10 Ways to Get Endless Attention on the Forums

1. Blame the world. Whatever you are feeling and whatever is going on in your life (or not going on that you wish were) is due to outside forces, conditions, and other people’s behaviors. You are not responsible for your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; your life, your mind, and your emotions are completely are the result of things outside yourself over which you have no control.

2. Be a victim. You are the center of the universe for everyone alive, and they have devoted their lives to being mean to you, slighting you, ignoring you, insulting you, and making you miserable any way that they can.

3. Identify your biggest defect as something over which you have no or very little control – such as your age, your racial or ethnic group, your sexual identity, an incurable disease. Insist that other people victimize you because of this defect.

4. Explain the universe in terms of this defect over which you have no control. Everything that happens, or that you believe happens, must be interpreted in terms of the single-defect explanation.

5. Be consistent. Never, ever waver from the underlying story that you are a victim, that you have one and only one defect, and that the world is a mean place for people with your defect.

6. Keep people interested in your problems by posting occasional progress. This makes people believe that they are helping you. Then, when you go back to your conviction that you are a victim and blame the world, they will work all the harder to persuade you otherwise.

7. Bring your point of view into every thread. Ideally, keep track of comments that trigger people’s frustration and anger. Use these over and over again to ensure that people will drop everything to discuss your intransigent views with you.

8. If anyone ignores you or posts any criticism of your ideas, point out that this is exactly the kind of victimization you always confront. Make other people wrong, ignoble, and mean so that they will lavish attention on you to prove you wrong.

9. Refuse to consider alternative points of view. You are right, dammit, and the world had darn well better wake up and see it.

10. Never do anything to change, to help yourself, or to engage in self-examination and introspection. Do not utilize any proven techniques for self-help, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, working with a therapist, or any kind of counseling. This maximizes the frustration level of other people, ensuring they will lavish endless attention on you to persuade you to try something different. This has the added benefit of keeping you mired in your misery forever, guaranteeing you endless sympathy and help from others.