OrpheusAgonistes
Posts: 253
Joined: 3/29/2010
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I don't think there's any one right answer (every dysfunction is a unique snowflake of unique uniqueness), and there have been several good perspectives offered. I'd just like to add that I think this style of posting can be a strategy that is just effective enough just often enough that some people tend to repeat it over and over.
If someone plays the clumsy contrarian over a long enough time line, they not only attract attention but they attract allies. I think this generally happens in whatever private messaging/mailing system a given site offers. Very few regular posters are going to come out and openly befriend someone who is behaving like a cad, but for various reasons some regulars are usually pretty intrigued and entertained by the flopsweat and pratfalls. They'll contact the contrarian, start talking to him/her, and find out that s/he is actually not so bad. Just socially retarded, or at least clumsy in how they present themselves online. After that, occasionally the poster will turn things around and develop some semblance of savoir faire. By the same token, the poster will occasionally turn out to be a hopeless case who burns through every trace of good will and flames out spectacularly. All part of the internet's rich pageant.
As an attention seeking strategy, the kamikaze guts-and-gore style contrarianism is phenomenally effective. If the person has any kind of interpersonal skills during the inevitable private approach of a couple of regs, it can also sometimes be effective as a means of networking. Basically if someone has anything at all going for them, it's very likely that one or two board regulars will manage to suss it out and help the poster to fit in. It's a pattern I've seen repeated often enough to recognize by now. Sometimes it's for the best, as the problem poster will occasionally turn out to be a pretty okay person with interesting insights.
Notes: I don't think everyone who tries this strategy is aware consciously of what they're doing. In fact, I'd guess that very few are. It's more likely that they have been rewarded once or twice, sporadically, for their flailing and through intermittent reinforcement have become conditioned to behave this way and hope for the best.
Also, I'm not saying the strategy is a good one. Most of the time it seems to fail miserably. But under the right circumstances, it sometimes pays off and those payoffs encourage, virtually guarantee, the behavior in the future on other boards in other places.
In the words of the Ben Folds Five:
You suck me in
It sucks, it works
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What I cannot create, I do not understand.--Feynman
Every sentence I have written here is the product of some disease.-- Wittgenstein
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The urge to self-destruct. - 
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