It is one of the enduring (if not altogether endearing, obviously) realities of online communication that -- whilst otherwise engaged in the otherwise harmless electronic back'n'forth of cybernetic chit-chat, and what-have-you -- a certain percentage of the particippants thereof will elect to "flame" or "troll" their online fellows.

A select handful of online denizens -- shrouded and masked in the cowardly sort of "anonymity" guaranteed them by dint of the fact that their true names and faces are unknown and unknowable to others, unless they so elect -- take a moronic, malodorous sort of <pride in spewing forth the same sort of bile; loathing; and naked contempt for their fellow man which (were it likewise indulged in a "real world" setting, in face-to-face confrontation) would rightly occasion a prettily-crossed left to the jaw.

There are good, useful words for this squalid, shameless sort of behavior.

Bullying, for example.

Thuggish is another; as is (the aforementioned) cowardly. Myself: I rather think contemptible fits the bill, nicely.

There are (doubtless) as many reasons why one might (as a matter of online preference) elect to "troll" ones fellow "Net"-izens as there have been (and will continue to be) trolls, themselves. Habitual feelings of low self-esteem (or self-loathing, outright); a genuine and protracted inability to adequtely "cope" with the niceties and vicissitudes of "real world" interaction (re: spouses; ex-spouses; children; employers; etc.); an otherwise wordless and insatiable need for self-aggrandizement, in the face of "real world" insignificance and/or impotence...

... well: I'm no psychiatrist, after all. Just a (steadily more) greying observor of the human condition, is all.

(... which is by no means meant to imply, of course, that a real psychiatrist or psychologist might not find value or interest in the study of naked and unwarranted online aggression. Indeed: one imagines that this might well prove to be the next big "sub-field" of psychoanalytic research, within the next few years; a sort of cyber-equivalent of the more traditional FBI "profiler" of serial killers, or what-have-you. I'm only sayin', is all, here.)

However: I'm wandering, somewhat, from the (self-imposed, admittedly) chronological re-telling of this particular tale. Allow me to re-callibrate this rhetorical ship's "bow," then, towards True North once again.

"Sanity is like a clearing in the jungle where the humans agree to meet, from time to time, and behave in certain fixed ways that even a babboon could master."

-- Wilifred Sheed; In Love With Daylight; 1995

INSULT: v. & n. -- 1.) speak to or treat with scornful abuse or indignity. 2.) offend the self-respect of. 3.) an insulting remark or action. 4.) something so worthless or contemptible as to be offensive.

-- The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary

Do you know what a "W.E.T.R.A.T." is, boys and girls?

It's not the sort of acronym you'll find in any of the accepted linguistic reference texts.

That's because it's a "made-up" acronym; rather like (say) "U.N.C.L.E.," or "S.H.I.E.L.D."...

... except that -- in this particular instance -- said "made-up" word was "made-up" for the express purpose of ("speak[ing] to or treat[ing] with scornful abuse or indignity") a whole lotta people towards whom the "creator" in question, apparently, harbored an odd (and rather frightening, really) measure of enmity and slow, smouldering resentment.

"W.E.T.R.A.T.S." are (supposedly) people or individuals who Want Everything To Remain Always The Same.

Said acronym first appeared in the letter column of AQUAMAN #0 (current series), as a sort of handy, catch-all means of ("speak[ing] to or treat[ing] with scornful abuse or indignity") ANY reader(s) who refused to laud and adore said title's editor, Kevin Dooley, in kind and amount insufficient to his peculiar emotional needs and/or preferences.

(e.g.: to a reader who wrote in to Mr. Dooley complimenting the latter's efforts on AQUAMAN -- even to the extent of mentioning that he was dropping a separate title, in AQUAMAN's favor -- Mr. Dooley's response was: "Perhaps you'd have room if you dropped your subscription to W.E.T.R.A.T.S. Monthly?")

(2nd e.g., from that same issue: another reader who ventures to opine that he [oh, horrors!] enjoyed the old '60's CBS Aquaman cartoons is sneeringly referred to as a "W.E.T.R.A.T. magnum cum laude.")

There were -- all told -- well over a dozen such sneering,breezily antagonistic little broadsides leveled towards correspondents who failed (in his estimation, I mean) to accord Mr. Dooley adulation sufficiently fawning or fulsome, that first half- year alone.

This (I think we might all safely agree) seems a remarkably thin-

skinned and...

... well... unprofessional approach towards customer relations, in a mass-market commercial medium, really.

One sincerely hopes the gentleman is perspicacious (or self-aware) enough not to allow such unrelieved ugliness of sentiment to bleed over into the more private arena, in turn. Friendships can be shattered, that way; marriages, made ruin.

Bear those points -- i.e., "thin-skinned"; "unprofessional" -- in mind. We'll be visiting them once again, soon enough.

It all ties in, you see, to the treating of others as ("worthless or contemptible")...

... and what sort(s) of individuals do so, on a regular and ongoing basis.

"I don't think anyone in the forum was in any doubt that this person had a problem; some who knew him in his professional life seemed to suggest this was not a surprise. He wanted to be liked, but was deeply suspicious and contemptuous of anyone who tried [...] When I offered to direct him to some areas of the Net that were less structured, and where he might find his personality fit in better (I was thinking of alt.flame, alt.tasteless, or alt.fan.howard-stern), he wasn't interested in that. I surmised that -- to some extent -- he simply enjoyed having rules to break, and the attention that came with it.

-- Wendy Grossman; Net.Wars; 1997