I've stumbled into the AITA sub on Reddit before. A little too much fake / self-induced drama for me, but I did have one observation while reading some of the posts there.
It seemed to me that it would be interesting to get a psychiatrist's take on the mentality of some on that sub. From what I could see, it seemed like there were two types of people who post there. One of them is obvious enough in society today, and this is the narcissist. The person who thinks the whole world revolves around them, but when they discover it may not, then they have to do a reality check on someplace like AITA to feel good about themselves (again). No real need for a psychiatrist there; we see these types of people every day and they are what they are (i.e. the asshole). It was the second general type of person, the person who actively wants to be viewed as the asshole, whom I found interesting. These persons will go to great lengths to paint themselves as the asshole, including constructing obviously fake tales about scenarios which never happened (except maybe in their mind's). It's like they look forward to a bunch of complete strangers on the Interwebz calling them the "asshole"; it makes them feel good in some twisted way.
I suppose there is probably a 3rd type of person there also, and this is the person who is in some situation where they genuinely don't know if they are the one being the asshole or not, but not much to see there unless you like the run of the mill Ann Landers style drama (which millions do). In any case, it's that 2nd kind of person which I think would be interesting to understand better. On the one hand, you could view it in a similar fashion to people who want to be the submissive, or "bottom", in a sexual relationship. But, on the other hand, there must be some who get off on being a dick all the time, or whom see some sort of positive achievement in behaving in that manner. They go on AITA to see if they need to adjust the 'throttle' on their asshole-ishness. Maybe to impress their friends / colleagues, or maybe it gives them some kind of ego boost somehow, I don't know, but it seems very 'broken' to me. It would be interesting to know if this is a permanent character flaw, or if this desire is just circumstantial.
Anyway, I just thought I'd point this out. I don't have any answers other than this is something I observed after I had accidentally stumbled into that sub while cruising the toxic reddit (something I try to avoid).
Cheers!
It seemed to me that it would be interesting to get a psychiatrist's take on the mentality of some on that sub. From what I could see, it seemed like there were two types of people who post there. One of them is obvious enough in society today, and this is the narcissist. The person who thinks the whole world revolves around them, but when they discover it may not, then they have to do a reality check on someplace like AITA to feel good about themselves (again). No real need for a psychiatrist there; we see these types of people every day and they are what they are (i.e. the asshole). It was the second general type of person, the person who actively wants to be viewed as the asshole, whom I found interesting. These persons will go to great lengths to paint themselves as the asshole, including constructing obviously fake tales about scenarios which never happened (except maybe in their mind's). It's like they look forward to a bunch of complete strangers on the Interwebz calling them the "asshole"; it makes them feel good in some twisted way.
I suppose there is probably a 3rd type of person there also, and this is the person who is in some situation where they genuinely don't know if they are the one being the asshole or not, but not much to see there unless you like the run of the mill Ann Landers style drama (which millions do). In any case, it's that 2nd kind of person which I think would be interesting to understand better. On the one hand, you could view it in a similar fashion to people who want to be the submissive, or "bottom", in a sexual relationship. But, on the other hand, there must be some who get off on being a dick all the time, or whom see some sort of positive achievement in behaving in that manner. They go on AITA to see if they need to adjust the 'throttle' on their asshole-ishness. Maybe to impress their friends / colleagues, or maybe it gives them some kind of ego boost somehow, I don't know, but it seems very 'broken' to me. It would be interesting to know if this is a permanent character flaw, or if this desire is just circumstantial.
Anyway, I just thought I'd point this out. I don't have any answers other than this is something I observed after I had accidentally stumbled into that sub while cruising the toxic reddit (something I try to avoid).
Cheers!