Pithy Comebacks to Buffoonery on Social Media

I recently attended a book signing by bestselling author John Scalzi, where he read a selection from his blog titled "Standard Responses to Online Stupidity." There, he presented some witty rejoinders to online buffoonery. (My favorite: "My attention is a privilege, not a right. This is all you get.")

Since he's graciously featuring my guest contribution on his website today, I thought it might be fun to come up with a few comebacks of my own for use in similar situations. I've tied them to a few well-known axioms. Some of the results are particularly cutting, and I doubt I'd use them on anyone short of a mortal enemy (of whom I don't have any). But please don't tell anyone, as acerbity can be an effective deterrent.

1. Your logic leaves something to be desired. Just not by anyone I know.

2. No, Teddy Roosevelt did not say, "Type loudly and act like a big prick."

3. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Which explains why you're so crabby.

4. Discretion is the better part of ... a concept you're obviously not familiar with.

5. He who fights and runs away online is more commonly known as a troll.

6. I'm sorry, but faith can't move mountains if you put yours in a broken bulldozer.

7. Take your ball and go home. It's overinflated anyway. Oh, wait, that's your ego.

8. Cat got your tongue? My mistake. He's in the litter box, which must mean you're full of ...

9. I'll give you the benefit of my doubt. Here's my doubt. Now go benefit from it.

10. I'd be happy to make a gentleman's agreement, but you'd have to be a gentleman.

11. I won't just agree to disagree with you. I'll celebrate it with a trip to Disneyland.

12. I'm afraid that, in order to be a man of your word, you'd have to be literate.

13. If you've learned from your mistakes, you must be a full-blown genius.

14. A penny saved isn't worth spending on your thoughts.

15. If at first you don't succeed at arguing online ... do us all a favor and give it a rest.

16. I'll give you special dispensation to judge a book by it's cover, since it's clear you've never looked inside one.

Note: These work for Facebook, but since they're all fewer than 140 characters, they're nicely suited to Twitter, as well.

A Flock of Seagulls Walks Into a Bar (Or, Why Twitter Doesn't Fly for Me)

Elmer Fudd walks into a bar. ...

Stop right there. I don't want to hear another joke about someone - whether it be Elmer, Kermit the Frog, Cardinal Wolsey or Tyrion Lannister - walking into a bar, pub, tavern or similar establishment. The thing is, I really don't care for bars. They're either deader than the cellphone I lost under the couch five years ago or so loud I can't hear anything but what sounds like a flock of seagulls being attacked by a swarm of bees.

And I'm not talking about the '80s band with the weird hair. At least those guys could carry a tune as far as MTV land. A lot of people in bars can't, even though some karaoke night wannabes wind up singing "Love Shack" in a voice even more strident than the original. (The lyric "tin roof, rusted"? I think describes some of their vocal cords.)

That's the only reason I ever went to a bar: for karaoke night. I never joined a band because I worked nights. This is what I told everyone and is, in fact, quite true. To a point. The real reason (which I'll never tell anyone - shhhh!) is that I was too lazy to learn an instrument and not quite good enough with the microphone to get within a mile of a recording studio. I suppose that's why I always finish third or fourth or worse in those karaoke contests.

Still, karaoke is fun. Going to a bar for any other reason is not. Yeah, you get to drink. Whoop-de-doo. You have to pay something like four times as much for a beer as you would if you got it at the supermarket, and then you have to find someone to drive you home after it's all said and done. In the meantime, you're getting screamed at by a those angry seagulls and buzzed by those pesky bees. If you stick around long enough, two drunks will probably get into a fight, and you'll swear you're on Pit Road at a NASCAR race. That might be fine for some folks, but did I mention I'm not a big NASCAR fan? They just go 'round and 'round in circles, and occasionally, there's a crash. Pretty much the way people operate at a bar.

Now, you might say that going to a bar is all about the aforementioned birds and bees: It serves a purpose in the mating ritual of the species known as Libidinous Solitarious. Having evolved to take the form of Libidinous Matrimonius, I have no use for such rituals at this point in my middle-aged existence. In fact, I never did, because they never worked for me. (You might assert that this is because I was simply not a member of the subspecies Desirablus, to which I would counter that, had this been the case, I would likely never have evolved to the status of Matrimonius.)

The simple fact is, bars just aren't and never have been my scene, which brought me to an epiphany the other day about why I don't like Twitter.

"Now, that's a bit of a leap," you may be saying.

But stay with me here. The connection between the two came courtesy of my friend John, who offered the following analogy: "Twitter is like talking to yourself in a busy pub with a gang of mates stood round you, sometimes they'll answer back, sometimes the random stranger stood next to you at the bar will answer back instead, with the person who's just nipping past to go to the toilet chipping in a few thoughts on his way past ..."

John's from England, and being in England might make being in a pub tolerable simply for the novelty of it. At least they have darts there. But as to the mode of conversation John described? Well, it wouldn't exactly make me feel special to be a detour on en route to a porcelain pit stop, and I've got zero interest in chatting up random strangers. (This probably accounts for why I never met any romantic interests at a bar. Not that I regret this: The people you meet at bars invariably start out as strangers, but I'm convinced that most of them are better off staying that way.)

John's analogy, for me, was spot-on. Whenever I've gone on Twitter, it's always felt as chaotic as a bar scene. The bees swarming. The seagulls flocking and squawking.

And me? I just ran. I ran so far away ...

When it comes right down to it, though, there's another reason I don't like Twitter. Just count the number of words in this post (if you're a masochist), or better yet, trust me.

"I don't like Twitter because it's too chaotic." That's 39 characters. I could have used Twitter if I'd wanted to and saved you all a whole lot of time. But I didn't want to. Where's the fun in that when you can engage in the sort of unrestrained verbosity I've exhibited here?

I think I've made my point.

As Elmer Fudd said when he stumbled out of the bar, never to return: "A-ba-dee aba-dee, a-ba-dee, that's all folks!"

Ten Species of Troll

Here are 10 species of Internet troll I've observed and cataloged in my study of the Wild, Wild Web. Recognize them. Avoid them. Lead a much happier life without them.

1. Stalkers. Attention seekers who need others' responses to feel validated. They follow you from one page to another, leaving comments on whatever you post. The problem is, you never know whether to treat them like lost puppies and scratch behind their ears, but this just keeps them coming back for more.

2. Lurkers. The next stage in the stalker's (d)evolution. Having been banned or blocked, they stay quiet and hide behind bogus profiles, conducting online espionage. Like the rude but distant relative who invites himself to Thanksgiving dinner, they feel they're entitled to a place at the table, even after they've been asked to leave.

3. Imposters. Critics who masquerade as a member of a certain group, they wait until the time is right, then ambush members in an open forum - sometimes with self-righteous religious rhetoric, sometimes with ads for fake Ray-Bans. I'm not sure which is worse.

4. Backstabbers. They air their dirty laundry to the world, slamming a spouse, relative, "friend," boss or some other third party who's (conveniently) not around to defend him/herself. They smile in your face. All the time, they wanna take your place ...

5. Know-it-Alls. These ego-driven types pose as authorities to gain "minions" as though they'd been chosen for the lead in Despicable Me - even though the lead character in that animated film is far more three-dimensional. Like stalkers, they want validation. But instead of targeting a single person, they cast a wider net in an effort to build a cult-like following. They're usually not authorities on much of anything. But that doesn't stop them from pontificating ad nauseam on their favorite subjects.

6. True Believers. The minions or clones from No. 5, who follow Know-it-Alls pretty much blindly, faithfully memorizing their scripts and robotically regurgitating their lines. Clones? Dittoheads? Do people actually take pride in these labels? Sometimes the Web is far too similar to bad talk radio, and you've just change the station.

7. Button-Pushers. They get a rise out of people by posting uncompromising positions on hot-button issues. On the one side, they get a lot of attaboys; on the other, they receive plenty of criticism (often spiced up using colorful language). Either way, they're out for attention, same as the Stalker and the Authority. They're motto: All publicity is good publicity.

8. Victims. Often Button-Pushers who pretend to be persecuted for their beliefs, they fly the "minority" flag as though it were a battle standard - whether or not they're actually in any minority. One favorite tactic: saying something outrageously offensive, then crying "censorship!" when the owner of the wall or page removes their comment.

9. Advocates. People who take up a single issue or slate of issues and draw a life-or-death line in the sand, then dare others on Facebook to cross it ... which, of course, they do, leading to sometimes amusing but mostly aggravating repercussions. They produce more litmus tests for than your eighth-grade science teacher and flunk you if you answer one question in a hundred the "wrong" way.

10. Devil's Advocates. The people who fuel the Button-Pushers' fire, their goal is, like most of the others, to gain attention - but their method's a little different. They're counter-punchers. They wait for someone else to state an opinion, then look for a weakness and pounce when they think they've found one. It's purely a game of one-upmanship. The Devil's Advocate who can beat the Know-it-All in an argument has pulled off an effective Facebook coup and can build a following of his/her own.

Illustration: John Bauer, from Walter Stenstrom's The Boy and the Trolls or The Adventure in children's anthology Among Pixies and Trolls, a collection of children's stories, 1915 (public domain image).