Auntie Jill's Jillings

Dear Auntie Jill,
For over a year I used to have a really sweet internet chat friend, who I thought I knew and got on really with. However there were times when she would flip over really stupid things. For example we’d be chatting in the Lit. chat girl’s room and a guy would come in. He wouldn’t be causing any harm or harassing anybody and yet my friend would go absolutely ballistic. Then one day I said something that must have offended her and she like went into a total rage. We’ve never really spoken since then and she has spent the last few months trying to turn everyone against me.
Is this normal?
Puzzled Chatter.

Dear Puzzled,
There are a whole bunch of complex issues here. Perhaps the most difficult one to answer is what is normal? Down here at Jillington-on-Sea I’d say outside of my friends down at The Lesbian and Ferret there are few people I would consider ‘normal’.

However I think the main issue you are describing here is what we call Online Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).

Like serial killers, these people seem pretty normal at first. For hours, days, or even months they'll carry on funny, charming conversations in a forum or chat room. But then somebody, anything, sets her off and she devolves into a tantrum that would make Christian Bale say, "Dude, calm down! Jesus."

Out in the real world, IED is an impulse control disorder that can make a person act like their entire family has been murdered just because the barmaid didn’t put a cherry in their gin and tonic. Basically, they're prone to fits of uncontrollable rage in situations that don't call for it.

And while IED only affects around six percent of people in real life, on the Internet you run into one of these in almost every chat room. And nothing sets them off like a mild hit to their ego:

IED Girl: Hey girls why is it when I enter the room that men instantly start hitting on me?

Normal chatter: Maybe it’s not a good idea called yourself Busty CumSlut4U?

IED Girl: FUCK YOU! YOU SHIT-FACED COMMUNIST FUCKTARD. I WAS IN CHAT WHEN YOU WERE BUSY JILLING IN YOUR PARENTS BASEMENT TO BRITNEY SPEARS.

A simultaneously hilarious and disturbing example of this made headlines recently, when somebody emailed a congressman's office and accidentally referred to his assistant Elizabeth as "Liz," prompting an explosion of 19 furious emails in which Elizabeth demanded that she be called by her full name.

So Why Does it Happen on the Internet?

First, there's the obvious: Most of us suppress our real-life spurts of rage for fear of getting punched in the face by the person we're screaming at. Second, on the Internet, where your looks, job, income and fancy clothes won't buy you any respect, some inadequate people seem to think they have to protect their reputation or ego like an old west gunslinger: shooting down anybody who calls them out.

But then there's the third, and least obvious reason, which is that without tone of voice and body language, it's hard to convey mere annoyance or mild anger, without the fear that the person you're conveying it to just plain won't notice. So they think they have to crank it up to a 10 every time they're crossed.

That's probably the weirdest part, that these people who are SCREAMING INSULTS IN CAPS are often at the same time sitting in a college library somewhere, sipping coffee and conversing pleasantly with the sat person next to them.

It takes allsorts to make a world Puzzled but I’m sure you’ve already worked out that the best thing to do is stay well away from your old friend.

Love,

Auntie Jill.