It really seems the majority of people want to be proven right about whatever stance they have taken more than they want the team to win. And maybe they do care about the team winning more than their personal agendas, but it certainly doesn’t come across in the postings.
The posts are dripping with “my opinion is right, yours is wrong” rather than just having a discussion about the team. Differences of opinions are not respected, rather they are ridiculed..
And I am just as guilty as everyone else. Just playing the game that is played here. I just don’t see this week being any different than what normally occurs. It’s not a place to come together as fans to discuss the team. It’s a place to argue about the team.
That is precisely the way that I see it too. Opinions are stated as fact and not only are you ridiculed for having a differing opinion, but often called flat out dumb.
When someone is pressed about if they know 100% that their view is correct, they admit that they don’t, Yet they act like there is no way they could be wrong, and push their point like their life depends on it.
The worst thing, like you mention, is the agendas that people push. I swear, some people would rather see failure of the team than be wrong about a player, a coach, or whatever they’ve guessed at.
Some of those people will tell you that’s what this forum is for, to argue about “The team we all love”. But it is for much more than just that.
It’s toxic, really.
Don’t like a player? He’s trash. Don’t like the Jones’? Then Mike McCarthy is “Fat Mikey” and you don’t want him to succeed. Players, coaches, owners, NFL Office personnel; they’re all fair game to be literally called anything that isn’t flat out profane... but that is because this is a family forum, not because it isn’t right to call a player a human garbage dumpster who sucks at his job and ought to be delivering pizza, but is too stupid.
As if that player can’t be on the forum and isn’t a person just like the posters here. Knowing the poster would be quite different to the face of that player.
The truth is though, that it isn’t just this place, it is just people in general on the internet. It’s probably simply human nature combined with anonymous opinion.
I will end it with this: You’re completely right about how it changes posters here and how people start arguing just like everyone else. Having been here since it opened in 2004, there are posters that I’ve seen completely change from a positive person who is respectful of other’s opinions, to someone who is now the complete opposite of that.
It’s a shame but I’m afraid that it, like on all social media, is simply human nature.