Using Psychology to Deal with Internet Thugs

+ Introduction +
Before I get on with the actual guide, I'd like you all to know that "Internet Thugs" are becoming smarter every minute, and although you may feel/think that you can deal with them, this guide is for (in my opinion) explaining the best ways to deal with them. I understand that a lot of you readers are just going to look at this and immediately think, "Eh, what a loser, I'm too smart to let these things happen to me." You my friends, are wrong. Very, very wrong.

+ Quick Notice +
There is a fair bit of psychology involved within this guide, therefore I advice you really pay attention to some of the points I mention and discuss. This guide has taken me a long time to produce and I have worded it carefully, if you do not understand something I have wrote, please let me know and I can alter accordingly. Finally, please be aware that this topic may seem pointless and unnecessary however I strongly believe it isn't. I haven't found a topic on Sythe which covers this topic in a as much detail as I hope to, but if there is one I will remove.

+ What is an Internet Thug? +
An Internet Thug can be in many forms, and each type of Thug should be dealt with as an individual; not a group. Literally, there are thousands of these Thugs, wherever you go I'm 95% certain you'll come across one. Below I will list some of the more common types; however there are lots more.

• Scammer (an example of one would be someone who tries to obtain things that aren't theirs by tricking the targeted person(s).)
• Abusive Behaviour (things such as foul language)
• General Thugs (This type is more of a category; generally speaking.)

As I stated above, each type of Thug is unique, and should be dealt with uniquely. What works with one type of Thug may not work with another. Also, the aforementioned are just a few examples, there are hundreds more; but these are the most common, and in general, each type of Thug would most likely fit into at least one of the above examples.

+ How to Deal with Internet Thugs +
Before we get started, please note that dealing with Thugs is fairly complicated. Since each Thug is an individual, he/she is unique/different. Therefore; you have to deal with the Thug in a unique/different way to your previous Thug. You may not of realised it but already in your Internet History you would of dealt with many of these Thugs, and not realised it. The chances are, if you are on for a decent amount of time per day, you come across with several daily.

Tip: Whatever you do, stay calm! Do not attack the Thug with Thug; it'll only make the situation worse. By the way, when I say "Do not attack the Thug with Thug" I mean don't give him/her what he/she gives you, be cool, calm and collected as it is the best way to resolve these situations.

Tip2: I know for a fact that what I am about to go through you will straight away decide that my method is wrong and that Swearing back at the Abuser will make you feel better. Well, when you feel this way, ask yourself this question...

Before we go any further, please carefully read that very important question and most importantly, understand it. If you ask yourself this you can not go wrong.

Please read carefully what I explain next.

The first step to dealing with the Thug is deciding what sort of Thug you are up against. This step is the most important, as dealing with a scammer who is actually an Abuser will not work. The way to work out which Thug you are dealing with is to consider what they are saying/doing/expressing towards you.

As an example I am going to use a sample conversation.


Look carefully at the example, as you can probably gather, the example Thug was a Scammer and an Abuser. But, from some of the questions I asked and the way he acted I spotted that he wasn't legit.

Tip: Abusers can take the form of many things and can occur in millions of situations. A very common situation is a forum. I see many people being abused by other users, even if you call someone a "Noob" technically, you are abusing them.

+ The Psychological Side +
If you read and use everything explained up to this point, you can easily deal with these Thugs. However, this next section is a more advanced one, and it will also help you understand everything. In a way, this is the Theory part of the guide, and everything else is the Practical part. I do strongly recommend you read this part.

Tip: You must carefully read this section, and you must understand it.

The psychological side of this whole process, is somewhat simple yet complicated. If you can master this, I can pretty much guarantee you won't get "Thug'd" by the "Thugs".

When you come across a Thug, and you have done all of the above steps, I recommend you look back over your chat log or your forum post or whatever it may be and read it. Once you have read it, read it again. Once you have read it, wait. How long should you wait? You wait until what you have just read several times has sunk into your brain. I have found this to be very important to me as when I first started to be interested in Psychology I found this stage quite hard. The true hard bits are understanding and interpreting. The key to this is to get into the Thug's mind. Think to yourself, "Why did I do this?" and "Why should I do this?" and "What is the point?" The last question is extremely important. I can not stress how important this is. If you understand the 'Point' of why the Thug attempted to do this, you can easily understand that Thug.

Although understanding and interpreting a Thug may seem pointless, however it helps when you encounter new Thugs, and after several dealings using these steps, you can start to add your own steps and remove some. However, only do this if you a confident in your ability and that you trust you have a strong enough knowledge of what you are up against.

+ Advanced Psychology +
This is the really tricky part. For the more minor offences, such as slight abuse there can be several reasons as to why the person did what they did. I do not want to go into detail about this publicly, however I can talk with you one-on-one. This is because it takes a lot of knowledge to be able to understand what I would say.

+ Conclusion +
Thanks for reading this guide, I really enjoyed creating it! Plus, if you ever need someone to talk to, whatever the subject, PM me or add my MSN. I am a very understanding person and no matter what the circumstances are, I will never judge you. Also, by using psychology to understand the situation, you can then use it to understand your own feelings and thoughts. This may seem strange, however it's true.

MSN: [email protected]

Finally, if there is something missing/incorrect or even something you just can't understand, please let me know. We all make mistakes. Like I said, some of this may be worded to an age group too high or low for you, I can talk with you personally and explain whatever you need.

+ Future Additions +
In the near future I will be adding real life examples of these situations (with permission for the person(s) involved).
I will also try and add some more pictures wherever possible, after all, one picture says more than one thousand words.

 

Good guide, nicely laid out, easy to understand and well worth reading. I would maybe put the titles in bold and/or change them to a brighter colour to break it up a bit. All in all 9.5/10

 

Thank you very much for your constructive feedback, I really appreciate it.

About the titles, I'm going to change them to a different colour. Hopefully this should fix the clarity issue.

 

good job bud

 

I lol'd

 

Thanks man.

May I ask, what's funny? I'm assuming you can't understand the topic mentioned if you post something as useless as this.

 

this guide sucks and so do you!

(Where would i be without my jokes)

Nice guide, i'd call it common sense though, however i can see it proving useful to some people and it's nicely laid out. 7/10.

 

Thanks for your feedback.
However, I don't really agree with it being common sense. To understand psychology takes years. I myself have been studying it for around 5 years in total. Also, I think I'm going to add more information to the advanced section. Although to be honest I could write several books on the subject and it still wouldn't be enough.

I'm going to also add a new section, not going into any more detail yet.

 

Blunt: 'How to deal with dickheads on the internet'

It's well laid out and it looks like you've put some time into it. A nice piece of writing, thanks for putting the effort in.

88/100.

 

I guess that's how you could put it, however this also works in real life too.
Thanks for feedback.

 

Awesome guide, I was going to ask what if they're not a Scammer, Just a "Thug (Abuser)" And They actually do the trade but swear a bit, then calm down? You should add little sections like that, otherwise i'd rate it 92/100 Gj man.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Keep them coming.

 

Fantastic Guide! The guide went in depth and really astonished me. I'm not one to judge, but keep those guides coming.

 

Thanks for, yet another, positive comment, really appreciated! Don't worry, I'm currently thinking up my next one as we speak.

 

I thought it was nicely written, but have to admit I didn't really see any psychology in it, other than use of the word, "psychology." I was kind of expecting a discussion, oh, on how scammers dehumanize their victims to enable themselves to absolve themselves of any guilt, how they use their victims' own desire against them to blind them from detecting the scam, how they manipulate their victims by various tactics such as; playing on their weaknesses, feigning ignorance, gaining trust, seeking sympathy by making up "sob stories", alternating between using flattery to resorting to insults, and most importantly, "just because someone says so, doesn't make it true!"

Perhaps you'll be examining these issues in a subsequent tutorial?

 

I admire you're courage, however, for me to address this topic fully would mean I'd be writing a book, literally. As I have quite clearly said that if you would like me to explain more we can chat one-on-one however, what you said is true.

EDIT: After re-reading my thread, there is "Psychology" in it. Plus, my aim was to get users to starting to be able to understand my points, and soon I will be producing a guide which will be getting into the deeper stuff. I was originally not going to do this, however I feel it would be quite benefitial to a lot of users that I were to add another part to the guide.

 

Wouldn't work in spam forum. Its good but also lotta text. Great idea though!

 

No need to explain to me, I know all the psychology and every trick in the book. I do think it would be helpful to others though to go into a more indepth study of the actual psychological techniques and devices they utilize to "social engineer" or con their victims into getting what they want.

Nice start though!

 

No need to explain to me, I know all the psychology and every trick in the book. Seriously, with me, you're preaching to the chior!

I do think it would be helpful to others though to go into a more indepth study of the actual psychological techniques and devices they utilize to "social engineer" or con their victims into getting what they want.

Nice start though!

 

Thanks, I'll think about going into the more "hidden" aspects of it too.