Internet tough guy

So you're browsing 4chan or Facebook one day, tweeting about politics or a television series or what have you, minding your own business, when you inadvertently end up offending the sensibilities of a certain breed of person.And we originally made the conservative correctness article as satire. Boy, were we wrong! A person who claims to possess a 33rd degree black belt. A person who has a portrait of Kratos or Chuck Norris as their profile picture. A person whose vocabulary consists of "fag", "ur mom", and "ur gay". A person who claims to know where you live, and none-too-politely insists that you revoke whatever you said that offended them, lest they join you there so you can try saying it to their face.
Wondering how this charming stranger could possibly have any clue as to where you live, because it's not as if you're so stupid that you'd post your address online, you head to their webpage and try looking at some of the photographs they've uploaded, wherein you notice something interesting. Far from the imposing, mean-eyed brute their online persona would suggest, instead you're met with the sight of a fedora-wearing dork in his early 20s. Perhaps you should take him up on that offer to do battle after all?
What you've encountered is an "internet tough guy", also known as an "armchair warrior" or, more colorfully, a member of the "101st Chairborne Division": meaning a person who acts big and tough and ferocious and opinionated from behind the shield of Internet anonymity, but is most likely a pathetic loser in actual life. Internet tough guys challenge people to fights they can't actually win because they know there's little to no chance opponents could or would actually take them up on said challenges. The mere act of threatening someone, and the chance that someone might be intimidated by that charade, as opposed to actually winning a fight, provides the threat-maker with all the ego boost they need.
==Characteristics==
A defining trait of internet tough guys is that of making hollow threats — endlessly insisting that they will commit acts of violence and/or rebellion against their perceived opponents or associates that they wouldn't actually commit in a million years. A relevant example is the conservative blogger who claims they're going to shut down their business, Go Galt, and take their family and guns to a shelter in the wilderness to escape the black helicopters sent by Biden, in anticipation of the second American Civil War/2nd Coming of Jesus/invasion by North Korea. In reality, all they're going to do is stay there at their keyboard bitching, and if the police or military ever actually did come to their house, they'd be either dead or arrested within seconds. Whoops.
==Examples of internet tough guys==
Yeah, dude, whatever. tl;dr.
"You're going to unfriend me on Facebook? Oh no! Please, not that! Anything but that!" You are making the assumption here that the people you are threatening to shun will lament it, as opposed to welcoming it.
===Dave Bara===
Science fiction author Dave Bara comes to the aid of his twin brother Mike, who writes what is supposed to be non-fiction but is so full of errors it reads just like SciFi.Exposing Pseudoastronomy live link to the questions Mike Bara was asked to respond to.
===Conservapedia===
Conservapedia is notorious for claiming to be tough and running away as soon as someone pays enough attention to respond. Andrew Schlafly once boasted that he'd debate any liberal, then hastily backpedaled when someone took him up on the offer.
Conservative boasted that he'd debate any atheist, but only if they were willing to donate $17,000 to his choice of Christian charity, thinking that that would put anybody off debating him so that he would then be able to claim that all atheists are indeed uncharitable, cowardly, and dodge debates. When two RationalWiki users separately took him up on this offer, matching the conditions, he suddenly remembered that he'd be very busy for the next few years. This didn't stop him from editing Conservapedia over 700 times the first week he was "busy", as well as also deleting any mention of the challenge during this time.
Conservapedia has subsequently written an essay challenging Penn Jillette to a debate, and has also challenged Kyle Kulinski as well. Neither of these escaped the attention of RationalWiki, who reminded Conservapedia that Conservative still owes it a debate.
==See also==
*Black Belt Magazine: It's a good bet all of an Internet Tough Guy's 'years of martial arts experience' consists of skimming over the pages of this magazine, looking for something related to Bruce Lee.
*Chickenhawk: A person who extols the saintly values of the US Armed Forces and revels in the glory of war without ever having served a day in uniform himself,They're also quite willing to expand the scope of government on their watch. often having actively avoided the draft when there was one in place.
*Dickwad theory
*Friendzone
*Kevin Martin
*Mall ninja
*Red Dawn
==External links==
*Navy SEAL copypasta
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Internet
Category:Machismo