Maxims and tactics for dealing with assholes on the Internet (and elsewhere)

The first rule

If that's too much to remember, here's a shorter version:

(“Don't what?” “Just don't.”)

Other mottoes and maxims

• Nobody is making me reply, except myself

• If I'm arguing with an asshole on the Internet, it's because I'm an asshole on the Internet

• 100 Likes on Twitter, plus $3.95, will get me a free latte at Starbuck's

• If something I'm doing is making me feel bad, then I should stop doing it

• If people see me arguing with an asshole on the Internet, they'll think of me as an asshole on the Internet

• When you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy

• I can't expect to control other people's behavior when I can't even control my own behavior

  (Thomas à Kempis)

• I can't expect to fix other people when I can't even fix myself

• You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink

• Assholes on the Internet are not my friends, family, or co-workers. They cannot hurt me or impede my life or affect me in any way whatever

• Don't throw good money after bad

(Will Durant)

Tactics

• The most cutting response is to show the other person that you don't consider them worth responding to.

• What assholes on the Internet want, more than anything, is attention. To ignore them is to deprive them of their deepest satisfaction.

• Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. Probably on Reddit.

  (Marcus Aurelius)

• If you are having an argument, don't pretend that the other person is forcing you to do it.

• Think of someone you respect, but that you haven't met. Imagine what they would think of your behavior. Are you embarrassed?

  (I picture Tim Gowers.)

• Wait twenty-four hours before replying. You may find that the whole thing seems ridiculous and that you no longer care to reply.

Addendum

I left out a good one: If I'm tempted to end a sentence with “… you blockhead”, I should just end it with a period, and imagine that readers will feel the psychic reverberations of “you blockhead”. Remember Old Mrs. Lathrop:

“You don’t have to!” shouted old Mrs. Lathrop out of her second-story window. Although she did not add “You gump!” aloud, you could feel she was meaning just that.

(Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy)

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