So it turns out that yelling about people you hate all day every day on the internet isn’t really very good for you.
As an article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week notes,
The research has been clear for decades: Venting is bad for us. …
In studies, people report that they feel better after venting. But researchers find they actually become angrier and more aggressive. People who vent anonymously may become the angriest and most aggressive.
In fact, “venting” is really the wrong word for it. Anger doesn’t build up in our body like some sort of gas, that we can relieve with a series of loud and smelly anger-farts on Twitter or in the comment section of a newspaper article we disagree with.
The “venting” theory has been with us a long time, the WSJ piece notes, and it seems to make sense on an intuitive level.
Venting has an ancient history. Aristotle believed in catharsis—the purging of emotions. More recently, Sigmund Freud talked about the hydraulic model, saying that if someone holds anger inside without letting it out, it will build to dangerous levels, much the way steam in a pressure cooker will build if it is not vented.
But anger isn’t a gas. Those who’ve studied the issue suggest that “venting” — whether in person or anonymously on the internet — causes us to become more obsessed with what is angering us, not less. Instead of purging our anger, we end up stewing in our own juices — to switch the metaphor from gas to liquid.
I certainly see plenty of evidence of this amongst the people I write about on this blog and on the internet at large. Those who “vent” their anger the most vociferously don’t get less angry over time, as you would expect if they were actually “venting” something toxic inside of them. Instead, many of them just get angrier and angrier.
We might consider the sad (and very, very angry) career of a certain former A Voice for Men bigwig, who went from being the only member of the AVFM collective who seemed to have any degree of self-awareness to someone who spends his days lashing out at feminists and former allies in what has become a neverending Twitter meltdown.
We might consider the assorted YouTube yellers who’ve become perpetual rage machines; no matter how many rants they upload to YouTube on the purported evils of Anita Sarkeesian or Anita Sarkeesian or even Anita Sarkeesian, their rage is never ever “vented.”
I mean, look at this guy:
That’s no way to live.
The problem isn’t just the anger; it’s the obsession. One of the main reasons that “venting” keeps you angry is that it leads you to ruminate longer about the things that infuriate you the most, when it would be much more healthy for you to stop thinking about these things at all.
Now, obviously, I spend a decent portion of my days reading about, writing about, and sometimes even arguing with, some pretty hateful shitheads. I think it’s important to write about these people. But I try not to let them dominate my life and my thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, and I try not to let my anger at them overcome me.
I don’t read the comments on my YouTube videos. (Well, not regularly.) I avoid tit-for-tat Twitter battles with sea-lions and dogpilers. (Well, most of the time.) I clear my head watching dumb TV and playing Alphabear and doing various other things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the ridiculous and infuriating misogynists of the internet.
And I hope the rest of you are doing that too.
Well, I know a lot of you are, if the wonderfully digressive comments you all leave on this blog make clear. Because talking about games and recipes and posting cat pics and other brain bleach really does keep us all a bit healthier.
Which reminds me: I haven’t posted any open threads in a while. I’ll go do that now.
In the meantime, here’s ten hours of a snow shovel that sounds like “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
H/T — r/GamerGhazi
And the fact that objecifying men doesn’t affect as many people in the same way doesn’t make it right. You’re still making people feel like shit, you know you’re doing it but you don’t care.
You know it is possible to be male and be affected by the actions of others around you. But who gives a shit right, because I probably deserve it because patriarchy and privilege and whatever other excuses you can use to placate others arguments and experiences.
Some of us here are into ladies (myself included), and some of us are accepting of tasteful nudity. We can still comment that we find someone sexually attractive or aesthetically pleasing and still not objectify them. (Also, I’m pretty sure we’ve posted gifs of sexy ladies before and a bunch of people joined in.)
I can’t obviously speak for everyone, and hell, someone said they didn’t like the gifs of the sexy dude either (some Mammoth commenters are asexual), but it’s still not objectification, and you have yet to explain why you think it is.
Really? We’re making this guy feel like shit because we think his glitter-covered abs are good looking?
Or are we just making you in particular feel uncomfortable by saying so? Because it’s fine if you feel uncomfortable by that, and you’re free to say so, but don’t blame it on some bullshit ‘reverse sexism’ or, in this case, ‘reverse objectification’.
If it makes you feel uncomfortable, just fucking say so. “Hey, can we not post the sexy guy gifs? They make me feel uncomfortable.”
Boom. Problem solved.
Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing. I see guys react adversely all the damn time whenever I, or some other woman, finds a man sexy. (See a bunch of men’s reaction to Magic Mike or the sequel.)
Maybe the reason you feel this way is because you don’t like having the roles reversed, and it bothers you that women can feel this way about men? Or maybe you just want to have some sort of lame “gotcha”?
Boy please. Your guilt-tripping nonsense will not work here.
I will not feel bad because someone posted a gif of a dude’s abs covered in glitter and you got your hackles up and want to claim “reverse sexism” because of it.
I feel like I should elaborate and point out to you, Andre (because you may not be aware of this), but this sentence right here is a common abuse tactic.
“I probably deserve what you’re doing to me because of [reason].”
This is a way to twist what I say into a way to blame me for your negative feelings, and an attempt to make me feel guilt or remorse for those feelings.
So, sorry, but no. I’m not having any of this.
You know, I didn’t feel particularly attached to that glitter gif before, but now I suddenly have an urge to post all the ab pictures I can find.
I’m more or less a straight dude, and I think that gif is goddamn fabulous. I adore it.
Making men into sex symbols is, in my experience, a less harmful form of objectification because it runs contrary to the conventional social narratives. It’s when something reinforces those narratives that you have to worry. This, for example, is a harmful form of male objectification.
… “Patriarchy and privilege and whatever”?
Really? Just. Really? ಠ_ಠ
Seriously, dude. I’m not interested in the ab pics either (because RAINBOWS), but I think every dog in my apartment complex just started barking.
Re: that gif
If I’d known people would get that offended I wouldn’t have posed for it. Sorry 😉
Re: Blue sciency glows
If you shine UV light on good quality tonic (Schweppes) you produce an effect identical to that radiation that I can’t spell. Hours of endless fun on nuclear submarines.
I find that a lot of times when men claim “male objectification”, they’re actually pointing to examples of “toxic masculinity being put up on a pedestal, and I’ve been told (by other men) that this is what women want”.
This happens a LOT in the realms of comics and video games. A LOT.
I think rugbyyogi’s spot on about the difference between “venting at” and “venting to”.
I also think it’s possible to go too far in the other direction. I’ve heard of children in (usually) fundamentalist families where they are requred to obey instantly and with a smile. Sighing as you leave your game to lay the table is grounds for corporal punishment. So the kids learn to smile regardless of how they feel. That can’t be healthy either.
Does anybody have any insights on the point where faking it tll you make it becomes toxic?
Really, not just regular fluorescence? Cool.
When you find yourself treating your flesh and blood the same way slave drivers used to treat their slaves on the plantation, maybe it’s time to sit down and have a good long think about your life and your choices.
I did talk about this a bit upthread, but I’ve learned to bottle up my feelings around my family because any time I express any sort of emotions that they don’t like, I get shouted down. I don’t get beaten for it, but the emotional turmoil’s too much for me.
If I talk about how I’m depressed, I get told that I shouldn’t be depressed because my life is “easy”. For instance, I can’t find a job right now and it’s taking its toll on me emotionally because I have student loans to pay (and my school is not releasing my physical degree until I finish paying them off), but I always hear about the utility bills and the cost of groceries.
Any time I need money for something like bus fare, I always hear about how “Well, I don’t have any money! I had to pay for [bill]!”
If I talk about how I don’t want to do something, I get guilted into doing it. For instance, earlier this year, I was asked if I wanted to go to Arizona to attend my little sister’s high school graduation. Of course I love my sister, and I did end up going, but only after I got guilted into doing so because she came to my college graduation, despite my worries that we couldn’t really afford to send me (and my mother ended up being horrible to me the day of anyway).
After having all this happen, I’ve learned that it’s best to just not talk to them about it. I talk to my friends now, but even then I had to learn to open up, and I still feel guilt about burdening them with my problems, even when they encourage me to speak up.
However, speaking to rugby’s other point: My uncle and grandma like to vent to me about family issues they’re having with another relative. This always makes me feel uncomfortable because I don’t want to get between two members of my family, I hate confrontation, and it makes me feel like they talk shit about me behind my back too.
Oh, no, men being objectified. How horrifying.
🙂
(BTW, if any regular is uncorftable with nude-ish gifs, I will not post any anymore, no matter how sparkles they are.)
Andre: The reason the glitterabs gif is not objectifying sexism is the same reason that a fork is not a dinner service for six. There’s a whole slew of things that go into making up a system of oppression, and just one or two elements will not trigger the effect.
The biggest element missing here is any sort of body-shaming for NOT having abs like the glittergif. Even comments about the bodies of people we genuinely consider abhorrent get quickly reprimanded by other posters.
Another element, that’s been heavily discussed, is a broader societal context. Men who do not meet the standard set by glittergif guy are still able to be considered not only in a positive light, but also as very attractive despite not meeting the perfect standard. (Example: Parks & Recreation-era Chris Pratt is hirsute and slightly overweight–yet he was considered adorable by a good portion of the show’s fanbase.)
Finally, there’s a tendency to place physical attractiveness as the primary trait. Fans of FOX News, for instance, love to crow about how attractive the women anchors and pundits on that network’s shows are–as if being an attractive set-piece had fuck-all to do with journalism. Even on the left, you’ll get evidence of this–Obama infamously introduced one of his appointees by talking about how good looking she is, which is about the last thing I give a damn about in the person making decisions regarding governing the country.
Add it all up, and then you get objectification and sexism. Until then… it’s just a fork, dude.
Pandapool: I was no more uncomfortable with it than I was with the incessant breast-obsessed Google ads–I tend to scroll fast past those, too.
Oh, wow, I just noticed that glittery chest guy has a wedding ring on. I guess I didn’t notice because I was thinking about how the hell is he going to get rid of all that glitter, and how he’ll likely be shedding glitter for years to come.
Pandapool: That is no way to run a figure drawing class!
@freemade
Admittedly, I actually don’t find the glitter abs guy attractive. Nice stomach, yeah, but not something I’d want personally, but even the body type I like in a guy isn’t, you know, un-mainstream. The kind of body type I like in women is definitely un-mainstream, for sure.
But the reason I posted the gif is that, well, it was funny throw in with the line of gifs I posted. Cutesy gifs and then BOOM – sexy. That was the joke. The reason I have that gif in the first place is because it’s a guy rubbing glitter all over himself. I just find that fucking ridiculous. It’s like if that director from those Carl’s Junior commercials worked on an ad for Michael’s or Craft Barn or whatever. Which is also why I don’t eat at Carl’s Junior.
On the subject of Male objectification, something that always bothered me is how often male nudity is culturally seen as “gross” or “unflattering”. When a male character loses his clothes, it’s supposed to be humiliating, or lower him in status and “oh god cover the eyes” or “ew i didn’t need to see that” is a common reaction from characters.
Just another example of how assuming the “default” viewer to be male is harmful. If I had sexy abs, I would love nothing more for someone to rub glitter all over them 😛
@PI
I empathize with you completely, I’ve been going through very similar things (though you seem to be in a much tougher spot than I). Even over minor things I try to bring up, I feel like I’m made out to be an asshole just because I wanted to share my feelings. I hate giving a fake smile and present a facade of niceness to my own family but it seems like the only way to not have every other interaction turn into an argument.
Objectification of men is like racism against white people. Or misandry for that matter. It’s not a thing. Men are not viewed as the sexual class. Seeing a picture of glittery man abs does not contribute to a culture where men are seen as sex objects because we live in a culture where men are seen as human.
That said, finding someone attractive is not the same as objectifying them and there have been plenty of times mammotheers have posted pictures of women they find attractive. There have plenty of Christina Hendrix pictures, tattooed woman pics, plus size models, we even deployed pictures of sexy drag kings to scare off a right wing troll one time. So, pretending like we’d get mad at a gif of an attractive woman is pretty ridiculous.
Me, I’m busy objectifying the Crab Nebula. It’s just so beautiful, I can’t help it (sighs).
They sure aren’t talking about how “attractive” Megyn Kelly is right now…
Agreed. I could just mention that something’s going wrong with me, and all of a sudden it’s the fucking Problem Olympics.
And my family wonders why I’m an introvert.