Online communities have a lot in common with face-to-face communities, and a lot of important differences too. The vast majority of mailing lists, bulletin boards, and blogs are unmoderated, which provides fertile ground for manipulative social games.
But while some claim that online socializing is nothing but a culture medium for neuroses, throw up their hands, and give online community up for lost, we humans have had to learn how to keep our realtime communities from being blown apart by individuals' personal problems. There's no reason to believe that we can't learn how to keep our online communities vital too.
The cure is simple - not easy, but simple. The cure is silence - refusing to respond to bait, goads, invitations to participate in others' hurtful games. The trick is spotting the bait for what it is, and realizing that it's nothing but an attempt at control.
But that's a hard thing to understand, unless you've lived with a drunk or someone else whose illness requires the participation of others. It seems irresponsible not to call them on their nonsense, cowardly not to stand up for whomever they're picking on, selfish not to set them right in their confusion. That's what control freaks count on - exploiting your better nature. Control freaks can't control the apathetic - it's your caring nature that makes you a target. But your intelligence can keep you from becoming a puppet!
The most damaging control freaks take their time to establish themselves as viable members of online communities before and between setting their hooks. They're not "bad people," and they're often quite charismatic (because they've learned that that's the best way to get what they want). They're just people with problems - problems that you don't need to make your own.
Control freaks often seek out the shakiest, most nervous new members and play buddy-buddy with them, hoping to be able to recruit them when it's time to take sides. And for a control freak, it's often time to take sides.
Control freaks have a keen eye for "hot buttons" - subjects certain to stir up lots of drama! Once a control freak has gotten to know an online community well, they'll know which subjects invariably bring up disagreements.
And the hot buttons are springboards to the control freak's favorite tool - meta-issues. Meta-issues are subjects that aren't about the community's official or unofficial interests, but rather about discussion of those interests - what's "appropriate," what's worth talking about, what people do or don't have the right to say. A control freak can take either side on any of these nebulous matters. The point isn't to get a point across, or even simply to get attention - it's to become the subject matter of the community.
It's all about me! A control freak wants to be talked about - within the community, off of it via email or phone, and especially face to face. To be called names is as good as to be praised, to be ostracized as good as to be sought out - so long as the focus of the community shifts substantively from its own interests to the control freak him- or herself. And the best of all is to be argued over - to split the community into those who approve and those who disapprove of the control freak's statements, attitude, or presentation.
These are things that you'll commonly see used by control freaks - but not exclusively. Not all control freaks use all of them, and non-control-freaks post these too. But multiple repeats of any or all of them might be worth a closer look.
I'm A Shit-Stirrer
"This will probaly ruffle a few feathers..."
"You guys already know I care more about the truth than keeping the
peace..."
"Maybe I'm just the only one with the guts to say so, but..."
Poor Little Picked-On Victim
"I know my word doesn't count for much here - after all, I'm
Trashcanistani and most of you are Crackbrainian..."
"I realize I've already made a lot of enemies here..."
Politically Correct
"I just have a hard time understanding how you can..."
"Maybe I'm just dense, but I can't follow the logic that says..."
You're Forgiven
"With what you've gone through, of course you see things that
way..."
"I shouldn't expect everyone to have seen the kinds of things I've seen..."
All In Good Fun
(Just about any inflammatory remark or personal jab was "just a joke," and if you didn't get it that's your problem!)It's hard. It goes against everything you've learned to take pride in, and often entails realizing that you've been used as a weapon against others many times in the past. But, if you so desire, it can be done!
Figure out for yourself why your community is more important to you than coming off the White Knight, or being popular, or always feeling free to say what you know is the truth. What are your own reasons? What does the strength of the community add to your life? (Hint: sometimes writing these things down can help make them clearer in your mind.)
Keeping your opinions about the control freak's statements or tactics out of the community is only effective if it's absolute. The control freak is hoping and praying that you'll email community members privately and gossip behind their back - because then, in yet another way, the group is about them instead of about what it was formed to be about. Get a notebook and scribble in it with a pen, tell your sister, write a song and sing it at Open Mic Night at the coffeehouse, but keep your observations on the control freak out of the community that they're trying to control, or they'll have gotten what they want and try all the harder to submerge the community in their games.
Remember, "control freak" is a full-time job, and they got to stay that way because they're good at it. They can find your soft spots, and poke and poke until you scream; and you've been taught that turning away means you're a Bad Person. That's a lie. Don't fight the Control Freak - fight the lie. The Control Freak wants to be fought, and can't be conquered by fighting. The lie can be fought and vanquished, but it takes time! If you mess up now and then, hey, you're only human. You're not a hopeless case, and you don't have to always be a tool for others' hurting just because you get caught now and then.
Think of it as a health problem, like substance abuse. Attempts to help a control freak "through" their problem just feed the problem without helping the individual. You can't save control freaks or make their lives easier. You can't protect your community from them - even if a group got wise to a control freak and stopped responding, unless the group is totally closed to new membership, there'll soon be a whole new crop of well-intended puppets dancing along.
Telling a control freak off accomplishes nothing. They don't acknowledge their own games, even to themselves, and will simply revel (albeit perhaps through a storm of ostentatious tears) in the drama of having made a difference in someone else's life - by upsetting you.
You can refuse to worsen their problem by refusing to play along. Control freaks don't realize that they can get what they need without manipulating others, and every successful manipulation strengthens the impression that other strategies are a waste of time and energy.
They're stuck that way until they decide - for themselves, for their own sake, on their own - that they're sick of it. Many never do. When they do, it's never because of an outside influence - it's a personal decision.
Expressing your anger in the community that the control freak is trying to control prompts the control freak to do more of the things that make you angry! So, express your anger - outside of the community. Call a friend, go running, bang out some R&B on the piano, explain it all to your bowling team - just keep your expressions of anger outside of the community that the control freak is trying to control.
The control freak phenomenon isn't widely understood, and the Internet is the fastest means for the propagation of any social maneuver at all. Walking away from Internet control freaks is something that very few people have even thought about, and even fewer have attempted. Don't be surprised if you try to explain it and people look at you like you've got three heads! But if you value the online communities to which you belong, and don't want to be used as a weapon to turn them into kindergarten mudfights, silence is a song worth learning. Even if you screw up sometimes. On a good day, it's something anyone can get right! And on a bad day, it's still always possible to start over.