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Comment by luckylion | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered how this escalates to death threats. I can vaguely understand it in the political sphere, there's a lot at stake with everyone believing the other side is pushing the city/state/nation/world towards certain destruction. But pictures of a snow leopard that may or may not be authentic?

How do people get from seeing a picture of a snow leopard to sending death threats? Are they just trolls who jump on to the case du jour to send threats to people? Is there a super hardcore competitive snow leopard photography scene where the stakes are high and the people are super invested?

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You can safely relax your assumption that all people are mentally well and have work to do.

> Are they just trolls who jump on to the case du jour to send threats to people?

Once someone has been positively categorized as belonging to the outgroup¹, people love to really get their kicks in. Doxx cheaters! Punch nazis! Get those groomers! Everything is acceptable towards the outgroup.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33046527

Some people have a strong sense of justice and love taking down people they see as cheating their way to success (this is often people who aren’t as successful as they thing they should be but aren’t accurately recognizing why). If you saw this going around social media, it might be easy to assume the creator made a serious amount of money or used it to get a good job. The more popular something was, the latter that group gets and thus the higher the risk of that group reaching a critical mass of disturbed people who escalate (often riling each other up).

Sadly, this also follows existing class, race, and gender status levels. If you’re an attractive white guy from an affluent background you are more likely to skate away from something like this without consequences. The further off you are from that, the more likely you are to encounter some sicko who thinks they’re putting you in your proper place.

Social media makes all of that worse because it provides instant gratification for everyone joining the pile-on and it allows them to feel like part of a large group even if they’re a small percentage of the total population.

>If you’re an attractive white guy from an affluent background you are more likely to skate away from something like this without consequences.

If you are a white guy you are less likely to skate away without consequences because it is possible to freely attack white men, while people are much more sympathetic to women.

Internet has plenty of people willing to make death threats with zero credibility or as jokes. The same goes for threats of sexual violence against family members.

See language used by gamers in competitive online games, especially team ones (CoD and LoL are example of games famous for toxic user base)

Quick answer: Internet Tough Guy[0].

Longer answer: People (especially younger folks) tend to be insecure. That's why she did what she did, and why people are in such high dudgeon about it.

Myself, I don't really care. I like snow leopards, but haven't seen any (even at a zoo). I cannot imagine being famous (without the monetary rewards). That's one of the things about the Internet. It's possible to be famous; with all the downsides, and none of the upsides.

[0] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/286/884/7de...

She lied about the photos so she might be lying about the death threats too.

People get death threats for posting critical reviews of Batman movies.

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