The rise of Web 2.0 has given everyone and anyone the potential to have their voice heard out here in cyberspace; from your blogs with family pictures to your blogs about cocksucking, everything and anything you could imagine is being hurled out into cyberspace faster than you can hit publish. New blogs are created every single day by the thousands, more and more people are signing up with social networking sites like My Space or Facebook, and there’s so much content being generated that keeping up with all your favorite blogs and websites is almost like having a second full time job.

As a writer who uses blogging as the medium to share my own thoughts and ideas, I’ve come across almost every type of situation you could possibly imagine, but the one which has left me the most disheartened and traumatized from time to time is a concept known as Mobbing.

One of the drawbacks which I’ve observed out in cyberspace, especially in the adults-only content corner of the blogosphere, is mobbing; a very ugly example of human psychology and behavior. Like the ‘cool kids’ or ‘blondes only please’ cliques we all dealt with back in high school, the blogosphere often provides fertile ground for similar behavior, and like those cliques from years past, these cliques pretty much work the same way.

You’ve got the ringleader, the one everybody wants to be friends with and looks up to, and you’ve got the followers who usually do the dirty work. These cliques go beyond the normal friendships and relationships most of us form and develop during our time out here in cyberspace, because these cliques often have a single minded agenda.

Did you ever wonder why all of a sudden you see similar entries being posted on the same day, with the same tone and about the same subject? Chances are you’ve just bumped into an internet clique. What makes these cliques such a problem is they often employ the tactics of cyber-bullying and intimidation to target and harass others who are somehow deemed unacceptable or undesirable to the group, and one way they accomplish this is thru mobbing.

A very basic element of human psychology is that people want to be accepted. For the most part people are joiners, and they’d rather go along with the group rather than make waves for themselves, because just like those high school cliques, the more you fight it, the more powerful they become.

So what’s the answer?

First you need to understand how mobbing is accomplished out here in cyberspace. I had a conversation with a friend about the subject of cyberspace-mobbing not too long ago, and what was suggested at the time was a book titled Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace by Noa Davenport, Ruth D. Schwartz, Gail Pursell Elliott. They also have a website, Mobbing USA, which you can find here.

The person with whom I was having the conversation with had experienced an incident of mobbing, had read the above mentioned book, and had these things to say and this adaptation of workplace mobbing and how it related to the blogosphere:

Since I experienced this ganging up behavior in the workplace, I know how devastating mobbing can be, and how you can feel weak and silly for complaining about it. But the targets of the attack, and it is an attack, is your self-esteem and your peace of mind. So listen up. Here are the rules to their game:

Adapted from Ten Key Factors of the Mobbing Syndrome (from Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace)

• Assaults on the dignity, integrity, credibility, and professional competence of a fellow blogger.
• Negative, humiliating, intimidating, abusive, malevolent, and controlling communication.
• Committed directly, or indirectly, in subtle or obvious ways.
• Perpetuated by one or more group members — “vulturing.”
• Occurring in a continual, multiple, and systematic fashion, over some time.
• Portraying the victimized person as being at fault.
• Engineered to discredit, confuse, intimidate, isolate, and force the person into submission.
• Committed with the intent to force the person out.
• Representing the removal from the blogosphere as the victim’s choice.
• Not recognized, misinterpreted, ignored, tolerated, encouraged or even instigated by the larger blogging community.

This is very important when one experiences mobbing, because there are physical and psychological symptoms very similar to post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Having been the victim of mobbing myself, I found such wisdom in these words that I wanted to share them to a larger audience in the hopes of promoting a better understanding of these things and how they happen. I have never been a fan of cliques, because so often the mob mentality of cliques demands a level of groupthink which I find generally distasteful, but what I’ve also found is that I’m not alone.

The worst possible thing you can do is sink to their level and try and fight fire with fire. You have to recognize that you’re dealing with damaged individuals who enjoy watching you run around in circles and responding to their attacks. They are nothing more than attention seekers. (For more please read my essay on cyber-bullies). You also need to remember that for a clique or cyber bully to survive they need you to provide the energy. Denying a clique or bully attention is the only way to stop the abuse.

I had an internal debate about whether or not I wanted to write about these subjects, but I feel that it’s my obligation to share these things in the hopes of preventing what’s happened to me from happening to anyone else.

Everyone has the same rights to be out here on the internet doing their own thing for their own reasons as anyone else does. There are no official rules to blogging, even tho some have recently attempted to push that line of thinking, there aren’t. If you’re a decent person and observe general good netiquette, you’ll be just fine. The only word of caution I would have for anyone is to use common sense about getting into personal relationships with people you encounter in the blogosphere. The things which govern relationships in the real world also apply out here, so use your head.

Inevitably conflicts are going to arise out here in the blogosphere. We’re all human given to the same human frailties as anyone else. Unfortunately you have no way of knowing what kind of person you’re dealing with on the other side of the screen. You could be inviting people into your life who suffer from any number of psychological disorders who may then become obsessed with every word you post, everything you do, everyone you’re friends with or who shows up on your blogroll, who will stop at nothing to antagonize you and drive you off the internet. You must learn to ignore them. Responding will only empower them.

People like I’ve just described in the above paragraph are perfect candidates for cliques because they require, if not outright demand, validation and attention. Without it they become powerless, because deep down inside when they’re all alone without all their ‘friends’, they’re just cowards afraid of their own shadows.

I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or any kind of expert. I’m just a woman who writes a blog, who has been thru it all, and I hope none of you ever have to go thru what I have. This is not the first time this subject of cliques and mobs has been addressed, especially in the adults only content corner of the blogosphere. Another blogger spoke up here, and was also targeted for speaking her mind. This kind of groupthink mentality is a detriment to everyone’s online experience and is discouraged by this lazy geisha. If you can’t survive in real world without resorting to this kind of behavior, you have no business in this world either.

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