The old saying of moms trying to comfort their kids in saying, “don’t mind them, they’re just jealous” might actually be true. It appears based on the article written by Michael Hogan Ph.D. and review of literature that narcissists are likely to present online aggression in relation to a fear of perceived significance of others over themselves. This would go toward explaining why people argue in the comment sections of creators as creators get bigger. It would explain people who jump on the opportunity to take down any creator who grew very quickly.
One example of this could be the haters who came out as Chappell Roan started to become big. People purposely mispronounced her name as a micro aggression, said she came out of nowhere, and stated that she hadn’t earned her spot due to them not having seen the efforts she had put in through years of struggle. The idea of the overnight success is the bane to a narcissist on the internet. There seems to be this idea of a zero sum game where if one person receives attention that means there would be less attention for others.
Online aggression in an attempt to belittle others does not raise our own social status. I can’t name most of the takedown individuals who identified the weakness in a celebrity’s behavior. I can name people who did it out of shock rather than rage like Hannibal Buress and his surprise over the Bill Cosby situation that was being ignored. I believe the difference in my perception had to do with Hannibal being surprised while the online narcissist seems angry if you don’t heed their advice about cancelling someone.
Online bullies are like any other bully and often use the same tools as any other narcissist. They will bait you into a fight, ignore any valid points you have, pick at any weakness in an argument and base their entire premise on defeating that, bait you into getting angry if they start losing, and perform the classic DARVO technique in deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. They will claim you are out of control or violated some social contract in the tone you used or whatever excuse they can muster. I can tell you this: non-response to a narcissist angers them more than any response you can give.
These people are seeking to have significance and fighting online in an attempt to lessen the significance of other people in some imaginary deal that they then would gain in some way. They have to be engaged with to be significant. Ratio’ing a comment is one thing, but no one even sees the comment with no responses. Online aggression has no where to go with no boundaries to bounce off. It is screaming into the void, and it is lonely. We only need to engage with people who engage in good faith and respect our boundaries.
The funny thing about this attempt to gain significance from the internet is that validation is free. Healthy relationships with healthy boundaries can provide validation. Validation is simply stating that I might not agree, but I can understand how you feel that way. It gives up nothing and requires nothing from others. Yet it provides so much. DBT has six levels of validation. I suggest anyone take some time to read up on these, as they will often strengthen any relationship.