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Flaming Freud: Analyzing Homo Incinerans
In most precincts on the Net, flaming -- loosely defined here as ad hominem verbal violence committed by the pecular denizens of cyberspace, and fueled by the creations and circumstances of the cyberculture they've created -- is both widely practiced and broadly condemned.
During much of what we call civilization, personal attacks on ideological opponents have been considered uncivil, a kind of social cheating that violates the rules of coherent debate and social relations. We generally don't attack other people unless we covet their land or property, are enraged by unreasonable provocation, or paid to do it. But online, people continuously attack others for less obvious reasons.
In fact, people online are frequently assaulted just for existing, one of cyberspace's unique features. Intellectuals, while they may privately backstab and mercilessly skewer one another, have always publically advocated what they call a "contempt for contempt" philosophy about personal attacks.
On the Net's threads and discussion lists, there is no such pretense. Hostility is naked and continuous, and even its most vicious practioners rarely suffer any consequences, experience regrets, or apologize to their targets.
While flaming is generally condemned by mature and civilized people, it's becoming clear over time, and as the Net enters its second generation, that that's too simple a position. However much we might or might not like it, flaming exists for particular reasons and serves particular functions, especially in the context of electric communities.
For example, flaming is a bit reminiscent of the role-playing that goes on in virtual sex sites, where people assume and experiment with different identities. The flamer can be tough and hostile online, even when he can't be in the real world, or isn't the least bit hostile face-to-face. On virtual sex sites, people experiment with different personae all the time, many of them aggressive. But they do so knowingly. Most flamers are not big on self-awareness. Many take themselves very seriously, imparting considerable virtue to their hostility.
Flaming has unintended consequences -- it has elevated e-mail to new levels of significance. Speaking only for myself, as flaming becomes more widespread and disconnected, e-mail seems to become more thoughtful, literate and civil. Denied the opportunity to speak thoughtfully in public, many people online work hard at making e-mail work even better. E-mail used to be an oddity, written in short, herky-jerky bursts. But as more people have grown up using it and become more experienced, it's gotten better. The problem is that unlike flames, few people ever get to see it. Thus e-mail isn't taken as seriously as flaming, it's evolution as studied or appreciated.
Flaming online is like jet noise near an airport, an expected backdrop, part of the digital continuum. Curiously, flaming often seems most enthusiastically embraced not by the dumbest people, but by the smartest, and perhaps the youngest. Male adolescents are the nastiest and most enthusiastic flamers, which shouldn't be all that shocking.
Flamers invariably know better, at least in real life (otherwise the homicide rate would be going up, not down), but the virtual world serves as a kind of free zone for the nervous, discontented, quarrelsome and meticulous. Invective has always provided some of the best and most inventive writing online, the nerd's literal revenge. Freud would have a field day analyzing flaming, though he would surely be roasted alive if he browsed anywhere near most mailing lists. His tortured, ponderous style of communicating would touch off a continuing roast.
People who would get their teeth knocked down their throats if they spoke so viscerally at schools or workplaces become cult heroes online, freely tossing out insults and taunts as long as there's plenty of bandwidth between them and their targets. They often see themselves as heroes and champions of free speech. Cyberspace filters out all the physical characteristics of an actual debate or confrontation -- people's size, gender, demeanor, posture, facial expressions, volume and tone of voice. This is partly because there are economic constraints on online time (thus personal patience), and a lack of immediate response from the target. Besides, almost all Net and Web communities are new, without the traditions, social protocols or inhibitions that exist off-line.
The Net is not a place for people who fear or dislike criticism. Being abused is almost noble, to some points of view. In certain scientific circles, as well as during the Enlightenment, it was considered heroic to dare to put your ideas out there -- you can't respond to criticism without suffering it first. Since at least that time, philosphers and experimenters have had to meet a rigorous test of scrutiny. That ethic continues on the Net, perhaps because programs and code that operate software really needs to work. When they don't, there's no evading it.
Simply a reality of life online, flaming has now become part of the digital social architecture, the price others pay to move around freely and express themselves openly. The Net is not a place for people who fear or dislike criticism, one of the problems CEO's and other thin-skinned types have with cyberspace.
Many people who denounce flaming see it as nothing less than a rise in thuggery, writes William B. Mallard of Rutgers University, in an essay in the collection "Internet Culture," edited by David Porter. Mallard calls flamers "homo incinerans" -- incendiary people. He recounts several rounds of flming on a mailing list devoted to psychoanalysis, of all places. His account reinforces the idea that online academic writing is particularly conducive to flaming, since adademic research is so closely associated with anxiety, wrath and vendettas and online culture only compounds the disassociation of sender and recipient.
This connection between academic temperament and online assaults might explain why tech-oriented sites are prone to metaflaming. Almost all tech and programming discussions are rife with anxiety, wrath and vendettas. And they are disproportionately peopled with students and academics and researchers.
Flaming is a difficult streak in Net culture to write about, because public discussion of flames attracts more flames. Pretty soon, all rational exploration becomes impossible -- as you can see in a flash by scrawling down below this column.
But if you buy the notion that electric communities (Net scholar Mark Stefik has written that flaming is the digital equivalent of people driving menacing outsiders away from their communities), then there has to be some natural rationale for flamers. Mother Net has provided them for the same reason Mother Nature provides mosquitoes and predators; they full some sort of digital predestination. But what, exactly?
The dark side of flaming is obvious enough: it inhibits free speech and it discourages newcomers and the techno-wary. More than any other factor, flaming keeps the Net from actually spawning open and coherent communities, since rational discussion becomes all but impossible except in closed, moderated forums.
Less apparent are the benefits of flaming, but there are some. Flamers are levelers and equalizers, obnoxious maybe, but also democratic. They are BS and hype hunters. When it comes to getting flamed, everybody online is equal. A tool of the adolescent and the young, flaming is a counterstrike against real or perceived authority figures, the very types you can't go after on the non-virtual realm. Flamers are indefatigable and enthusiastic. They generate excitement, create tension and interest around ideas and debates; they discourage punditry and top-down pompousity.
I tend to think of them, sometimes wearily, sometimes with affection, as the canaries in the coal mine, specimens in a jar that test radiatiion and other hazards. As long as flamers flame, the Net remains freer than anywhere else.
Cheers,
Richard
I see flaming more like road rage. On the Internet, all you see is text and graphics. Users don't have to acknowledge to themselves that there are real people out there. So, they behave in ways that they wouldn't if they were in a face-to-face confrontation. I've noticed two types of flaming: the trolling that's there to get attention or a reaction and the intolerance of alternate views on the universe. Both are offensive to me and I've learned not to react to either.
-Jennifer
I'm afraid I respectfully disagree. I see little wrong with flaming, although I certainly won't indulge in the practice myself. Flamers reveal more about themselves than their targets.
While everybody might lose their temper every now and again, it isn't something to be proud of, nor does it win any points. USENET and the WWW should be read with large doses of skepticism.
I object to the term "verbal violence". That term should be reserved for credible threats of violence. Mere vitriol causes no harm other than hurt feelings. For those, I suggest growing a thicker skin, or getting some self-confidence.
I get the feeling that for once, this article comes from the heart. If anyone has received a lot of flame, it's Jon Katz and his "insightful" (in the /. sense of course) brand of libberish nonsense we all love to hate.
Sorry Jon, but your assertion that flaming inhibits free speech is ludicrous, since flaming is in itself a form of speech, and one that people normally cannot "get away" with in real life due to the overly developed sensibilities of people with far too much emotional baggage. By removing the possibility of hysterical and/or violent responses, the net has in fact increased the freedom of speech by allowing people to say what they really mean rather than mouthing polite platitudes whilst seething inside.
And as for flaming discouraging rational conversation, some of the best arguments I've seen has been the result of flamewars online, or indeed have been the flamewars themselves. Passionate arguments are always the best for getting to the bottom of things, why else do you think public debates have always been so popular and successful? Argument is a necessary tool of the rational mind, and a heated argument is far more likely to reveal the truth than a load of politcally correct group-speak.
Face it, you just don't like being flamed. Either deal with it, or get over it, just stop whining about it.
I think we can all agree that Katz, more than anyone else, is qualified to write an article about flaming. 90% of Slashdot comments attached to a Katz article (or diatribe) are usually flames, justified or not.
> newcomers and the techno-wary. More than any other factor, flaming keeps the Net from actually
> spawning open and coherent communities, since rational discussion becomes all but impossible
> except in closed, moderated forums.
Aren't you contradicting yourself somewhat? The last thing I want is a "community" full of people saying "PLEEZ UNSUBSCRIBE M3 FRUM DIS L1ST!".
Flaming is as much a form of moderation as anything else, and if flaming keeps the newbies away, (e.g. flame one newbie to a helminthic crust as an example to the others), then load 'er up with napalm and let 'er rip.
Speaking of flame, there's a fascinating thread in news.admin.net-abuse.email on the nature of communication across the language barrier, and it started with a flame. Search for "worm poop" or "worm men" and watch as a native Italian speaker (and spammer) gets his flames and death threats translated through Babelfish to English (and back again), to the amusement and delight of all.
To quote one poster from the thread: "Any sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from gibberish". And yet - any sufficiently advanced communicators are still able to understand said gibberish.
For those who surf the newgroups, this may be of interest...it may just save your mailbox!
The Internet, just like the real world, has its share of rude people. While there isn't much one can do about it, it would be silly to avoid using the Internet simply for fear that someone might insult you in public one day. Sooner or later, it will happen, and the best you can do is to be prepared for this. When it does happen, the only thing you absolutely must not do is whack the "reply" button and send off a stream of insults at your offender - or if you absolutely must, at least make sure that you do so in private. All you would achieve with a stream of insults is what is called a "flame war" in network jargon - dozens of people casting insults at each other, and a very swollen mailbox. Insulting someone on a public list is very much like punching someone in the face in a crowded bar near closing time; don't do it unless you want to get into a fight that could be painful for everyone.
Now, of course, you have been insulted and some factually incorrect statements may have been made about you, or your words may have been twisted around to make them sound like you meant exactly the opposite of what you said. A public reply may be appropriate, in much the same way that one would write to the editor of a newspaper and request the publication of a formal reply to "straighten out the facts". The important thing is to avoid content-free messages where no misinformation is corrected, no point is made and all that is ever exchanged is insults.
But before you do that, you will want to consider why these people have been rude to you. First of all, make sure the poster did intend to be rude. The Internet connects people from over 50 countries, and many of them are not native English speakers. They may have translated an idiomatic expression literally, and insulted you without meaning to. Similarly, native English speakers may have used a correct idiomatic expression which, when translated literally, sounds very mean in your language.
The next thing to consider is where the poster comes from. No matter what your personal opinion on the question may be, there are cultures with a very different definition of what is or is not socially acceptable, and in particular there are cultures where personal attacks are no big deal. While you may think that they should not do anything that hurts your feelings, you probably don't want to get into a cultural flame war, because you are probably hurting other people's feelings as well on a regular basis. For instance, do you always address people by their full name and title, or do you just say "As Peter said yesterday..."? In some countries, it is a grave insult to call people by their first name if you don't know them personally, while in others using the full title can sound sarcastic. There are dozens of similar examples, and the only way to successful cross-cultural communication is to tolerate other people's cultural habits in return for their tolerance of yours.
Another point to consider is that, sometimes, people are having meaningful discussions in a tone that appears inappropriate to you, but that may seem perfectly normal to them. As long as their messages contain useful information, there is no point in trying to police the list, both because it is the list owner's job, not yours, and because adults are unlikely to change their behavior in any significant way, especially if the people complaining are new to the list. If you want the list owners to take action, it is better to write to them directly, so that you do not end up being labelled as "one of the people running the flame war". If you just want to publicly express your indignation, it is best to type the message and pause, just before sending it, to consider whether you are doing this in the general interest or for your personal, selfish satisfaction. Most mail programs let you cancel a message.
Lastly, if you are new to the Internet please take the time to look through existing resources on netiquette (the rules of etiquette governing on-line communication).
Note that among Internet users, a kind of "shorthand" exists which may be confusing at first. One example of this is the term "IMHO", which means "in my humble/honest opinion".
You may also encounter symbols called "emoticons", which are used to help define the emotions of the poster while he is writing.
If you think there is one iota of hostility in my nakedness, you got another thing coming.
Saying what you think, even if it's negative, doesn't have to fall into the category of flaming. It's an issue of etiquette and substance. I see flaming as venting without contributing any food for thought in an obnoxious manner. You can disagree and express negative emotions without resorting to incindiary language.
-Jennifer
Secondly, flamers don't consider themselves such. Despite making comments about a particular person as opposed to this issue, when confronted with any specific post, they claim they're not the one that's flaming. The other side "started it with [x] post". It is a lot like road rage in that people feel the need to put down others in order to maintain their sense of superiority.
It has nothing to do with free speech any more than spamming does, and it isn't any more necessary than murder is.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
The primary culprit here is HTTP. With a BBS, you had to establish a connection and log into a system on which you had established an account. This may not seem like much, but it was part of the "sense of place" that BBS veterans often lament missing on today's net. With /. or any of a hundred other web forums, you can just click your way in and just as easily click your way out. The BBS was an investment; the web is just screwing around, not much more interactive or engaging than channel surfing.
Flaming on BBSes took some real energy because it generally went on at some length and in any given local calling area there were only so many places you could make an ass of yourself before you ran out of welcomes. Flaming on the web is more like a drive-by shooting. Any AC can fire off a shot not even notice the response. Unfortunately, since Microsoft killed browser development and since HTTP appears to be the VT100 of the next decade, this isn't likely to change.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
They most certainly don't! From Socrates to Plato to Dr Johnson, to Schopenhauer, to Winston Chuurchill, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, all of them, there's a huge tradition of invective and personal abuse among intellectuals. This "contempt for contempt" is a mark of pseudo-intellectuals; people who think they're acting with incredible maturity and cleverness when they're actually just too dull to come up with a good answer.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
And not only has it been lost, but its popular definition has changed to the point where it has little meaning.
Consider my first experience online: AOL. That, by itself, should invite a platoon of flamethrowers to point in my direction. But in 1995, at least, it was possible to find signs of intelligent life on the service, other lusers who were my age or at least acted like it. This was due in large part to having to pay by the hour; most kids got limited access, if any, and had to make the most of it, which left little time for pointless posturing on the message boards (which were heavily moderated anyway). It was then that I discovered Usenet, which has long been treated like Outer Mongolia by AOL, but was the source of some truly inspired writing, arguments, and all-out war. I spent much of my 20 hours a month simply downloading articles from Usenet.
That changed in '96, when AOL moved to unlimited-access. Now parents had a new babysitter, developmentally-stunted college dropouts had a new latrine to piss in, and the collective IQ of the service plummeted. I bailed the very next month for an independent ISP and haven't looked back.
And true flaming--which, despite Katz' assertions, usually attacked the message, not the messenger--has suffered badly as the Internet moves into the mainstream. "I CAUGHT LUXERx AND HIS MOTHER IN A HOT WET 69!!!1!!1!!!" is not a flame. It's the immature bleating of lonely teens who have just figured out how to use a newsreader to crosspost to half the groups in alt.* on Usenet. Real flames are written by people who value subtlety, excellent grammar and precise logic. Often their subjects don't know they are being roasted, even while everyone else in the group is stifling a laugh.
That was flaming then. Now it's just noise, which I can pick up from any high-school student lounge. The freedom and accessibility of the 'net are its blessings--and also its curses, and eventual downfall.
The essence of it is that there are people that have vigorously strong positions on some peculiar issues and that there is little point to trying to debate the issues even if you think you have a rational position and can debate rationally.
There are enough people who have strongly irrational positions, whether due to mental instability (suggested in the essay, and likely, in my view, for "crackpot" theories) or (I would add) due to having strong emotional feelings surrounding the issue, and likely to be true for situations such as the Abortion debate, matters in the Middle East, and anything relating to Nazi Germany.
In effect, this provides a corollary to Godwin's Law that topics involving large numbers of deaths and/or outright wars evoke such strong emotion that many find it hard to detach themselves from the issue so as to discuss the issue rationally.
And if the matter is "insane" to begin with (e.g. - as with most "conspiracy theories"), there is no "rational" side to start with...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
You bring up some excellent rules for how people should conduct themselves, but I think the reason that a lot of people don't participate in a civilized discourse on the net is because there really is no online rhetoric that governs the discourse of the online world.
Think about it--while it is obvious that online communication differs from other forms of interpersonal commuication, has anyone really gone through and catalogued what makes online discourse so different from discourse between two people who are physically approximate to one another? Take a debate for example. Debates often take the same form as a discussion/flamewar on then net, with the different participants taking points and counterpoints, often with the hopeful goal of dialectical synthesis. But just as it is during a debate, often the two viewpoints are so far apart that dialectical synthesis is impossible to achieve. However, unlike a debate, the online discourse often degenerates into a series of ad hominem attacks and offtopic gibberish designed to push people's buttons. Why? Simple--because in an online discussion there is no accountability.
Think about last week's debates. Had GWB turned on Al Gore at one point and called him a "major-league asshole" when he couldn't rebut one of Gore's points with a factual response he would have dropped in the polls immediately. He would have been accountable for the fact that instead of answering a valid point, he had launched into an obvious ad hominem attack.
With online discourse there is no accountability. People use their supposed anonymity to say things that they would never have the balls to say in a public, physically approximate forum. They are unwilling to break the rules of verbal rhetoric that has existed since the beginnings of civilization because a.) it makes them look like an asshole to transgress the boundaries of verbal rhetoric and b.) it will usually lead to their getting their asses kicked. The moment that the discourse moves online though, these rules go out the window. There is no such thing as an online rhetoric and the supposed anonymity makes some people think that they have carte blanche to say whatever they want--often times the most ill thought and ignorant things.
The fact that there is no such thing as an online rhetoric and by extension a code of conduct is a real shame. When I used to teach English composition at BGSU, I forbade the Internet as a source for my students papers. Was it because the Internet isn't a good source? Of course not--the Internet can be a powerful research tool if used correctly. Unfortunately, my students were too narrow minded and ill trained in written rhetoric to realize that the Internet has no rhetoric at all.
Just my 2 cents.
Brandt