There are a few things I know of that this is related to. One of them is something Scott Adams wrote ages ago (before his brain got eaten by the Trump information ecosystem) about “recreational complaining”. Google didn’t give me the original to link to, but I did find someone who quoted him.
During my college years, I worked two summers as a desk clerk for a resort in the Catskills. That’s where my boss taught me that one of the services we offered was listening to irrational whining. He explained that certain customers enjoy complaining. To them, it’s not so much about getting a solution to the problem as it is the complaining itself. The resort catered to people’s vacation needs, and if complaining was what they needed, it was our job at the front desk to listen to it.
We were trained to write down the complaint on a slip of paper clearly labeled “Work Order.” And throw away the piece of paper when the complainer left. Okay, not every single time. Sometimes the complaint involved something fixable, and we fixed it. But often the complaints were purely recreational, as in “The leaves on the trees are rustling too loudly in the wind.” I would express concern, apologize on behalf of the resort, and make a big deal about writing down the details just right. “Are ALL the leaves a problem, Mrs. Johnson, or is a particular group of leaves being extra noisy?”
I confess that I did not believe my boss when he said people complained for recreation. But I witnessed it often and became a believer. You could tell the difference between the people who wanted a solution and the people who were in it for the complaining. The first group would just mention the problem on the way to the pool. The recreational complainers would bring a snack and a thermos and set up a campsite by the front desk. They were going to be there for a while, describing their pain, suggesting alternatives, asking for the manager, and anything else to make the experience last.
The other is something that happens to anyone that gets sufficiently well known or anything that gets sufficiently popular: it attracts haters. This is inevitable whether you deserve it or not. You can literally be Mother Teresa and still get haters.
A small percent of a lot of people can still be a lot of people, so when someone’s haters work together, they can attract a lot of attention and make it seem like there’s a big problem, even if like 98% of people, if they knew the truth, would think that whatever’s being complained about has been blown entirely out of proportion. This is the infamous “Twitter mob” and the bad part of the “cancel culture” phenomenon—if there isn’t anyone with actual power who’s willing to say “the mob is wrong and we’re not going to listen” when it actually is wrong and wait for the storm to blow over, it can lead to people being fired or otherwise having their lives ruined that in no way deserved it. And in the worst case, you get “stochastic terrorism”—someone says “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and you can expect that there’s at least one person in the audience crazy enough to actually try.
There are a few things I know of that this is related to. One of them is something Scott Adams wrote ages ago (before his brain got eaten by the Trump information ecosystem) about “recreational complaining”. Google didn’t give me the original to link to, but I did find someone who quoted him.
(to be continued)
The other is something that happens to anyone that gets sufficiently well known or anything that gets sufficiently popular: it attracts haters. This is inevitable whether you deserve it or not. You can literally be Mother Teresa and still get haters.
Tim Ferris and Aella have written about this.
A small percent of a lot of people can still be a lot of people, so when someone’s haters work together, they can attract a lot of attention and make it seem like there’s a big problem, even if like 98% of people, if they knew the truth, would think that whatever’s being complained about has been blown entirely out of proportion. This is the infamous “Twitter mob” and the bad part of the “cancel culture” phenomenon—if there isn’t anyone with actual power who’s willing to say “the mob is wrong and we’re not going to listen” when it actually is wrong and wait for the storm to blow over, it can lead to people being fired or otherwise having their lives ruined that in no way deserved it. And in the worst case, you get “stochastic terrorism”—someone says “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and you can expect that there’s at least one person in the audience crazy enough to actually try.
How did you search for it? I googled the first sentence of the third paragraph in quotes more or less arbitrarily and that instantly gave me exactly 2 hits, of which the first appears to be the original: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/03/the_joy_of_righ.html
Thank you very much! I stopped with my first Google search.