Internet Catharsis, Part 1

Internet Catharsis, Part 1
by Steve Finkelstein

ca•thar•sis 2. Psychoanalysis Elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and
affording it expression.

When I belatedly got my first computer and signed onto the net, I never realized how powerfully addictive it could be. Not only the millions of websites that touched on every conceivable subject matter, but particularly the chatrooms. These chatrooms were “cyber-havens” for people all over the world, people that would never have come into contact if not for the information superhighway. They provided a link, connecting disparate souls into cyber occasions that could be pleasurable, entertaining and enlightening. Or at their worst, they could be unpleasant, aggravating and downright frightening.

My first experiences through chatrooms came through my ISP, AOL (disparingly known among web junkies as AOHELL, due to their numerous tech glitches). Being that I’m a huge movie buff and have been trying to push screenplays for many years, I was instantly attracted to a chatroom entitled Movie Madness. Little did I realize then that the room’s title could be a literal description of its activities.

My first forays into the room were pleasant enough. While the room contained its share of shut-ins, illiterate types and annoying teenagers, it also contained a fair amount of intelligent and knowledgable film buffs, who were a pleasure to chat with about all vintages and genres of film.

However, as time progressed, I became aware of an alarming trend: there was a rather unholy clique of homoerotic neo-Nazi types, led by one person with the screen name “Madman Mundt.” If you’re not familiar with that name, it comes from the 1991 Coen Brothers film Barton Fink. Mundt was the name of the demonic, psychopathic serial killer played by John Goodman. As I was about to find out, it was an appropriate screen name for the sociopath who chose it.

Mundt and his cadre were a bunch of vicious bullies, relentlessly insulting people who they felt didn’t have the requisite film knowledge, tearing into people who were sensitive, shy, or behaved in a manner unacceptable to their Nietzschean ubermensch mentality. Mundt’s followers tended to be bitter, angry, frustrated types with apparently no form of sex life. The parallel to 30’s Germany became even more pronounced as their bigotry came to the forefront. They spewed their hatred toward all minority members, particularly targeting those who admitted to being part of a minority group in chat. All minority members got a torrent of insults, but a special level of venom was reserved for gays and Jews; I’d pity the unsuspecting, openly gay Jew who unwittingly stumbled into Movie Madness.

Mundt’s followers had a slavish obedience to him, almost bordering on a sexual obsession with their beloved Fuehrer. As I learned more about him I found this very puzzling; a picture of him was floated by a legion of his detractors. Mundt lived in a Florida trailer park. He was the quintessential figure of white, bigoted Southern trailer trash. Quite the egotist, his picture showed a bare-chested fellow bordering on the portly, in his early 30’s, with long hair extending to his waist. If you can’t make a mental picture, think Bigfoot with electrolysis. There were pictures of him playing lead guitar in his neo-Nazi band. He was a general contractor (or so he claimed) who was also an accomplished filmmaker who entered his short films in numerous film festivals (or so he claimed). My thought was, if he had all these accomplishments, why did he behave like such an enraged psycho in chat? One poor slob that was the continual target of Mundt’s barbs was foolish enough to list his real full name as his screen name and even more idiotically, tell which city he lived in. That gave Mundt the cue to look him up in the phone book, call him up and level a death threat against him (true story).

This outrageous incident finally turned the tide against Mundt. AOL had received a torrent of complaints about him previously, but in their usual impotent fashion, had done nothing (this was their usual response, of course, as they feared that the loss of a customer would detract from their bottom line). However, with a group of people relentlessly insulting Mundt in chat and complaining about him to AOL (I was part of that group), the ISP finally gave in and permanently suspended his account.

I felt this was a minor moral victory. I got a satisfied feeling that I was part of the vanquishing of this bastard and got a neat emotional kick out of it; one could say it was a form of “internet catharsis.” I’m sure Mundt got a similar level of catharsis from his behavior in the chatrooms, levelling his angry frustrations at unsuspecting chatroom occupants. Only now, he has one less venue to spew his venom.

If you think this was the only example of Abnormal Psychology on the net, you’re mistaken; in Part 2 of this article, I’ll tell you some of the crazed experiences I had on a trivia website.

See ya soon.

Steve Finkelstein can be reached at steve@babblog.com.