How not to be an internet fool
By Dalton Martin
Much to the dismay of countless fans, Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen took the beloved game of the digital markets of iTunes and the Android Store. The Internet, in outrage, proceeded to relay death threats, question his manhood, and even threaten suicide. What many failed to realize was that this was the very reason the poor guy decided to pull the game in the first place. In interviews that took place following the deletion of the game, Nguyen stated he simply didn’t want the limelight on him, and just couldn’t take the fame and popularity his relatively simple creation garnered.
For Americans, this seems quite an absurd reason for a guy that was raking in $50,000 a week through advertising revenue. We are inadvertently taught fame is always a good thing at some point in our lives, so it comes naturally as a shock for most when we hear of a story like this. Heaven forbid a foreigner can’t have differing opinion on privacy and how to live his life than how we want.
In this instance, Nguyen was just a small-time indie game maker from Vietnam. In interviews, he told journalists he never expected a reaction like this from his games due to their mediocrity. Call it humble or ignorant, Nguyen out of the blue gained overnight success garnering the fame (and infamy) that came with it. To put in retrospect, imagine you posted a regular video on Youtube weekly for almost two years, then one day a particular post just blew up online. You just went from New Albany zero, to the next big thing the media’s waiting to pick apart. Not only that, but the Internet is full of terrible individuals who’s sole purpose in life is to be idiotic hate-mongers. Now you have to deal with the fools of the world, instead of just your hometown.
Most teens clamor to be breakout stars, but in reality most couldn’t handle it. Any sort of extreme negative feedback from another person at school results in Twitter “wars” or just a full out brawl, but how does one react to a seemingly anonymous being hiding behind a screen name? Any sort of fighting back results in ten more popping up, and eventually you will be run out of town looking like a total fool. Not only this, but once you reach success, it is commonplace for your new found fans to become “entitled”. Many Flappy Bird fans when hearing of the eminent deletion of their precious game flocked to Twitter to tell Nguyen how even though it was his game, he just couldn’t take it down because he “had no right” or if he did they’d kill themselves in retaliation. Where most would dismiss these comments, it gets incredibly irritating when they keep coming. Even on Youtube, most successful users constantly get hate when they don’t do what some viewers want and will get a major attitude when they are dismissed.
The Internet is becoming a wasteland for the fools of the world to convene and make ignorant comments, much to the irritation of the common user. These “trolls” as most people call them, are horrible individuals with seemingly the sense of humor and mentality of a five-year-old, and the sad thing is they are everywhere! Make the world a better place and stop being idiots online, and if you see said idiots doing what they do, just ignore them. Do this, and the Internet can become a better place.