It generally requires two people... or two sides... for something to get particularly ugly.
This isn't always the case. Sometimes one side can just be dedicated to making things ugly. Left in a vacuum, they will still seek out a way to make all the trouble they can, with no response or reprisal from outside necessary to set it off.
However, in this case all indications are that practically everyone involved was trying to make this as ugly and vicious as possible. You've got one group following a little cult of personality, another group that just could not and would not leave them alone to wallow in their crap and instead kept rushing in screaming with the fire hoses, and another who's egging everyone on for their own amusement while simultaneously getting just as pettily involved and entrenched as everyone else.
In other words, I highly doubt Little Miss Claire would have just spontaneously turned into the perfect storm of flame wars if she'd just been left the fuck alone. This is not to defend her, but rather just a statement of fact, much as "It wouldn't have blown your leg off if you hadn't kept stomping on it for fun, you idiot" isn't actually in defense of a land mine.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 06:44 pm (UTC)This isn't always the case. Sometimes one side can just be dedicated to making things ugly. Left in a vacuum, they will still seek out a way to make all the trouble they can, with no response or reprisal from outside necessary to set it off.
However, in this case all indications are that practically everyone involved was trying to make this as ugly and vicious as possible. You've got one group following a little cult of personality, another group that just could not and would not leave them alone to wallow in their crap and instead kept rushing in screaming with the fire hoses, and another who's egging everyone on for their own amusement while simultaneously getting just as pettily involved and entrenched as everyone else.
In other words, I highly doubt Little Miss Claire would have just spontaneously turned into the perfect storm of flame wars if she'd just been left the fuck alone. This is not to defend her, but rather just a statement of fact, much as "It wouldn't have blown your leg off if you hadn't kept stomping on it for fun, you idiot" isn't actually in defense of a land mine.