John Gabriel's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory"
John Gabriel's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" was posted in the Penny Arcade strip published March 19, 2004. It regards the online disinhibition effect, in which Internet users exhibit unsociable tendencies while interacting with other Internet users. Mike Krahulik suggests that, given both anonymity and an audience, an otherwise regular person can become a "total fuckwad," i.e., a very disagreeable person. Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University who studies social and economic effects of Internet technologies, explains: "There’s a large crowd and you can act out in front of it without paying any personal price to your reputation,” which "creates conditions most likely to draw out the typical Internet user’s worst impulses." In an Advocate article about online homophobia, this theory was used to account for behavior on online forums where one can remain anonymous in front of an audience: for instance, posting comments on popular YouTube videos.
Read more about this topic: Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Famous quotes containing the words john gabriel, gabriel, greater and/or theory:
“During the crusades all were religious mad, and now all are mad for want of it.”
—J.G. (John Gabriel)
“I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.”
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
“I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness or feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgement, I consistently can. But you must act.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)