Ask McFartnuggets: “Why Do People Argue on the Internet?”

Even this kid thinks
arguing on the internet is a
questionable use of one's time.

Dear McFartnuggets: 

Why do people argue with each other on the internet? Has anyone ever gained anything from an internet argument? I saw two people arguing about religion on a YouTube video about red velvet cupcakes. I don’t get why people do this. -- Sally from Temecula, California

Dear Sally:

A lot of people are so self centered and egotistical that they think their opinions matter to other people. Why would a stranger’s opinion matter to anyone? That’s the fundamental problem with internet arguments. It implies that people actually care about the beliefs of people they’ve never met and never will meet. If you care about someone’s opinion then they should be a family member or a friend. Those are the people whose opinions can be important to you. For some reason internet arguers don’t understand this. It doesn’t matter if the topic is mayonnaise or the war in Gaza, people always want to speak their opinion and if someone disagrees with it then they have this uncontrollable urge to defend themselves from someone they don’t even know. This person could live thousands of miles away and is most likely just an 8-year-old with internet access, but that doesn’t matter. That’s not important to them. What’s important is that they “win “ the argument. Unfortunately it’s not really possible to win an argument online. In order to truly win an argument you’d have to convince the other person you’re right and since the other person has literally no reason to ever concede defeat, nearly every internet argument just fizzles out as one person realizes there’s no point to keep wasting time going back and forth. The person who stops replying thereby forfeits and whoever has the last post “wins.” The irony is that the person who first realizes all that arguing is pointless is actually the winner in real life. The person who technically wins the internet argument by posting last, in essence wins nothing. No one cares. No one’s paying attention. In the words of Willy Wonka, You get nothing. YOU LOSE! Good day, sir! If only more people could understand these concepts maybe we could eliminate internet arguments altogether because folks would realize the only real way to win an internet argument is simply never to engage in one.

Ask your questions to PizzaTesticles@yahoo.com and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.