We Love to Hate

If the title seems right to the point, that is on purpose. It will help me in getting my point across if you know right from the start what I'll be getting at.

When I say we love to hate, I mean it. I believe that there are many reasons behind this, but at the end of the day, it is quite a phenomenon to watch people flock to something to hate on it. Now this hatred can be applied to anything; from TV shows, movies, people of all types/professions, music, and even videogames. Anything is fair game, and if you are of dissenting opinion, just prepare yourself for the firestorm that will be awaiting you.

Now one of the reasons I believe this takes place is the fact that we have to have something to hate. This may sound strange initially, but it should make sense. People never seem satisfied either liking something or disliking something. That dislike has to turn into hatred, it can't just stay as dislike to where the person just ignores it. This is how issues get blown up into proportions that should never be touched. For those involved in the hating, it seems perfectly logically when you are going over-the-top with insults and slurs towards people/groups/events, but to those of us outside it, it looks completely idiotic.

Another reason is the fact that hating is so much easier to do, especially on the Internet. On the Internet, we can abandon all forms of politeness, manners, and just all around good behavior in favor of the exact opposite. As I discussed in an earlier blog, this stems from the fact that we are anonymous on the Internet, so there is rarely, if ever, consequences to what we say. With this freedom in hand, we go to such great lengths to hate and abuse. This of course makes hating so much easier than liking, defending, or just ignoring all together. Also, when you combine that with the mob like mentality that people have when hating, choosing to do the same as them is made even easier since it avoids conflict.

Are there times when being upset and vocalizing your opinion is important? Of course there is, but there is a limit even then. There is a fine line between voicing displeasure over something and suddenly threatening the lives of the people, and their families, involved. This may seem a bit vague, so I will use an example.

My example is with videogames. One of the best to use since it still gets brought up for reasons I've stopped trying to imagine, is Resident Evil 5. As one can guess, this is a sequel to a franchise called Resident Evil. The games are based on survival horror, which is exactly as it sounds, just with zombies. The previous game, Resident Evil 4, was a huge success. Reviewers loved it, gamers loved it, and apparently if you were to ask some people, God himself shed a few tears over it. RE5 was loved as well...at first. This game focused more on action and co-op than horror, though there were still times of horror, just spread out. Where the hate came from was people complaining about the lack of horror. Now this is a fine complaint since there of course will be people who dislike a game no matter what. (Just ask Mario) Where the hate got strange was seeing how just mentioning RE5 in an online conversation would result in yelling matches, or pure caps lock, that never went anywhere. People claim it is the worst game ever made, not just the worst in the series, but the worst EVER. They can go on rants that would tire out even the best public speakers to support themselves and/or bash those that think otherwise.

I bring this up because if you break it down, 90% of the hatred can be boiled down to the 2 reasons I listed earlier. Since RE4 was so universally liked, and because most of the people most likely never played the 3 before that one, RE5 gave them something to hate. With something to hate and the freedom of the Internet at their disposal, they were able to vocalize their dislike as it slowly turned to hatred. As more people joined in, either because they felt the same or because it gave them a chance to fit in, the hate grew until you had a great number of people. For those of us that did like the game, we were quickly targeted and bashed heavily. Now when you see what people say, it has reached the point of absolute idiocy. Maybe I was just taught differently, but when I dislike/hate something, I don't talk about it. I don't go and complain on anything and everything that deals with whatever I don't like.

I know this blog will not suddenly stop pointless hating because as the title says, we love it too much. As I read on an article, there are 4 things that the Internet will ALWAYS love to do/talk about.
4. Ruining childhoods/making great discoveries about childhood things
3. Anything cat related
2. Porn
1. Complaining/hating (Yes, I did place it above porn. That should tell you how much people like it.)

My goal is to make awareness of such things. If you're like me, you have found yourself hating something that you have no clue as to why you're hating it. Perhaps, like me, you just get way to riled up over something that is no big deal. Whatever it is, hopefully this helped in lowering a touch of the hate out there because there sure is enough to last several lifetimes.