Poll of the Day > Why do people go online to tell lies

(+) Yeah! (+)

What's to be gained from it? Why be anything other than genuine?

---

How do we know youre not lying to us right now?

MasterChiefer posted...

How do we know youre not lying to us right now?

Because he's asking questions with no explicit informational content. Stating nothing axiomatically cannot be a lie (nor can it be a truth).

---

adjl posted...

Because he's asking questions with no explicit informational content. Stating nothing axiomatically cannot be a lie (nor can it be a truth).

That's what they want you to think

---

i tell lies online because it's funny when people believe them. and i have some kind of bad machivellian impulses that i like to indulge in the most harmless way I can.

I don't lie about anything that i think is important. but i don't really see the harm in telling people inane stories and seeing who believes them. its sort of like creative fiction writign to me

I guess the biggest downside is that sometimes it makes it tough to get people to really believe me online. like people assume because i troll in random topics that I'll do years long fake stories about my life. but that doesn't really matter to me too much anyway

---

this is also why i get upset about how bad the trolls are here now. i had so much fun letting my brain believe everything chelle posted was real for example. but even i cant suspend my disbelief about this garbage now

---

above all else, I am a troll at heart

---

Clench281 posted...

What's to be gained from it? Why be anything other than genuine?

It's fun to lie to people.

everyone is a lie in some form or another

---

oh sorry for posting over and over again but another thing I like about trolling is derailing shitty topics. as much as this place is kind of a cesspool, im proud that we're mostly disrespectful of ogle-y bullshit like what duckbear does.

so when people make bad-taste topics, i sometimes try to argue in them in such a way that it will just ruin whatever the TC wanted to make because everyone will want to respond to me. usually i do this by arguing a more extreme version of what i actually think, or arguing what I do think in a really annoying way or with obviously flawed arguments

---

It's not lying, it's just story telling

---

Probably makes them feel better, for a little bit anyways

probably not a healthy thing for a persons psyche though

---

Abraham Lincoln visited me in a dream and told me that it's ok to lie to people when needed

---

Modest_Mouse posted...

above all else, I am a troll at heart

Just because your mother has a fro and a belly ring that doesnt mean youre a troll.



---

I exaggerate, but I don't lie

---

I don't mind if people tell lies to troll, but there are definitely some people who lie in a weird mundane way, like children who never grew out of that phase. Not sure if they have some kind of mental disorder or just don't understand how trolling works

Clench281 posted...

What's to be gained from it? Why be anything other than genuine?

I think a lot of it stems from mental illness tbh.

I dont even mean that as an insult. Like, I feel like people who take it way too far genuinely need help.

---

Clench281 posted...

Why be anything other than genuine?

because were funnier than you could ever dream to be!!! who do you think you are I AM

---

That's because people are evil.

---

@Clench281

A friend of 25 years lived a lie online and I found out about 5 years ago. That along with him being generally a shitty friend the entire time and not contributing even what would be considered half of his share along with a comment that was the final straw caused me to end the friendship.

But yeah, the guy lives online as a completely different person. I knew a bunch of guys on MMOs who pretended to be girls. 2 of them caused major drama in guilds I was in back in 2004~2006.

It's funny you mention it actually. Some of the most honest yet aloof and not needing attention of their peers were my go-to friends. Even when people do not lie, getting them to be honest is another story. Open and honest that is. You'd be surprised how many people are too insecure even to share their own dreams. And we're not talking about sex or perversion or something they might consider embarrassing. We're talking scary dreams or creepy dreams that are fun to share.

I find people online are a different creature. I tend not to befriend them. People in real life usually are a lot better friends. Very few people online want to be friends with a friendly honest and open male in my opinion. Most of my friends were outcasts. I guess they were already kicked out of the crowd so my eccentricity (ironic calling it that because I'm quite the normal boy however the online world is very much the inverted world) seemed disarming and welcome to them in the crowd's stead.

Was this someone you knew irl that was lying online, or an online-only friend?

---

The one thing the internet, chat rooms, social media etc did was allowing for people to be someone else.

You can tell anything you wanted to tell and no one would know unless the person slipped up.

---

Clench281 posted...

Was this someone you knew irl that was lying online, or an online-only friend?

A friend I met in the beginning of high school. We spent a lot of time together until just after high school then phone mostly every day.

So I basically talked to the dude at least every other day for a full 20 years after the 5 years we saw each other almost every day in school.

I believe everything I see and read on the internet. This claim that people lie on the internet is baffling. I don't believe anyone would do it.

---

Why do you feel the need to lie about how much milk you drink

---

FrozenBananas posted...

Why do you feel the need to lie about how much milk you drink

I don't think I've ever lied about this

---