
105Why People Attack Each Other Online
Revenge is a familiar and common motive. Many movie villains
(and a few movie heroes) are motivated by a quest for revenge for
some perceived wrong. On the lighter side, a popular party joke in-
volves a young boy’s twenty-year quest to get revenge on a clown by
telling him off—much of the humor in the joke comes from the fact
that the boy’s act of revenge is so much smaller than what the listener
would expect in the situation. In the real world, there have been
many plots to get revenge through spectacular (and often dangerous)
means; all too many have ended in tragedy.
An attacker fixated on revenge is particular ...