First off, let me apologize for advocating the creation of the board in question without seeing through to its potential consequences. That was probably a lack of foresight on my part, even if it's a relative fix for the problem it addressed in the first place.

Before I begin this spiel, let me first highlight three of the top 10 or so thread titles in this board, as of this post:

"I'm just not the guy I use to be.. the Leader I am now is not the Friend I once was." "It's all unraveling, right in front of my eyes..." "I don't want to live anymore"

dollars plz

If those three titles give you a headache, then read on for a shared opinion. If they strike concern in your heart, then read on to get a better understanding. If you are one of the people that wrote those threads, then buckle up and get some popcorn, I'm talking about you!

First, some background for the unaware. On this online community, The Dollars, or more specifically Dollars-BBS, we recently decided to create a board category called "Personal." Due to the large number of people sharing personal stories and issues on the "Random" board, we figured it warranted its own category.

The one thing we didn't take into account was that creating it not only deferred people to it, but it encouraged people to post in it, even if they wouldn't have. This is an interesting psychological phenomena I will expand on later in this stupid thing.

Literally every day or so we get a new drama-imbibing attention whore to join the ranks of those we struck down before them, blindly jumping into the fray with the first-world problem of the day. To be fair, sometimes it's not all bad - sometimes they really do have an issue to share, but they're just bad at wording it without making it sound like a bad fanfic. So I'd like to make one thing clear.

Nobody speaks in prose.

Nobody does it, I swear.

Nobody that isn't doing it for the poetic justice, that is.

I can't take people seriously when they start doing that. I'd be more inclined to hear someone out if they said "Hey guys. I'm having a really tough time right now, and I need some advice" rather than "I feel like my whole world is shattering around me... the glass shards of my psyche are etching bloody scars into the abyss of my-" I can't even continue typing that. I'm sorry I tried.

In novels, when characters speak like this, they're very well-worded. They know what they're talking about, and what they say doesn't come out as profound because they wanted it to be - the profound nature of it comes from the context and the timing, and most of all, the character speaking naturally. When you reverse this and start with the intended effect rather than the true intention, you're fucking doing it wrong. And I'm more inclined to believe you don't have a real problem.

But see, it's almost like a calling. By creating the board in the first place, it attracted those individuals who would do this on a normal basis anyway: post anonymously on some online community, expecting some cheap, impersonal praise, support, and ass-kissing, just by being able to speak like the hero of a 3rd grader's favorite TV show. Either that, or they think they're being smart - see my last post on dumb people observations.

But this time I bring examples! Take a look!

As stated in the title, I no longer wish to continue living any further. Too painful to try and continue on with what has become an existential hell that is my life.

...

My sister feels that she is some sort of little princess pop-star and that gives her the right to speak and dress in any way that she pleases and the she is exempt from any sort of work or responsibility

...

At school, I feel as if I'm one of the only intelligent individuals there. While I have surrounded myself by people who have an IQ over 8 and enjoy Anime and Manga such as myself, I can't help but feel misery in the sense that I'm watching my closest friends sucked into this hopeless race to nowhere that is the exit agin system.

All from the same post. Someone literally stated they want to kill themselves because they think they're smart and nobody else gets that.

I don't know,

That sounds Dumb.

But what do I know, I don't think I have the required IQ to determine things like that accurately, but I do enjoy Anime and Manga like a smart person would apparently. I do like dem desus

Fucking kawaii

It was concluded with the following:

Now that you've heard my tale feel free to try and talk me out of ending my life. Can be through insults, kindness, anything really. I'm just hollow anyway.

Translation: "Now comment! Comment on my dumb fucking angst poetry, puppets! Lavish me with your attention, I command it!!"

...

I don't know.

Maybe I'm making too big a deal over what is obviously a younger kid going through those first awkward phases of their life: That realization that they suddenly have an understanding of a few vague details of the world around them; The moment when they begin to lose trust in your peers and their integrity, and begin to think foolish of anyone who doesn't have the same advancing mindset as their own; The moment they adopt that pretentious sort of disposition that only a 13 year old anti-socialite would employ?

I find it fascinating; not in the "oh I have a better opinion than they do about things because I can cross analyze it and herpaderp I took Intro to Psych I'm basically a doctor" sense - but rather, that I know full well that I had these thoughts once when I was younger. ...Maybe not to the same degree. I don't think I ever wanted to die for being smarter than people; that always struck me as complete bullshit.

But anyhoo,

I strayed from the original topic, didn't I? I hardly even remember where I meant to go with it. I suppose this post fits the title of the blog to a tee - it devolved into a rambling about retrospection with its purpose completely obfuscated without deliberately tracing its intent.

I suppose I am left with a question, regarding these people that have roosted on our boards as their personal drama shitting blog: How am I supposed to deal with them? Do I call them idiotic, even if it's completely understandable for someone their age to be naive and silly? Do I try to guide them, knowing they won't listen since I'm not pandering to their sympathies? Or, god forbid, do I cater to them and indulge their drama?

Maybe I should just troll them and be done with it I don't know

Alright, how do I phrase this? Do I sugarcoat it and refer to "overly serious" and "down to earth" people, or do I get straight to the point and say "dumb" and "smart" people? I guess it doesn't really matter in the end - for the sake of the argument, they are synonymous in this situation. We noticed a trend in people we've had discussions with, comparing between people we enjoy talking to and people who cause concern over their implied mental health.

People who are "smart" have the most dubious personalities when we talk with them. They can act like assholes, total idiots, etc. on a whim, but only rarely do they ever speak with the full potential of their true intellect. People who are "dumb" always sound like they're using their full brain capacity, and actually have the potential to sound smart more often than the smart people.

It's a weird observation, and sort of generalized just to pound that ironic idea into your head for maximum reader feels. Let me clarify, starting with the stupids.

Let's keep in mind that I may not only be talking about little childrens (younger than 16 or something) here, who have an excuse for being like this. This encompasses a wide age range, and is why it's "stupid" and not "naive". People in this category tend to take things very seriously - and not just situations that call for it, either. It's not that they can't take jokes, necessarily - it's that they need to think about their personality before saying anything, like they have to keep up this image because their true self doesn't meet a personal standard. They speak professionally, even in casual situations, as if it earns them respect; they use unnecessarily ridiculous diction as if it gives off the impression of someone who knows what they're talking about; they never deviate from their one established tone.

You'll see people like this throwing around words and phrases that are profound and sound great - in context. Out of context, they're empty and bereft of all original meaning, and indicative of someone who just really wants people to think they really know what they're talking about. People who use stock phrases like "ableism" and "I hate humanity" or shit like that: a startling portion of these people actually know jack shit about social stigmas and nihilism, respectively. In fact, if you try to pick them apart and have them explain their points one by one, they cannot. If there's one thing I can give them credit for, it's being able to spin an accusation on its head and scapegoat - oftentimes the accuser will become the bad guy.

But then there's the sort of person who knows what they're talking about. I'm not trying to set a high standard by calling myself one of these people, it's almost like I'm saying "I have at least an average intelligence." And if you can't say that about yourself, you need to remember that the average is lower than you think. But I digress.

"Down to earth" people can express their own thoughts, by themselves. They don't need stock phrases and a thesaurus to sound smart or coherent: because they use their own damned thoughts in the first place, it's hard to be incoherent. And because of this, it strikes one thing off their maintenance list - putting up with an image. These sorts of people are the most capable of throwing around insincerities, because ironically, the ability to be fallacious comes from a proficiency in being honest - you can't falsify that which is false in the first place. If an idiot acts like an idiot, he's not changing anything.

It almost ties into the concept of trolling, in a way. People call everything a troll nowadays - someone being dumb, someone playing a prank, someone legitimately upset, someone making a good point, someone greeting someone on the street, someone buying a drink at the local gas station... it's overdone. People have forgotten what it really means, because to understand that, you have to understand irony. And to understand irony, you kind of need to understand the basic point behind this spiel. Point being, the difference between a troll and someone who is actually a moron is that the former knows full well what they're doing.

To bring it around and back to actually being something of use to real life instead of just being whiny rambly bullshit everyone already doesn't care about, there's a lesson behind it.

BE YOURSELF :V

No like seriously

Stop smirking you asshole this is important get a fucking pen are you listening

Don't be that person that relies on a reputation in a community to get respect. That's not how reputation is supposed to work - you don't build up a devoted following of gullible assfaggots that'll murder any dissenters on cue. We have a band of idiots like that on the Dollars, and that's mainly where a lot of this observation is coming from. Have your own opinion and personality: it's at least one million times easier to roleplay yourself than an angst-ridden loner who has all these problems everyone needs to cater to, or a super-capable leader guy who talks like an encyclopedia and needs his e-peen polished every damned day.

Because trust me. If this discourse wasn't enough to convince you,

We can tell when you're trying.