Griefer Madness

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/activities/griefers.mspx
(again, link will be explained at the bottom)

Julian Dibbell's article was difficult for me to swallow. First of all, I enjoyed the overall article but I didn't agree with the theme. I am upset by these so-called "griefers" who enjoy making fun of and hurting people. This kind of mockery and bullying is incredibly immature in my opinion and I can't seem to grasp the concept or reason for doing it. I know Dibbell claims that these griefers cause other people grief for the mere fact that the people who get upset are taking the internet too seriously. WHATEVER! That is not a valid reason for causing harm/ grief upon others for fun. To me, it seems like these griefers expect people to take it seriously or they wouldn't do it in the first place. How can you justify what you're doing and making fun of when you are relying solely on that thing you're mocking? I just can't see why someone would pick on another person just to get a reaction out of them (you can compare this to school bullies who pick on the weaker kids just to upset them). Now Dibbell talks about how these griefers throw penises, or show disturbing images, at people in SecondLife and how it can sometimes crash your Sim. Crashing someone's Sim or showing graphic images for no reason other than to make them upset is so odd. These griefers claim to do it to make a point but they're only making this a bigger issue.
I relate this griefing to bullying and I think its so immature. When I was younger I used to get picked on and my mom would always tell me to just ignore the bullies and they'd go away (I always had a big mouth so ignoring them was never something I wanted to do). She told me this because she knew that bullies only wanted the attention and reaction out of you. This is the same thing with griefers. I don't take the internet seriously because there is a lot of stuff I know may not be true or just posted for fun, but when it comes to making fun of people, I don't agree with that. In this case, it does become serious. I found an article (link up above) in which the author wrote 10 tips for dealing with internet griefers and I thought it was funny that the #1 tip is to just ignore them (like my mom used to tell me). There are other options like change names or games. We kinda touched upon this in class but I think its unfair to have to change the game you're playing just because someone is ruining your fun. Screw them, they should have to go on sties that allow that stuff. This is a serious issue because there are tips on how to "deal" with these griefers. They are getting the reaction they wanted! I guess this is why they do it but, like I said earlier, it just seems mean and immature.