Lurkers & Flamers
Why They Do What They Do
by Judith Broadhurst

An ordinary conversation is taking place online. The political debate is lively, but everything's cool. Then suddenly, it happens. Out of nowhere it comes: Whomp. Whoosh! Somebody fires a couple of volleys into the midst of it all, people immediately return fire, and the situation is out of control.

Within no time they've ignited an all-out flame war, that bizarre online phenomenon wherein one person launches a personal attack against someone with opposing views, people rally to the cause on either side, and any chance of further rational discussion gets blown to bits. It makes little difference what the discussion is about, but what sparks most flamers are those old reliables: Sex, religion and politics.

The urge to respond to incendiary remarks is often irresistible. "These folks know how to push buttons, and they just keep pushing them until they get a response," says Bruce Schechter, on ECHO (East Coast Hang Out, New York City). "Talking to those people is like putting your fingers in one of those Chinese finger handcuffs, or falling into quicksand."

No claims of scientific validity here, you understand, or off-the-wall speculations on flaming as a sex-linked characteristic. But experiential evidence, or what you can observe online, consistently shows that flamers are usually men. Online, as offline, women seldom come on so forcefully hostile.

Looking for trouble

True flamers, as they've been known since the first Hacker's Dictionary in the '70s, carry their torches from conference to conference, net to net, kindling new flames as they go, like relay runners. Their effect is akin to computer viruses. Some treat flaming as entertainment, or a sport with unwritten rules.

Joe Talmadge saw fit to codify these patters in The Flamer's Bible, a file he uploaded to the Writer's Ink Roundtable on GEnie. Of course, the real art is to gauge how far you can push it, to see how much of a ruckus you can raise without getting kicked off the forum or network.

"About 90 percent of all flamers are simple people who get mad and pop off at someone, and are later embarrassed," according to Ran Talbott, a sysop on CompuServe's Issues Forum. "Another nine percent just don't understand that they're dealing with real, live people on the other end of the wire."

Or, they're just plain rude people. Only one percent are what Talbott calls unredeemable. "They're looking for a safe place to vent their anger at the world, or a chance to strut and swagger." It's best to boot 'em fast, before they've driven off everyone else, he says.

People in several areas of CompuServe, Genie and ECHO agree that habitual flamers are exceedingly neurotic, at best. Some see their disruptive behavior as manipulative and a power trip by people who probably have little power in other situations, and resent that mightily. Some contend that flamers are unhappy, angry people who exploit the relative anonymity of online communication, and lash out at the easiest target.

Jerry Blumenthal, a psychiatrist who's a regular in MedSIG on CompuServe, says an online network is an ideal arena for people who normally have to repress their impulses. "Part of its appeal is its semi-anonymous, strangers-on-a-train quality," he says. "We give out our real names on most of these forums, but there is a distance here that permits lack of restraint."

Or take Meryl Johnson's theory: "I wonder if flaming is closely related somehow to the same push that makes some people indulge in obscene phone calls? And the meek person who turns into a maniac behind the wheel? There's a lot of generalized hostility in all three. None of them know the people they're attacking; none of them seem to want to be known."

"The worst of the worst flamers like to had behind fake names," says Marte Brengle. "They really haven't got the courage of their convictions."

The counterpoints flamers raise in discussions sometimes have merit, but they defeat their own cases. "Flamers often defend themselves by explaining that they are actually a positive force on the system, that they have shaken things up," says Bruce Schechter. "They often speak in highly intellectualized, but shallow, prose. They have no capacity for empathizing with anyone else's point of view.... Their ultimate defense is a kind of displacement and denial; they claim that we don't know their real personalities at all, just their carefully constructed online personas."

Going down in flames

As everyone's frustration escalates, so does the intensity of the flame until it reaches such an overload of insults, name-calling and absurd ravings that it implodes. If an all-out flame war spreads far, the residue of smoke and cinders can leave the forum desolate or on red-alert for quite a while afterward. Even flashes that burn out quickly may do serious damage.

"I've seen plenty of discussions die because someone came through and trashed them with some rant of other," says John Neilson. "There have also been cases where good people have been driven out by the flaming. Not everyone logs in here in hopes of engaging in a screaming match every day."

After a confrontation with someone who had created an uproar throughout ECHO, Blanca Eckstein fumed, "It was clear to me that he was using public space inappropriately. Because that's what ECHO is to me — the neighborhood piazza where you can come in your free time and talk with friends....

"I saw his behavior as an attack on my community, not just on me," continues Eckstein. "It was not an issue of free speech. It wasn't a case of us infringing on his rights, it was he who was the local bully taunting us ... and daring anyone to stop him."

Brengle, a sysop on CompuServe who has staffed two other networks before, says she's seen several sysops go down in flames. Most are volunteers, and when they are no longer willing to be volunteer firefighters, they quit. Sysops on most major networks often create electronic holding pens, or banish flamers to special sections, within public view or out of it, allowing them to continue their tirades.

Most of the managers on the three online systems we scanned are hypersensitive to any implications of censorship. So they hesitate even to delete a single message, much less put someone on read-only status or ban them from the conference by locking them out. But you'll hear no hedging or apologies from Alex Krislov, who leads the Marginal Issues section of the Issues Forum on CompuServe, one of the most consistently rowdy places online anywhere.

"Yep, what the sysops do here is censorship," Krislov says, "No question about it! When we kill a message for its content, we are censoring it. That's the simple truth. "CompuServe requires us to delete certain things, such as personal attacks and profanity, libel and scatology. But claims that we censor based on political content are a load of tripe."

According to Debra P. Young, Corporate Communications Specialist for CompuServe, the situation isn't so cut and dried. "Sysops on CompuServe are independent contractors," she explains. "In the case of abusive behavior, CompuServe tells sysops to examine the situation using our operating rules as a guideline, and make a judgment as to what should be done."

Censorship accusations aren't even relevant, says Blanca Eckstein. "People don't bug others with their political beliefs, but with their personalities — their style."

Yet, like the proverbial moths, most of us get easily drawn into the flame. "Ignoring a flamer sends him the message that he is OK, and also accomplishes just what he wants," says Karen Schneider. "When we depart from forums, the flamer considers it a victory. Answering his posts is equally ineffective since he takes it as an invitation to attack.... "I have been repeatedly mauled by a man on another bulletin board, and the women respond to me, for the most part, by e-mail.

"'Hey! Good work!' they say. I am pugnacious, obdurate, resilient and scrappy, so I really don't mind being the one who shoulders this effort.... Yet it is pretty irritating to have someone come up after your head was torn off and whisper, 'Gee, I really agree with you!'"

Peering around corners

Despite their growing popularity, online networks are still predominantly male enclaves, some with a male-to-female ratio of more than 9:1. Women who go online sometimes say they feel like they're eavesdropping on men's club talk or locker room conversations. So, some women remain lurkers, a breed of online creature whose behavior is the opposite of flamers; you never know they're there.

Motivations of the two seem distinctly different, too. Georgia Griffith, wizop of the Issues Forum on CompuServe, guesses that around 85 percent of those who log on there simply lurk. Maybe a higher percentage of women lurk, maybe not. Nobody knows.

It says something, though, that the "Why Do Women Lurk?" thread on ECHO has continued for three years. Occasionally, it serves as a place where members conspire about how to cope with the latest flamer in a different section. Or they retreat to vent their emotions after another onslaught. Yet only here, in this section open to women only, do women repeatedly describe themselves as "guilty of lurking," routinely.

It's not only women who cheer from the sidelines, of course. Men seem to consider it their prerogative, no guilt attached, whether they choose to lurk or contribute to discussions. Far more often than women, they say they stay silent because they have business reputations to maintain. Or they confess, privately, that they don't understand why people online give away what they know for free, an online custom women don't question.

Josiane Caggiano, a psychologist who co-leads the Psychology conference on ECHO, thinks it makes sense that women lurk more and flame less. "I believe we are taught to wait until spoken to, and then what we say has to be nice," she says. But it's a pretty safe bet to assume women and men mostly lurk for the same reasons.

"I like to lurk," says Janet Coleman. "Often I find I don't have much to say. When I do post a message, it is usually because I think I have relevant information, or I want to test out an idea or theory or prejudice. Or sometimes, I'll post when I feel the need for a little fellowship."

For Deborah Velick, lurking appeals "usually because I'm tired, and just want to read what's going on, like sitting down after a long day and reading the newspaper. But I am painfully aware of having been taught not to stick my nose into conversations, to wait until I'm spoken to."

Members who've actually met many of those they know online say people generally act the same online as they do in real life. But some disagree, insisting they log on strictly as an escape; they present themselves as they'd like to be, rather than as they normally are.

Regardless, most of us probably felt like Lianne Smith did at first. "My response to ECHO has been very much like my response to meeting new people, especially in groups," says Smith. "It's almost like I have to get my footing, or my balance or something....

"I read a response, I think something in my head and then I can't bring myself to post it. Or I start to, and immediately this voice in my head says 'that is stupid, inane, thoughtless or humorless' What I get out of not lurking is a sense of connection, being a part of the community, and more enjoyment."

It's no surprise that the term itself, 'lurk,' bothers some people. "It is kind of negative," says Janet Coleman, "A skulky, spy-in-the-shadows kind of word. Why don't we say read?"

"I love the connotations of lurking," Liz Margoshes counters. "I like to picture myself naked in a trench coat, hanging out in the shadows, just waiting for the right moment to FLASH!"

Karen Schneider muses, "I can't lurk, and some can't post." Perhaps, as Michael Miller, a psychologist who hangs out in MedSIG on CompuServe, maintains, "It's just like a ball game. There are participants and there are spectators. This sort of communication may even be more likely to attract spectators in the first place. "Or think of it like going to the movies. I would hate not being allowed to discuss a movie just because I didn't appear in the film."

Copyright © 1993, Judith Broadhurst. All rights reserved. Published in Online Access magazine, June 1993.

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