When did being a jerk become cool?

[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.

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

Be like what? An ass? I have a rather caustic and dry wit, most people i've met are too thick to understand my personal brand of humour and as such have interpreted it as assholeish-ness. Constantly being called an asshole, when you really aren't being a dick gets to you. it really fucking gets to you.

 

[Kit Fox]

I thinks its a lack of empathy and people who are assholes don't realize their being assholes, and everyone else is the world is a jerk

 

[MorteSphere]

When the Internet came along and made us all hate each other.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

when? about 1989

Far far before that I'm afraid.

Jerks can come from a wide variety of places. You're not telling me that King Henry the Eighth wasn't a jerk, or J. Edgar Hoover, or Oliver Cromwell or Sir Francis Drake or John Smith (Pocahontas) or Hernando Cortez.

What it stems from is lack of responsibility for their actions, which internet anonymity provides in bucketloads.

 

[Bat Vader]

I really don't think about it. People have been jerks and always will be jerks. I do like to believe that they will get their poetic justice one day or another.

 

[The Man With the Soap]

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 .

You just described every day at school for me.

 

[Citrus]

Women love douchebags. That's it.

 

[6PrinceofDarkness6]

Internet.

OH LOOK, THE THREAD QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED.

 

[Normalguyinthehouse]

It happened when girls started liking "bad" boys. Unfortunately the line between "bad" and "dickhead" is very easy to miss and is often times stepped over like a bum.

 

[TrailerDrake]

Why the hell do people get into arguments over which console is better instead of enjoying what they have? It doesn't make sense, but you deal with it, same principle.

 

[42forlife]

Americans like the tough guy. And in a world where there isn't really anything tough or difficult how else can one show one's masculinity without pushing around other (usually worst off ironically) people.

Not sure about other places, but we do like our men manly and our women skimpy.

 

[Infallible Fail]

I believe diversity is an old old wooden ship used during the colonial era.
Egotistical dicks have been and always will be total assholes. Sad, but true. It's the inability to understand you aren't the most important person in the world, or it can also be the ability to understand that and not care.

Why the hell do people get into arguments over which console is better instead of enjoying what they have? It doesn't make sense, but you deal with it, same principle.

This is also pretty silly considering how similar the current-gen consoles are. Not including the Wii of course. And to answer your question, yes, the ps3 is the best.

 

[KarumaK]

Beowulf.

Remember him? He was a dick and got paid for it. His whole culture was based on bragging rights. It came with money, booze, and women.

And he probably learned it rocked from someone else.

 

[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 .

You just described every day at school for me.

School is an interesting dynamic. You have a high population placed in a very small area and are giving them counter intuitive rules to go by. Most of the conflict in school is caused by cognitive dissonance. People being told they must act in a way that is in conflict with their natural inclinations.

Most of the time if you remove the cognitive dissonance from people's lives they become far more friendly. My father was a great example, he was bitter for the first 20 years of my life or so (my mom says he was like that since he started in the navy), the moment he quit the military he turned into the happiest person I've known to this day. I don't think I've seen him have a bad day since (been years).

 

[The King of Rock and Roll]

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

Yeah, seriously, I'm the (second) nicest guy aroung my group, and it seems that I can't keep a girl for more than a week. I think girls try to date guys who they think are challenges, and when they can't change them and get hurt, it messes with their self-esteem or whatever, and then they start believing that they don't deserve to be happy, and then they start going out and setting themselves up for failure without realizing it.

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.

Yeah, somedays I feel like karma is laughing at me from the shadows. And about the size issue, well, thats not true, in fact, from what my chick friends have said, the guys who treat them badly usually don't measure up if you know what I mean. But people assume it is true, and most people care about sex first and foremost, so in essence, nice guys are screwed.(Or not screwed actually.)

 

[Smokepuddle]

People who are popular have generally always been jerks.Very simple fact.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

Also, blah blah anonymity even though it's a flawed argument - first of all, it's just you who is assuming that the jerk in question is a fat/super-thin 13 year old and that whoever he offends is a martial arts black belt specialized in actual combat and not just showing off useless shit.

Hmf, that sounds excacly like me. Theres this kid at my school who is extreamly thin gaming nerd who thinks he's amasing because he's a douche. He just goes egotastic and his mouth gets him really close to death. Oh yeah, and he's thirteen (this cannot be a coincidence)

Now im a black belt in karate and eventually he made a comment that broke my patence, I flipped him with one kick and let him get back up, he threw a punch and i caught it between my shoulder and my elbow (just what I wanted) and I broke his arm. He started crying and fell to the ground, I got away clean since I made it look like he tripped.

My fake story was, "He tripped and thought I did it, he threw a punch and I stopped it, whats wrong with self defence", and that got me out. That kid is scared shitless of me now.

My point is, you just spelled me out, good job.

O.T. Jerks are jerks because they have no respect, and later on in life they get hurt [bad] because of it.

 

[John Stalvern]

People lose most inhibitions when the lights are not on them OP.