Out of Pod Experience

Let's start with a story about myself.

In my high school years I was highly active on internet forums. I was an active member on WBB and yaxay.com, two premier forums for those hobbies respectively. At the tender age of 17 my activities had peaked; 8,000 posts on WBB and nearly 3,000 on yaxay.com

I was quite honestly a pretty viscous and immature poster. If someone asked a question I perceived as stupid I would let them know I thought they were stupid. I would rarely actually help but would simply spew trolling one-liners or tell them to "Do a google search".
If someone disagreed with me in an argument I reacted much the same. Instead of holding a proper discussion, I would focus on small segments of their post and lambaste them for it. I had no interest in discussing things like an adult; I was more interested in seeming right and impressing others. My attitude was aggressive and I rarely respected the intelligence of the poster.

It was all part of a larger mentality at hand: Using the internet as a tool to make myself feel a certain way. Using the internet as a tool to feel smart, right, important and awesome about myself at the expense of others.

As I grew older and matured my posting style adapted; I become more reasonable. I apologized to those I had disrespected and began my journey of goodposting. Over time I eventually stopped posting on forums almost entirely and disappeared from such communities for several years. Recently I have returned to a forum community for my first time in a while... and that community is the EVE Online forums.

Unsurprisingly I found myself presented with dozens of posters like my former teenage self. I found a large amount of the posts I read were designed to make the poster look cool to the rest of his forum bros. I found a large amount of the posts were rude, impolite and an obvious way for the poster to simply get his rocks off at someone else's expense. My first reaction was, "damn, lots of 17 year olds frequenting these forums!".

What I found out next was quite surprising however. It was brought to my attention that the average age in EVE Online is something like 28 years old! Upon further investigation I became aware that most of these posters we're not 16 but in fact older than I am. I couldn't believe it; fully grown adults acting so shamelessly on an internet forum, I actually believed them to be 17 year olds.

This is the reality of the situation. I am sorry, random EVE-O forum regular, that you feel offended by this. The truth is that you should be. You are effectively shaming yourself every time you post by acting half your age.

If you do not believe that you are ashamed, consider what would happen if the following people asked you to send an e-mail containing your entire post history to them:
- Your mother
- Your wife/gf
- Your boss

Would you would be willing to send your post history to these people if they asked for it? If not, ask yourself why that is. What could be the harm after all?
We all say things we regret sometimes or prefer to be anonymous. So I'll tell you what... you can even remove up to 5 posts from your post history.
Still not willing to send it? Once again, consider why that is.
You will quickly realize that you're not willing to send it because you'd feel ashamed if they saw your posts.

As you consider your response to this thread, consider your motivations behind it. Yes, you have thought of a brilliant trolling retort to my post here. By why are you posting it?
Yep, you're doing it to look cool. You're doing it to impress other posters who might read it.

You really have nothing to be ashamed of... especially considering your age!

Well, my EVE-O forums posting history is a matter of public record (as well as EOFPHs of all members), so I couldn't hide it from anybody even if I wanted to. ;)

Then again, other forums... hmm... well, I was already in my mid-twenties when the "vogue" of forums started catching on, but I suppose some of my early twenties IRC chat logs might be a tad bit embarrasing.
I guess sometimes some people just push my buttons and I can't help myself even nowadays.
Although, I'm usually fairly invective-free about it and prefer to methodically destroy the opposition's argument instead.
And other times, you read walls of text that are not even worth reading, let alone answering as a whole... and usually from the same people over and over again.

The phenomenon you describe is not so much a "teenage thing" (although most "sufferers" are indeed teens nowadays), it's an internet thing in general, a large forum thing in particular, and a much more specific thing to ratings-based discussion areas (although it's worst in those where negative ratings are possible).
You just don't see it so much in older people because they tend to have a lot less free time to post (and a lot less "aimless passion" to spew around), but EVE concentrates a lot of those atypical adults in this corner of the internet.

Mhm yep. 3/10

TL;DR version please?

ah.

yeah I got that.

also, 27 year old average? then I'm above average!

I am quite convinced that, once they understood what I was talking about, they'd be sharing a good lough with me.

I'd let anyone read my post history, I don't care. Neither would my mother or my boss. Neither would my imaginary girlfriend.

1. My wife currently reads my tear logs. Same with some of my forum rambling. Same with listening to all of the Bonus Round recordings as Teg suggested. Rounds I recorded myself.

2. She laughed, as most people do, and said, "Ripard Teg is an idiot." (it helps even more that she is an EvE player from the "other side of the fence," so to speak.)

3. I, above all else, post intelligently, even when I am being an asshat or facetious.

4. My sig explains my posting and you would be well to adopt this train of thought in EvE, where a thick skin is necessary, and the comedy is 99% of the time, extremely dark.

Because it is a game. A darkly humorous game.

It has no intrinsic purpose, beyond entertainment value.

Also...

Trolling as James 215, and shitposting about how everyone shitposts, is still shitposting.

Go figure.

It's a bit sad to see someone measure their maturity based upon forum interraction. Having said that, OP looks like another Prencleeve alt. Impersonation is bad, I don't care if you're 15, you've been told. I'm trying to resist remarking on your use of the word viscous, but I just can't stop myself.

Some of us are genuinely like this IRL. It's not a fake persona created for anyones approval. Take it or leave it. There's nothing wrong with being shameless, it's a lifestyle choice. You don't need to use the internet to feel good about yourself either, it's possible to take the **** out of anyone, anywhere. The artistic part is getting away with it.

ps. My mother is even worse than me, so is my best mate (who happens to be my longest running boss) and partners are selected based upon how close their humour is to mine.