jaywalk out in front of cars and flip off the driver or young adults push aside elderly people to be first on the bus and to take the only seats left. Hell when I had one arm in a cast and a portable IV pack sticking into my arm, whenever I took the bus people sitting in priority seating would give me the most disgusted looks then look away when they noticed they probably should be giving their seats to me. I've watched teenage girls swearing at a mother with her 4-5 year old child with her at a grocery store because the mother bumbed into her by mistake. It kind of scares me to watch how wretched people really seem to be when it comes to dealing with one another.

Some cultures actually have people being jerks to others and in mixing pots such as canada we get many ideals and cultures colliding. You have to be careful when deciding if someone is a jerk because they are or if thats what their culture dictates them to be. Those examples you gave though are clearly jerkish.

Some people just have issues.

 

[khaimera]

I'm sure that at least 35-50% of the comments on this thread (if not alot more) are going to be prime examples of what I'm talking about.

Didn't seem to happen yet. Its seems kind of jerky (mmmmmm, jerky) to assume that.

 

[khaimera]

I'm an ass is real life, not just on the internet. In fact on the internet i'm nicer than normal. I'm a bigger dick in person than on the internet.

Why would anyone be like that? Which one is the real you?

 

[Craig FTW]

It became cool to be a jerk when white kids started deciding that they were black.
No racism meant.
There's just so many of them at my school..

 

[Clyde]

Being a jerk doesn't spread.
Nice people just flee.
but jerk were cool at least from the 80s

 

[sizzle949]

Didn't seem to happen yet. Its seems kind of jerky (mmmmmm, jerky) to assume that.

My thinking was if I added in that comment, it'd deter jerks from acting up... seemed to work

 

[newguy77]

Ever since Hugh Laurie did it. I kid, really. He's more of a classhole as House.

OT: I don't really know. I've never been a real target for that kind of stuff, so I haven't noticed it much.

 

[GHMonkey]

chicks dude, chicks. that is the answer. this strategy has worked for me.

 

[Mcface]

Once again, jerks are jerks because of their anonymity. Put them face-to-face with the person they were mocking/ being a general douche towards, and they wouldn't say the same things. And people in modern society aren't suddenly assholes; they have been since humanity began.

I think im pretty consistent in being a dick, online or in real life.

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

People are assholes because it attracts women. Because obviously the guy who is the biggest dick HAS the biggest dick and that's what matters, isn't it?

And that's why I hat people. I try to be decent in real life, but in all honesty, I wonder why I do. Most of the people I try to help would never do the same for me. Guess I'm just cashing in the Karma bank, even thought the universe is probably just another dick-iverse in the multiverse trying to get the chick-iverses to have big bangs with it.

 

[theultimateend]

I tried searching this and got nothing so imma run with it.

I saw the thread "Why do people hate..." and wondered if it was about why people these days are so hateful, but it turned out to be about vegetarians so I lost interest. But then I really did stop and think about this. Why are people convinced that being hateful, rude and in general a jerk is cool and funny? I'm sure that at least 35-50% of the comments on this thread (if not alot more) are going to be prime examples of what I'm talking about. Someone gives an opinion, and he's flamed to hell by random people who think that makes them a superior human being, but all it does it make me wonder what brought on this persona.

I'm never going to forget one article I read about jerks in online gaming. They compared them to bunnies, saying that if you put one or two in a room or environment with a bunch of other people, then you're gonna end up with a room full of jerks by the end of the session. I can't help but find this so true even in other situations like chatrooms and threads >.>

Does it stem from some type of insecurity problems or was there a meeting a couple years back when I was using the washroom or what?

The short answer is that most people don't think that being a jerk is cool.

What you've displayed in your post is a cognitive bias that is generally called "The Mean World Hypothesis" I believe it got a new name recently. Essentially you assume that the world has a negative problem but in reality it is very unlikely you'll experience it.

If most people were jerks you'd be always getting flipped off while driving, most people would be rude to you at any time of the day, you'd get snarky looks all the time, people would release doors just in time to hit you in the face. All sorts of bad things would happen.

However in reality a very very small percentage of the population is jerky. The rest are just normal folks trying to live out their days just as you try to live out yours.

Even the internet. You figure there are 7 billion people in the world. Lets just say that 300 million of them are on the internet. Even if you only meet mean folks on the internet that accounts for say a few thousand people out of that 300 million. Considering the specialized places folks visit that's not even close to an accurate sampling size. Once you meet a few million people and find all of them calling you "tiny dick tim" or something like that. I may change my tone .

 

[sizzle949]

You've just described an average day in Ottawa...

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Does it stem from some type of insecurity problems or was there a meeting a couple years back when I was using the washroom or what?

It's a caveman behavior. This is a forum dominated by young men, and these tend to confuse leader qualities with being as ruthless as possible, the ruthlessness stems from the will to measure penises with everyone else and hopefully come out on top of everybody else.

They say this is supposed tio be the last intellectual forum left on the internet, funny how often these so called "intellectuals" tend to lower themselves to the most base and primitive behaviour then...