“Debate-me bros” are manipulated to swarm attack with perceived impunity. The results are unsettling, this is a comprehensive article addressing cyberbullying.
Disclaimer: For every “Debate-me bro” who voluntarily came out and insult me on my Twitter account uninvited this past weekend, I did not include their names on this article, but their many insults remain on Twitter unless they erased them. Therefore, they gave tacit consent of being cited, as I did not go out of my way to bring anybody into what ended up becoming a very unsettling experiment. I did not ask to be getting insulted (who would), rather to have conversations, even if we disagreed. This IS NOT a Social Experiment. Instead, I found myself becoming a victim of sustained cyberbullying, hence I took the opportunity to try to understand it, so I can share my information with other entities that track this type of behavior.
In short, I simply made the best of the situation by turning their uninvited insults as a compilation of datapoints to understand this growing phenomenon affecting America. It also just so happens to end up resulting as firsthand research for the purposes of this article. And in order to finalize this unwanted debate experiment, I only responded to selected few and subsequently narrowed it to one person who voluntarily continued taunting me to engage, I gave him the opportunity to continue the conversation in a more private setting, he refused and added additional insults against my person, so that counts as consent, and for me as a response. He started interacting with me uninvited (he is not a follower) and condescendingly, I was trying to continue and subsequently end the conversation in a civil manner. I doubt most of them will ever read this article, but they are not my target audience. This is for the thousands of readers worldwide who do read my words, but who also avoid Twitter like the plague – for good reason.
I’ve redacted the names of the people cited because I don’t want them to be subject to harassment, even though they did viciously harass me – even if they don’t understand how. If they ever read this, they should know that their actions – all their insults still posted against my person - are considered illegal cyberbullying in Virginia where I reside in accordance with § 18.2-152.7:1. Harassment by computer; penalty. If any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass any person, shall use a computer or computer network to communicate obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, or indecent language, or make any suggestion or proposal of an obscene nature, or threaten any illegal or immoral act, he is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
All 50 States have their own statues for cyberbullying online harassment, which they likely violated them under their own jurisdictions.
THE EXPERIMENT – keyboard bravado and misinformation
There is a growing epidemic of an “us against them” scenario that is pinning Americans against other Americans. My concern is because with the polarized and often incendiary rhetoric that is hitting each echo chamber, the risk of miscalculation to find common ground is not going to be resolved with the election – it might even make it worse. But in order to validate my hypothesis I decided to do some experimenting to find the ground truth.
I usually comment on any of our social media platforms, and the variety and tenor of the responses help me gauge the tension on each – because they tend to have their unique vibe. The most volatile of them for which I have accounts with is unsurprisingly Twitter (X). I personally do not enjoy using that platform because the faux bravado of keyboard warriors makes it more evident that so many “grownups” are perfectly comfortable acting like maladapted school bullies from the perceived safety of their keyboards. The insults, tropes, what-about-isms, misogyny, racism, etc. speaks volumes about how this divisive rhetoric has been normalized. And for many conflicted people, embraced.
On Twitter (X), unless you pay money to the richest man in the world, you only get a very limited number of characters per tweet. This of course limits how fast you can put a comprehensive point across. This is not ideal for an in-depth conversation, but it is ideal for short statements and talking points that allow people with shallow perceptions to cling onto out-of-context tropes rather than understanding the full scope of the matter at hand. I purposefully put an innocently placed what (I will call) “trigger word” in the middle of a full statement to see how this interacts with the algorithm.
We’ll talk more about this trigger word and the rest of the context on the following real-life scenario. A trigger word is defined on this article as a word that could have more than one meaning based on the context but can be used as a wedge issue for anybody who feels like debating on a semantic tangent, rather than the actual substance of the topic.
Notice that there is always deeper context on a complex conversation. Understanding that misunderstandings make people easy targets for manipulation. It became very evident that those who felt compelled to gratuitously insult are victims of manipulating authoritarian propaganda tactics that embolden them to do this without a shred of pause.
Here is the scenario
The whole thing started after I replied to a tweet from someone I follow. His tweet was about Trump being crooked, a liar, and stupid, and he linked a video from Robert Reich to support his message. I agreed with his stance based on the metrics he presented.
My tweet reply said “Sadly Trump is very much like many other authoritarians wanna-be abroad. And I've seen it (and lived it) firsthand how the same cognitive dissidence happens elsewhere. The same playbook, but in a different language. Startingly, Trump's lies are getting more ridiculous on purpose.”
The derivative message for this tweet became very evident on the cognitive dissidence that my impromptu experiment uncovered, and the underling playbook that panders to a very naïve, yet very vocal and increasingly dangerous segment of the population in the USA – certainly on Twitter (X).
That original tweet reply got only 174 views, and although not in the context of the conversation, somebody on the thread asked about 1st and 2nd amendment – yes, although it ignored the video itself which goes to explain in audiovisual detail 75 glaring red flags that validated the first person’s argument against Trump. Unsurprisingly, the tweet that got attention down the thread got 6.2K views even though the original authors tweet only got 2.8K views by the time I’m writing this article. Keep this in mind because this is how misinformation out of context spreads.
As we are having a back and forth, and admittedly a mostly pleasant civil conversation with the person who first cited the 1st and 2nd amendment comments in defense of Trump under that thread, way down the line came a “debate me bro” to chime in unsolicited, even though the amicable discussion with the other gentleman was pretty much wrapped up.
His language already had a lot of bravado, and pedantry, and I was hesitant to engage with him, because I knew that this would take hours of potentially wasting my time with a “debate-me bro” who will assert he wins this impromptu debate nobody asked for regardless of any facts, or goodwill for a civil conversation.
So, I did my due diligence and see his tweet account history to understand what his intent was. It was immediately evident to me, he is a “debate-me bro,” alpha-type on-your-face, I-only-alone-know-everything, everybody-else is dumb type of guy. His lexicon, tenor, and fragile toxic masculinity was very evident all over his account, and it matched the tenor of his tweet.
I decided to engage after much hesitation, only as firsthand research for this article, and see where this rabbit hole takes me. I’ve been wanting to write it for a while, but I was going to use mainly as a reference baseline what is publicly available on twitter threads everywhere and perhaps a few experiences I’ve had on my own social media accounts. And you would not be surprised to realize that they tend to be extremely disturbing and escalatory (not by me, by them) regardless of how polite I try to be.
My post reply was meant to include a specific trigger word to see if this person would take the bait. This would show if he was indeed a “debate-me-bros” and become a catalyst for more like him to come up of the shadows to chime in. Or see if he would rather take the high road and instead of escalating his attacks would rather use it to use his experience to educate in a way that was not divisive. He chooses the insulting way – surprise!
The experiment worked, a bunch of dudes swarmed with all kinds of insults and tropes – many in rapid succession, very often missing the context. They keep chiming as I type this. Remember, the conversation started with my reply about Trump in concurrence with the facts presented by the video and tweet posted by the author. NONE of them addressed or replied to that actual comment.
Let’s break down the way this “debate-me bro” framed the question to bait me into engaging into a pissing-contest type debate. By the way, he uses this tactic a lot all over his feed, often people ignore him – normally I would too, but this was great analysis for the article you’re reading now – which I have been wanting to write for a while, like I said before, but needed some current metrics. I’ll just say that I got a lot of data points to validate my hypothesis.
He started his unsolicited tweet with:
“Name a rifle on the commercial market that has less power, and less range than AR-15.”
Here he is hoping to assert his “wisdom” dominance, and perceived self-superiority entitlement as an imperative – tasking me to answer, or even daring me to answer him. He had enough characters to say, “Please,” or “could you,” or “would you be able to” – or anything that would not already make it extremely obvious that he is a narcissistic and full-of-himself-type individual. My reaction when I read it was actually an eye roll and sadness for this man. But mostly concern, because like him there are countless of others who are locked and loaded, and itching for a fight. Some people might not see it as such, but when you read the rest of his content, then it becomes very obvious, as it was this final line.
He ended his tweet with:
“Everyone knows you can't.”
This is the typical shallow school-bully-like tactic. A feeble attempt to daring, much like calling somebody “chicken.” By the way, down the line he (and many others) did use a lot of racist tropes against me. But even on the onset, our very first interaction ever – he’s pedantic, it is sophomoric, and he has zero to no knowledge of what I know or don’t know.
For example, he did not realize that I was analyzing his behavior for this article. Since they are in a public forum, and they came unsolicited to comment in my account, that is de-facto consent to have their statements used for research. For example, employers use social media to evaluate if their employees are of good character or could place their company in a negative light. For another example, when I was in the military, there were very strict limits on what we could or not comment about, and some people did get in trouble for their social media posts. This dude was prior military, I just wonder as a veteran myself what it was like to serve with him.
Again, I am not going out of my way to put their names out here, nor did I invite any insults my way. People can disagree but that does not entitle anybody to gratuitously insult another person. But if they feel emboldened enough to post their insults online, that is completely on them. I know I am not the only one they repeatedly insult, but that’s the point, in their mind that behavior is normalized as acceptable. It’s not.
I knew that this interaction was only bound to go downhill from there no matter what I say. So, I decided to make the best of the situation, and concede to some of his points, and add a trigger word to see which one he would bite. This is important, because in propaganda, these trigger words are used to subtly inflate an insecure person’s ego.
They laser beam onto that, and use it as a catalyst to chastise, and soon enough all like-minded bros will come and gang up, missing the rest of the context. This is how propagandists can target misinformation for some people who are easily exploitable. The ones who are easiest to exploit, are the ones who think they are too macho to become victims. They are indeed the softest targets; their greatest weakness is their own ego.
What they fail to realize is that those who don’t join the conversation but are looking for the outside in are indeed laughing at the “debate-me-bros” – but don’t want to get in an argument with them, because the “debate-me bros” only care about being right rather than seeing the larger issue. For this experiment I engaged with a few of those responding and see how fast it would unravel. Turns out, very fast, and very wide. This was unsurprising, of course.
It is worth reemphasizing, none of the arguments or insults were about the original post, the argument which started with the same person with we had a civil conversation was already largely ignored, often just chiming in a tweet somewhere on the thread rather than the full context. I realize that Twitter does that sometimes, but that does not make it right if you issue insults to somebody on a point that was already made prior to their uninvited intrusion.
Many times, a lot of people insulting me failed to realize that I made the same point they were trying to make just a few tweets up in the thread. Suddenly, this personal experiment because an independent study which was yielding a lot more metrics that were validating what I’ve been speaking about for years – in real time! Insecure people want to feel superior to others, and often start the interaction guns-blazing. Don’t take my word for it, my Tweeter feed is open to the public if you feel compelled to look at it.
Let’s quickly analyze my answer, and the bating tactics I used to see if this person has a proclivity for manipulation in his own echo chamber.
to reply to this: "debate-me bro,” I started my tweet reply to him with:
“That does sound like a true statement.”
Notice that I gave this person the courtesy to see if he takes the bait to deflate his ego, this alone will allow any functional adult to end the conversation amicably and move on with their lives. But I already knew that he does not even care about being right, he cares about getting the final word and assert his perceived superiority. For him it was about subordinating me. That was not going to happen, I don’t feel inferior nor superior to anybody.
So, I continued on the same tweet:
“A high-capacity magazine & faster rounds gives anybody the ability to shoot rapid fire over long distances with a weapon that is not suitable for hunting.”
The argument we were speaking about is the simple fact that a larger magazine on an AR-15 (or any weapon for that matter) can allow you to shoot more rounds before needing to reload, and a faster round is intended to cause more damage. That does not imply that any round cannot create substantial damage to the victim, because all guns are designed to shoot at something or someone – whatever the reason.
Also, in the context of a rifle, these rounds are generally designed to travel a much longer distance. I won’t get in the weeds on ballistics, but there are a lot of studies, science, publications, etc. that address that, and none of that changes the fact that more rounds on a rifle allow a person to shoot more before needing to reload. Of course, all this won’t fit in a short tweet.
My trigger word was to say not “suitable” for hunting. I knew that this would be the laser beam for all kinds of “debate-me bros” who are enamored with their guns and their interpretation of the 2nd amendment. I wanted to see which part of the argument would take more traction, and even had the algorithm push my tweet into the stratosphere. I was right, this one triggering mechanism resulted in a bunch of people chiming in, most of them guns-blazing, and full of insults, while missing the entire context of the conversation thus far.
I concluded that very same tweet with:
“AR-15s much like the M4s are designed to cause death through substantial bodily harm.”
That is what all guns are designed for. Sure, they can be used to hunt if need be. You can even use a car for hunting for that matter by running over a deer on the highway and eating it. That is not what the car was designed for. Can it be used for that? Sure, it can, there are people who eat roadkill for some reason. Hey, whatever floats their boat.
But as the conversation continued, there were more and more people itching for their chance to take a jab at me. Personally, I don’t care, none of these guys make any difference on my life. Yet they were craving for my attention, even if it was just their try to “own the lib” intent. I’m not a liberal by the way. I engaged with some but ignored most. Especially if their arguments were tangential, uncompelling, or simply insults.
My concern is because this epidemic does intimidate and affect a lot of people online. And that is why a lot of people are afraid to even intervene when this happens – so they can spare themselves from being the subject of this swarming rage. And yes, that is understandable, but as a consequence also makes these other folks think they are indeed able to insult others with impunity, so they keep doing so. And of course, this becomes a vicious circle.
The responses from the “debate-me bros” ranged from religious, finding-Jesus’ type stuff to language that sounded very likely as a willful threat to my life through firearm intimidation. I confronted them head on when they issued such a statement, this sometimes was enough for them to recoil. I want you to notice and realize that they all felt entitled and empowered to come to a conversation uninvited and swarm their points of view with insults and many other tropes. I expected that, but I don’t like to speak from a third person perspective, I needed to see this again for myself, because then I can speak for experience – and now I’m sharing this experience with you.
I engaged with a few others on that thread, and started to see how some comments would range more from “pseudo civil” – thought certainly condescending, to extremely combative. The name calling was relentless. Fortunately, their opinion matters very little to me, so it does not affect me at all. I can see however how that can be very taxing on other people. But I will say that anybody who send a gratuitous insult to somebody they have never met says a lot more about them than about the person they are insulting. Sadly, this behavior has been largely normalized in the USA – and around the world. Hell, going on Twitter, is sadly even expected.
Particularly people who are trying to have a conversation will be overwhelmingly intimidated by those aggressive types who will laser focus on one little portion of the statement, usually a game of semantics, grading the other person on a curve, while ignoring the larger context. there is a reason why I keep repeating this.
It's about narcissistic dominance
All the people who swarmed my account with insulting comments had one thing in common, they felt emboldened to insult somebody they have never met through the relative impunity of their keyboard and ganged up with others who felt entitled to do the same. I expected this, because I’ve read enough comments before (not just against me), but many other accounts, so there are clear indicators of what to expect. And of course these were very evident during this ongoing experiment.
This swarming of insults was happening despite Twitter(X) supposedly having rules against cyber-bulling, which reads: “We prohibit the malicious, unreciprocated targeting (such as mentioning or tagging) of individual(s), particularly when shared to humiliate or degrade someone. This can mean: Sharing multiple Posts, over a short period of time, or continuously posting replies with malicious content, to target an individual.”
Well, if you read that thread, you’ll realize that pretty much all that and more was happening against my person – as it does to a lot of others. I only noticed a few examples for which were removed. That is a reason why I don’t engage with anybody who is not having an actual conversation. I literally have a lot better things to do. For this case it was research. But the language from Twitter is also interesting “unreciprocated targeting” – which implies that if you both start insulting each other then game on. Unsurprisingly, a lot of this does happen on Twitter.
And yes, there are statutes against cyberbullying from state to state, many ranging from 3-7 years in prison. Although there is no federal statute about cyberbullying that I am aware of – it is nonetheless considered a crime, based on certain circumstances.
That is also another reason why many cyberbullying keyboard warriors feel so compelled to insult unabashedly in social media. The problem is that a lot of them tend to eventually transcend the keyboard and continue to engage in that behavior on the real world. Especially if their rhetoric has been normalized long enough, and they feel they are “undefeated” by whichever group they deem inferior to them.
Narcissists in some instances are the last ones to realize that they are the aggressors – especially if their behavior has been normalized long enough. And for them it is not just about being “right” it is about being “dominant.” Their bravado’s fuel is the attention from others, and if they are challenged face on, they tend to get very aggressive. This is because they are actually very insecure behind their macho-like façade. Most mature people can see these red flags miles away and avoid them like the plague. Usually by letting them believe their own fantasy world is an accurate depiction of reality. That depiction is only real in their minds, and it is very fragile.
As I have gotten enough data to my social experiment and my article, from the tons of derogatory, and out-of-context comments I’ve received from so many of these “debate-me-bros” – I just ignored them. Why? Well, first off because mathematically answering to everyone will eat my whole weekend, I have a lot better things to do, like spending time with my family, which is exactly what I did. Also, because I know exactly where the conversation will lead… Nowhere.
If you ever tried having a civil conversation with a “debate-me bro,” your interaction likely progresses (or rather regressed) in the following manner, ending in a waste of time for everybody involved.
A typical “debate-me bro” interaction has the following elements:
This is a non-all-inclusive list, and depending on a few factors they might shift, use them repeatedly, or use only a few of these. Let’s see how many of these you can identify.
- They don’t care about reaching a solution, they just want to assert “they” (the debate-me-bros) are right, and you (whomever they are arguing with) is 100% wrong. No partial credit is enough for them, it’s all or nothing. Because a partial blind spot opens the door for them to have a lot more blind spots, but their ego is too fragile for them to handle that. They are convinced they are all-knowing.
- They will accuse the other person of many faults they might or might actually not have. These are based on a cartoonish version of the person they feel compelled to be arguing with. Their sense of “superiority” is often dehumanizing to the other person who happens to be challenging their worldview. Their opposition become an object they must defeat or squash. A functional adult usually moves on if they read something they don’t agree with, leave those premises, and live their lives happily ever after. A “debate-me bro” craves that attention and often comments with some sort of overt or underhanded insult - unsolicited.
- The lack of their contextual substance is often very evident. Their arguments tend to be extremely superficial; despite the fact they might very well have some deeper knowledge about a particular skill or topic. But instead of shedding light on a blind spot, their tactic is to attack the other person rather than educate. Often by using sophomoric epithets and get very volatile if a follow question is made, which pushes them out of their comfort zone. They tend to see this as a challenge to their perceived authority, and that drives them crazy, hence they feel compelled to retaliate guns blazing, rather than arguing on the merits. Even if they act polite, the underlined misinformed condescension will be palpable.
- They will Gish-gallop. On Twitter (X) for example, once a conversation starts getting a bit more contentious, instead of letting you answer to their previous point, they will send repeated tweets before you can answer. This is bound to create confusion on the dialog, and that makes them feel (erroneously) as the other person is avoiding answering a question. They don’t realize, or at least don’t like that a conversation has to be systematic, and if you stack topics over topics before addressing the context then the conversation goes nowhere. This is very hard for them to understand by the way.
- They lace underhanded comments, tropes, insults, and other disparaging remarks. If you take the bait, they will exploit those relentlessly instead of objectively addressing the subject at hand, if you don’t take the bait, they will keep using it to see if you lose your cool. This starts happening usually after you’ve hit a nerve, and they want you to lose focus, and perhaps veer of the conversation back to their comfort zone. If you still don’t take the bait, they will get more and more aggressive, resorting to insulting rather than continuing the conversation. This happens when people are insecure and need to see their new “adversary” as inferior in their eyes. I’ll say, that for most of us, functional adults, their childish nicknames have no effect on us, because we know who we are, so their misguided opinions mean very little to us. Even though we are giving them the courtesy of listening to their gripes. This goes way over their heads. And it can be tragically amusing to watch.
- They think they are winning an argument, even when they are losing and instead of winning, they are whining. But they will overtly accuse the other person to be whining, often laced with all other insults. I realize it can be frustrating dealing with people like this, much like trying to have a rational conversation with some wild beast. But what they fail to understand is that although it can be exhausting, when we engage with a conversation with somebody we disagree in good faith, there is zero obligation from us to do so. And yes, it is our choice to walk away at a time of our choosing.
- They feel entitled to your attention and your reactions. They want praise, they want to hear “You (the debate-me bro) are correct, you (whomever they are arguing with) are wrong” – no matter if they have all the facts. But these insecure “debate-me bros” don’t just want to win an argument, but rather to humiliate their opponent. And granted, they might have a good point here and there. But when you put that in full context, they cannot handle it. I said it before, because this all or nothing approach is a mechanism of defense. They are often insecure, and hate the success of others they deem subordinate, or have envy, especially if they deem them inferior for some reason. For example, if they are a minority, or a person who has accrued more success they have never achieved. However, they will boast as though they know everything about the other person, when they clearly don’t.
- If you challenge them with facts, or hold their feet to the fire they go ape sh*t. Their usually response is a sarcastic laugh, emoji, or some cynical response in the hopes you’ll recoil with their mocking. If that does not work, their response will include increased insults, and any other trope. If you don’t fall for them and remain objective, they will get more aggressive. If you keep refusing sinking to their level, they tend to disappear. Sometimes leaving the interaction by trying to boast to the crowds how they won the argument. Even if they did not win. They just want to have the last word. Remember, they are constantly craving attention and admiration, and if their perceived “fan base” seem then as weak, they crumble inside. So, they fight that battle relentlessly. Most functional adults don’t care about stranger’s praise, they are just live happy among their group of loved ones despite of faults or virtues.
- They are allergic to facts in context. When you want to have a systematic conversation, they will accuse you of “changing the rules” – which they don’t even abide by in the first place – and will deflect instead of answering the question or even asking a pertinent question. We’ll talk about one such example shortly. But remember, they do this if they feel trapped, and it is a lot easier for them to insult you than to actually continue the conversation. That is a typical symptom when they know they are out of their league, and they know that the other person has realized that they can be exposed for being a lot less influential than they originally expected. Especially if they realize that their “proven” tactics are ineffective on the other person.
- Most of the insulting tweets appeared past midnight on the East Coast, a lot of these aggressive people tend to show up at night or during sleep hours. Not sure if they are just trolls from overseas or they are night owls. I would assess it is a combination of both. The later could be a sign that they are also from incels who have no significant other, because for any of us who have a significant other, we just don’t spend every available moment of the day picking fights with strangers on the internet. In fact, only very lonely and insecure people tend to do that because they crave any type of attention. And no, being in a shallow relationship with somebody is not necessarily having a significant other. With this I am not dissing people who are not in a relationship, my point is that a lot of people who crave this toxic level of attention happen to be in a shallow relationship or have no relationship at all. A solid relationship is an extremely powerful support system.
I can go on, but hopefully this illustrates the point. My concern is that a lot of these folks who engage on this type of behavior are not necessarily bad people. That is the insidious part about propaganda, it can turn otherwise good and knowledgeable people into “debate-me bros” – instead of using whatever level of knowledge they have, which sometimes can be very deep on their area of expertise, as an education opportunity, rather than an insulting session.
In other words, a functional adult might point a blind spot. They will be polite, and tactful. You know, what people would call “professionalism” – but that memo was lost on “debate-me bros” – and that is why [for example] people have been fired because of their questionable social media behavior. You show your fortitude of character when you are unrestrained, and can still function like a functional human being, and not like a sophomoric and petulant creature.
One startling common denominator on the majority of people who felt so compelled to chime in with insults and other tropes is sadly what you might expect. All of these for this thread were men, they were all trigger-happy types, all leaned conservative, many of them were overtly God-fearing, many overtly Trump supporters, they all felt entitled to insult with impunity, they ganged up together and propped their own insults towards a common target – in this case, me.
And the reason why I bring this, is because this is not an isolated incident. Many people who do not see the world in the same narrow scope as these folks tend to experience something similar. For example, many people would not put a lawn sign with a Harris-Walz on their property because they have been indeed targeted or insulted by their neighbors who are Trump supporters for daring having a different preference. However, the same folks would not tolerate if the roles were reversed with their own Trump-Vance sign.
Remember, what we see on the social media platforms is very indicative of what can happen in the real world. And that is why we need to understand the context behind this issue. These folks who felt compelled to insult me also included a significant number of people who even made threats of violence. Some were articulated as an innuendo; some were less subtle. I did confront them by asking them if they are issuing a threat. Normally that scared them off and did not reply. But notice that these drive-by threats of violence are very concerning, especially now as we get closer to the next election.
The threat of violence is likely to escalate
I want to emphasize that I did not conduct this informal social experiment (note: not in the legal definition of a social study, but I would like to conduct one in the future based on this article) for “fun” – I did it because this is something I need people to pay more attention towards. This was not pleasant, despite the fact none of their insults landed. The fact is that these insults were hurled on the first place.
Yes, a lot of people are happy that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are kicking butt on the campaign trail, and gaining more and more support from Republicans, Independents, and of course Democrats. The problem is that the folks who are losing are not going to concede Trump and MAGA lost unless they are convinced that they lost because not even folks in their own party are united. And just as they don’t like each other, most of the country do not want to be like them either – for valid reasons. What does that mean? The GOP is obviously fragmented.
That said, the Left is not perfect either, or it tends to leave their own hanging. I’ll be honest in this insult-induced Twitter (X) battle, do you know how many people came to my defense? I can count them with one hand. But those who were attacking me were a swarm. This of course is systematic of what we see. This thread had several thousands of views who read it, yet they were not on the arena, it was me… so they just let me get proverbially pulverized.
Fortunately, as I said the opinion of any of those insulting me means very little to me, and to be honest I did not lose any sleep, and I had a great weekend otherwise with my wife and daughter. However, my commitment is to do the best I can to report the ground truth, and the best way to do so is by experiencing the effects, and not speaking out of anecdotal evidence. My experience with this experiment was something I hear often, and I’ve experienced something similar myself before too… but it needs a lot more attention because it is very foreshadowing of what we can expect next.
Preventing a new American Civil War
A new American Civil War is on the horizon, and there is no shortage of people who are itching to start it. I’m not the only one who has spoken about it, I’ve mentioned this before as so have many others who pay attention to these indicators. The good news is that it is still preventable. But right now, we are not doing enough – collectively – to achieve that goal.
I mentioned before that even if Kamala Harris becomes the next President of the United States of America, unless their message starts to resonate to all these “debate-me bros” – the risk of violence is extremely high, and it something that is largely misunderstood, and even people on the left are downplaying the real danger.
Remember, for this, what ended up being a vast research source, I demonstrated that even though I conceded some of the points to these “debate-me-bros,” they are not happy with that, and they will zoom into particular rhetoric triggers that for some reason become pivotal on them, causing then to feel emboldened and chime with insults and threats of violence. For this experiment was this one word not “suitable” for hunting.
Remember this is what I wrote: That does sound like a true statement. A high-capacity magazine & faster rounds gives anybody the ability to shoot rapid fire over long distances with a weapon that is not suitable for hunting. AR-15s much like the M4s are designed to cause death through substantial bodily harm.
This “suitable” word created a tsunami of responses, and I changed that word from “originally intended” to see the effects. This simple semantic word created such an overwhelming negative response by a lot of folks who took the bait and ran with it, they are still insulting me as I type this. Have any of them heard the full video, or read the whole context before they felt compelled to insult me? Very unlikely, they were just laser focus on a simple statement without understanding the massive context behind it, which is of course impossible to summarize in one tweet.
For reference this article is like 17 pages long so far. Do you think any of these “debate-me Bros” will read it this far? Likely not, and sadly a lot of people who are not “debate me bros” might not make it to this line yet either. However, I write because hopefully this will resonate with somebody in the near future. The point being, this tweet is an example of how information out of context can travel so fast, before any voice of reason can make it to the starting point of this racetrack.
This new Civil War is about misinformation, and it is about dehumanizing other Americans. My argument whenever I was engaging with other people was “How can we stop the bloodshed in America – because whatever we are doing is not working” – when it came to the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence in our country. Of course, a lot of the answers did not address the crux of the situation – the gun violence and went on to non-sequiturs to assert their 2nd amendment right.
And to be clear, I am not anti-owning weapons to defend yourself and your loved ones. I am against the senseless bloodshed and dehumanizing rhetoric that has been not only normalize but propped. Most of the arguments were tangential at best, and there was no shortage of race-baiting inferences, which clearly demonstrates how this toxic narrative resonates very loudly with people who are not shy about enacting authoritarian tactics against others – so long their guy is the one in charge, and since there is at least a 50-50 chance he won’t be, you don’t need a PHD to ascertain what their reaction will be if Kamala gets elected.
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This impromptu research conclusion
This “on the field” – or rather “on tweeter” evolution took a couple of nights. After the original people who started the conversation left in a civil manner, and the “debate-me bro” incited the debate and eventually exited the premises insulting his way out, there were many who swarmed the conversation. Subsequently, I decided to ignore a lot of the others, and engage with one particular individual who seemed interesting on how he swung from compelling arguments to extremely aggressive.
I’ll let him know and others by posting on that thread that my experiences will become an article – and that includes our interaction as well. Afterall, all of them came uninvited to the conversation and hence consented to continue this conversation.
I offered the last person I’ve interacted with on that thread that we could do through DM, or even on a phone or video conversation. He defiantly said that he wanted it to be public. So here it is my dude, your wish has come true. Although I won’t put his handler or face here, I won’t take the thread off Tweeter, if it is gone it is because he erased it, I cannot control that. He did insult my blog, so he might not read it either. But this article will be posted on Twitter and other platforms anyway.
But also, I want to emphasize that I do not want anybody, nor I condone anybody going to harass this person, or anyone on that thread. And if any person is going out of their way to antagonize a person, stalk them, even snooping around their personal public records without their consent or knowledge, know that is a felony under federal law, and each state jurisdiction has also their own statues about it. Here is the federal statute.
Federal law for stalking?
2261A is a federal felony. If convicted of federal stalking charges, you may face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. However, the actual penalties that the court imposes will largely depend on the severity of your crime.
And yes, harassing a person via social media becomes evidence that lives forever, even if they erase it. I’ll leave it at that. But that is one of the reasons why I don’t have to hide who I am, because the laws prohibit a person to stalk me. I even extended this person an invitation, he refused, hence if he would engage in stalking me in person, by proxy, or virtually, or anybody would feel compelled to do so, then they are committing a felony, because they do not have my consent.
In either case, for this gentleman, since he started sending me a myriad of tweets on day one, I lost track. It got confusing, and he accused me of lying, and I conceded that I don’t recall what he was asking. He might think that my world revolves around him, and that his curiosity about what I do know or not is very important to me, it is not. I lost zero sleep over his questions.
As it was past midnight and he was getting increasingly aggressive, I told him we can continue the conversation the next day, as he got spicier, I did call him an incel. But that is after he had already insulted me repeatedly, so I wanted to see if he was thin-skinned. Yes, he was. Around that time is when he said he wanted to continue this publicly. By the way, he got aggressive, but did not deny being an incel.
When I woke up, there were swarms of extremely insulting tweets, and some of those were his. He even added me to some sort of group he apparently bundles from people he fights with on Twitter under a derogatory classification. Who does that? Categorize accounts in that manner, unless they are looking for a fight or tend to be embroiled in online brawls very often. I don’t have that, nor do I feel compelled to do that. He was asking me about my MOS and my military record, and so forth. I gave him a probing answer, because I realized early on, he was not a veteran, otherwise he would not be asking some questions, he would know.
The next day, when I started the conversation, I emphasized to “let’s be civil, that the day before was unkind,” and let’s structure the conversation this time one tweet at the time, so we can answer. He did not like that at all. He wanted me to scroll up and find out what the hell he asked. I was not going to do that. That is a power move he was trying to flex, he wanted me to be subordinate to him, but if he has a question, he can re-state, I asked him to do that. He refused, and claimed he asked the question repeatedly that day. Unless he meant past 1am, to me that counted as yesterday. But then again people like him tend to get stuck in some semantics rather than substance.
When I told him that I could even invite him to come for steak and share a beer as one veteran with another to have a civil conversation – that’s me trying to be civil as a functional adult. He refused by insulting me and conceded he was not a veteran. Which I have realized already, but I figured that I could keep with my interaction research. I posed to him a premise for this conversation, which he deflected for several tweets, and I had to press that on him.
The premise was:
Firearms are specifically designed to kill or inflict bodily harm with ease effectively.
It took him a lot for him to say “No” – he does not accept the premise.
I replied with:
“Ok, thank you for your answer. Why do you disagree with that premise? Answer this after you send your next question. I don't recall your questions, I'm not about to go fish them out. I've got bombarded with tweets. Please restate them one at a time. Remember, new conversation.”
It has gone as well as you imagine.
As I type this, he has not restated the question, he kept insulting me and deflected while trying to get away from restating any of his questions, presumably because he did not like my follow up question to explain why he does not agree, after saying “no” to the premise of the topic.
After I called it a night from all his deflection, him a long with a bunch of other “debate-me bros” left me a barrage of insulting tweets, no question though.
I went on to answer to his last tweets in order to finish this study and inform him of this article coming after.
This is the last tweet I’ve sent to him on that thread as I wrap this article. I anticipate him an others will gripe about it. But hopefully it will make them think twice before feeling it is acceptable to cyberbully any person with perceived impunity through their keyboards.
{Name of person}, despite your repeated insults you failed to re-state your questions 1 by 1 as requested, so this conversation is over. I expect more insults from you but know that your opinion matters very little to me. So, there is no need to reply. Hope you have a better week. Goodbye.
With narcissists, you have to establish limits. If you feel compelled to read the entire thread you will see how we reached to that point. I am serious that his opinion means very little to me, because he does not know me, and the moment he repeatedly insulted me gives me the option to walk away at my time of choosing. I’ve only endured this abuse because I wanted to use it as real-life example for this article. My intent is to help others who are facing a similar situation.
For anybody who is a victim of online harassment or cyberbullying, remember that those harassing you are insecure, and they thrive on your reactions. They want your attention to feel superior, because they are in fact feeling inferior to you – that is why they want to put you down. They can only do that if you give them permission to do so, I didn’t give them permission to affect me, their repeated insulting opinions mean nothing to me. Hence, I ended the conversation and stood up to them. And one way to stand up to them is by ignoring their insults. Ignoring them as a form of retribution is the one that hurts them the most.
However, if you do need to report harassing, you can contact your local authorities or get more information at these links.
Get Help Now | StopBullying.gov
Report Cyberbullying | Social Media Apps, Gaming and Online Platforms
I know that cyberbullying tends to be framed more as a school-setting type problem, but the fact is that there are a lot of grownups who act like maladapted teenagers. Also, many states have their own help hotlines, the bottom line, you’re not alone fighting bullies if push comes to shove, and there is help available.
I know this is a longer than usual article, but I hope that my experience helps you in any way that is beneficial to you in order to find a solution to this problem. The fact is that there is no shortage of, especially grown men, who are very insecure about their masculinity, and they mask it by insulting others in order to feel superior in some way. For us who are self-assured and proud of our lives, their insults mean nothing to us. But our observations are very triggering to them.
They will overtly, and even to themselves claim otherwise – but the fact is that we are living rent-free on their minds, and they are out for revenge. Even if that revenge means insulting the other person and accusing them of whatever they feel that makes sense in their narrow scope of their worldview. What they don’t realize is that they are being manipulated by a larger force that is invisible to them, but very obvious to many of us.
This force is the adversarial propaganda. They are at the stage where they are emboldened to insult others and dehumanize whoever is not in agreement with them because they seem them as inferior, or subordinate to them. In the case of this other young man, I asked him repeatedly to re-state his question. He likely felt entitled to my attention, so I would be tasked to be fishing whatever the hell is that he was asking. Again, I don’t remember, nor I care to remember, because his curiosity plays zero effects on my life. But he wanted me to be subordinate to him, and me asking him to fish the questions made him feel as though I was asking him to be subordinate to me. His ego likely cannot handle it.
And to be honest, asking somebody to re-state a question it’s a very low-hanging fruit request. You see, even on any debate, or any type of situation if a person asks, can you please re-state the question? Such as in a board, or an oral examination, the correct answer always is “certainly, my question was…” and re-state the question, it is easy. This dude decided not doing that, and instead resorted to insult me repeatedly. I made it clear to him that I have a lot of better things to do than interact with him, which is true. But I was still giving him the courtesy to answer his questions.
Let me end by saying again that this is a microcosmos of a much larger problem. Don’t expect any “debate-me bros” to figure this out, we need to help them in a way that resonates with them, because even if they read this, their likely response will only be more insults and non-sequiturs… I’ve seen it thousands of times. But remember, they are already manipulated by authoritarian propagandists.
Much like Kamala told Trump during the debate, a person like Putin understands what the trigger points are and that he would “eat him for lunch.” Hence Trump never wanted to debate her again – he is scared he will look insignificant in front of his crowd and himself. Well, the same is true for the “debate-me bros” and it is not an easy thing to reverse, also because each of them is a separate person, and many factors are in play, so a one-size-fits-all does not work. The best course of action is if they realize that they are unpopular because nobody who is truly mature really respects them. And no, fear does not equal respect. Respect is earned by the character of a person.
It is easy to insult, it is easy to be combative, it is easy to take the low road, it is easy to be divisive, it is easy to be a keyboard warrior. Conversely, it takes courage to accept that sometimes we are not 100% correct, but it does not need to be an all or nothing. Nobody is perfect, we all have blind spots, and that is ok. I’ve conceded or even agreed to good points, even with people on this thread, even if I don’t agree with everything else. The “debate-me bros” are incapable of doing the same. And this is the problem we need to address.
On my next articles we’ll be talking about this cognitive dissidence, especially as it is attacking fragile toxic masculinity factors. And yes, we are running out of time. That is why this article is longer than usual. Thank you for reading this far. HLC