"Do not underestimate the obsession of a bruised ego."

u/HermiticalyKermit wrote a great post the other day about internet safety. I want to magnify one thing in particular that she said:

Do not underestimate the obsession of a bruised ego.

I read a lot about true crime, and one trope I've seen several times is that almost all homicides can be tied to three motives: love, money, or pride.

A lot of you probably remember my recent post about the perks of having sex wherein the man doesn't orgasm. Even with DMs off, you can imagine the vitriol thrown around over that -- I would get notifications from men trying to comment and could see what they wrote before the auto-filter pulled them. One scrote wrote about how he used that same strategy to make lots of women fall in love with him before dumping them "to get back at them for being sl*ts in college" and for "being so terrible" to him. He had linked his YouTube channel in his Reddit profile. Naturally, he looked like a blobfish.

I was so tempted to edit my post so we could all laugh at the kind of ugly shitheads who love to hate women. But my better judgment took over -- what if he lashed out? Do not underestimate the obsession of a bruised ego. Men fear that women will laugh at them. Women fear that men will kill them. Do not risk being stalked, harassed, and/or physically endangered because you felt the need to put a man in his place. It's not worth it. It is not worth risking your safety.

This is also why block and delete is so effective. If you don't exist to them--if they know you simply aren't getting their messages (rather than reading them and ignoring them, which hurts their egos)--it keeps you safer.

It also gives scrotes power when we engage them. Acknowledging their stupidity and clapping back gives weight to their words and actions. Who the fuck cares what they say? It's not our job to try to change them. We're all here so we can learn to spot them from a mile away and avoid them. Floating above their shit clouds is much easier psychologically and safer physically.

Please be smart and stay safe. The internet truly is the Wild West.