Okay lets talk about a kind of guy
The kind of guy that was sardonic, probably drunk, and took glee in shitting on anything and everything and just making everyone miserable.
23:00 < newbie~>: hey i made this, i think its pretty cool! :D 23:01 <+that guy>: Here is all the reasons its bad, you're shit and you should feel bad.
This guy was everywhere on IRC, there were usually multiple ones of these guys on every single IRC channel everywhere, and they were just part of the “vibe” of every single one.
Something I’m starting to realise is that I’ve slowly been becoming one of these guys. I see elements of that kind of behaviour everywhere, especially in how I handle discussions around technology. It’s like every ounce of joy and excitement about tech has been stolen away. I don’t even realise I’m doing it.
IRC put this in my head as a right way to act. The same kind of people are ostensibly the reason that IRC died for anything but tech discussions. It seemed on IRC, the right way to be a hacker was to be the person most able to shit on everyone else.
I need to remove this behaviour from myself, seeing it in myself has made me realise just how toxic it is and how toxic I can be as a person. It wasn’t okay, and it isn’t okay that I perpetuate it. I can hide behind the fact I was bullied in school, I can say it’s just part of how I grew a “thicker skin”. It’s not, it’s toxic behaviour, I just became a bully like everyone else, it doesn’t matter that it was done to me first.