There are people who would say that nobody exists who has no releastic chance of functioning normally in society. Those people have not seen what we have seen.

The internet has made this possible. Sure, people saw the occasional bout of strange behavior before the internet. But people didn't think about the lives of those people. But on the internet, the new second world, people like CHris-Chan, Nick Bravo and TFL/loveshies/incels/wizards become so much more visible.

Nick's sad, but hardly intelligent. It's a tough thing to measure, of course, but he strikes me as having average capabilities at best. Dude's attempts to come off as an intellectual are mostly wishful thinking and puffery.

Well, he's good at retaining and repeating information. He's not particularly "clever"; not very good at organizing or connecting the information he's absorbed into his own unique, personal thoughts. Furthermore, he's prone to hypocrisy, making inconsistent statements and acting in ways which suggest that he has not truly understood the things he's read. However, he's hardly dumb, particularly when compared to his fellow internet weirdos like CWC, TFL Bill, DalHusky, or VampiricSpektor. Which is part of what makes him particularly loathsome.

He's not an *intellectual*, but he's intelligent. I'd liken him to, say, Jennifer Diane Reitz, or at worst, VenomfangX.

Okay, maybe, but the yardstick you're using here is awful short. Nick may be about as smart as the average bear, which makes him smarter than a lot of internet losers, who often struggle to clear even that bar. Also: TFL Bill's probably made himself dumb through a couple of decades of alcohol abuse, though he was probably not MIT material to begin with. I'm not super-familiar with everyone you mentioned, but I'd venture to say that VenomFangX is cunning, the most dangerous kind of smart.

BiggerJ, I disagree: These people have always been among us, but all we saw (if we had contact with them) was at the workplace or on the street where they might be annoying or indifferent, but otherwise did what they did and left everyone else alone.

The internet gave them a platform akin to the way cars allow us to see who likes to pick their nose. People speaking into a camera don't see the thousands (or more) that might view their screeds that are often given off-the-cuff without thought. As their virtual self lectures viewers about their insanity, they still don't see these masses. So now, if you happen to run into them and you've seen their web presences, you have whatever it is they're doing before you coupled with the whackjob rantings you know they've put online.

Again, they've always been like this, but now they have this social club that can reinforce (or at least, doesn't suppress) their desire to share their innermost brokenness the same way a published author might share their thoughts on how their fantasy novel's magic system works.

SteamPoweredKleenex: That's actually what I meant. They've always existed but now the anonymity of the internet lets us see them for who they are. And as you mentioned, that same anonymity also enables them to indulge in their aberrant thought and desires that, before the internet, would have been repressed to some degree or other by society. Broken people in fandoms and fetishes are also enabled by the internet's connectivity, which allows them to find other people like them and settle into nice, comfortable echo chambers.

Welcome to the woooorld of tomorrow.

Actually, I wonder what the sort of people who become TFL/loveshies/incels/wizards did before the internet provided them with echo chambers and views into other peoples' lives. Did they learn to settle for less back then? Or did they just become reclusive, as they do now, rendering them invisible until the internet happened?

Crap, that was meant to be a reply. Time to repost!