Everybody doesn’t like something. But if you do like something, you’d better have a good goddamn reason, at least if you plan to tell people about it on the Internet. It happens every day, in forum posts, blog comments, Twitter, IRC, newsgroups, or anywhere else people congregate to discuss the weighty issues of pop culture: a war of words raging over matters of individual taste.

I’m not complaining, mind. I’m not someone who mistakenly thought he could manipulate the Internet, only to spend huge amounts of energy attacking it with the misdirected hatred of my own anxieties. Not at all. I mean, the Internet’s okay, I guess. But even I am starting to marvel at the sheer volume of uncivil discussion that surrounds a lot of the trivial shit that other people like. As one travels from insular cultural bubble to yet more insular cultural bubbles, one starts to ask: Really, people? Really?

I’ve seen so many folks carelessly mention that they love some lame old TV show or something, only to draw fire from dozens of (I assume, mock-) outraged anti-fans, ranting as though they were giving a victim-impact statement. It’s really shocking – and often hilarious, if I’m honest – to behold.

(It’s also quite fascinating from a statistical perspective as well: The population of those Internet users who tend to get involved in flame wars contains a much higher percentage of self-reported Marines, black belts, cage fighters, hackers, and assault weapon owners than the general, non-Internet dwelling population.)

It might be a good thing to constantly reexamine your own taste – I, for one, used to think Head of the Class was a great show. Those were grim days. But getting blind-sided by some stranger for writing a post about Knight Rider on a Knight Rider board is not something that’s likely to inspire a great deal of introspection on the part of the poster. And yet, that’s how most of these discussions go: “LOL, ___ sucks lol!” Not very enlightening.

But at least it’s honest about it’s dickery. Any admission of affection for anything, whether it’s the original series of Star Trek, or even original recipe chicken (ferchrissakes), is a sign of weakness. Saying you like something is like saying, hit me here, that’s where it’ll hurt. It’s sort of like the reason that Peter Parker didn’t want his enemies to know that he was Spiderman: “If I take Aunt May hostage, then Spiderman will be powerless to foil my plans!”

Some people find that they cannot resist teasing someone who advertises their vulnerabilities. Whether they agree or not with their target is irrelevant, because they just want a reaction from somebody. It’s obvious when some troll on a board is playing this game, and they know it. But it’s easy; they can plant a lot of seeds without a lot of effort, and it’s bound to pay off in an entertaining flame war or two, eventually.

You see this sort of thing no matter how far up the intellectual chain you go. If you decide that you’re sick of making fun of Kimbo fans, or whatever, you can always move up a step to the rarified world of music blogs. Copy and paste “hipster d-bag” into enough comment boxes, and you’ll be lapping up stereotype-laden professions of innocence (“But I don’t even know what PBR tastes like!”) in no time.

To progress much past that, however, you’ll need to do a little work. Like either reading a lot of books, or majoring in English Lit (the two are not necessarily linked). You could book a flight to Iowa and try for that MFA if you’re really committed, but you might accidentally pick up some actual skills and a love of the craft, which is disastrous if your goal in life is to destroy the joy of others rather than your own.

You’ll still see the same arguments amongst serious readers that you’ve already seen on the monster truck boards (“Big Foot sux!”), only they take much longer to play out. Essentially, what you’ll need to do is pick up a good thesaurus, because you’ve got to figure out how to call someone either a philistine or an elitist in the wordiest, most grandiose manner you can think of. It doesn’t matter which path you take because nobody likes to be called either of those things.

Once you’ve provoked your victim into an eloquent tantrum, one advanced gambit is to feign disbelief at them. “As to your claim that I am acting in a childishly aggressive manner, may I suggest that you find a literate person to read my comment to you? How you could misinterpret a constructive suggestion that you should “go fuck yourself with the bowsprit of the Cutty Sark” is beyond my ability to understand.”

Of course, actually doing any of the disruptive things mentioned above means having to accept that you are distracting people from having satisfying discussions – or, worse yet, that when your having fun prevents everyone else from having any, you’re kind of being a dick .

And it can’t be that  much fun, constantly policing your every word to avoid even a hint of what it is that you like from ever being exposed, lest some other troll call you out on it. It’s also just possible that one of your apoplectic opponents will eventually touch one of your sore spots completely by accident; then who’s laughing. (Answer: Nobody. Nobody is laughing.) One of the underappreciated abilities of the human mind is to conceal more than a few exquisitely sensitive soft-spots from its owner, discovered only when someone manages to stab a thumb right into one of the little suckers.

Of course, the only thing more ridiculous than an emotionally wounded shit-talker are jerks who write long essays basically asking kids to play nice on the Internet. Dude, eff those dweebs!