Idle chatter

I've spent a lifetime trying to figure the humans out. The things about them I don't get today, I hope to in time.

But there some things I doubt I will ever understand.

Case in point: The woman who hit Pittsburgh Steeler Quarterback/unlicensed motorcyclist Ben Rothelisburger has begun receiving telephone threats.

For all we know these threats are the work of a single deranged individual. But it's pretty well established when there is controversy surrounding professional athletics, the citizens start issuing threats -- usually targeting the athlete. (Steve Bartman being another prominent non-athlete exception.)

It's not just athletes; all public figures are prone to receive threats. The threats vary in severity but are almost always the same in one respect -- the issuer of the threat has no intention of following through.

Beyond the obvious element of fantasy these threats contain, I used to think the reason people took the risk to actually involve others in their fantasy stemmed from a need to claim a few moments of the life of someone who society has deemed more important than themselves --thereby justifying their own existence.

In the other words these type of threats are the autograph's nasty cousin.

But I'm not so sure about that anymore.

If you enter any online forum of discussion and wait long enough there is a good chance someone will threaten someone else. The discussion doesn't even have to be about a controversial subject. Last night, when I went on Youtube to retrieve the Nowitzki "tirade" video I posted, I noticed Youtube had a discussion forum for the video. So I checked out what was being said about Dirk. Not much, but it only took a few mildly insulting comments for a threat to be issued one commentator to another.

When you threaten someone you don't know, have no chance of ever meeting and is doing exactly the same thing you are at the moment, what can be the point beyond the joy of seeing your own threatening words on the computer screen?

I can appreciate receiving satisfaction from something you wrote, and I have seen some well-penned threats in my chatroom, comment section stalking career, but every single one of them, first and foremost, exposes the issuer as fraud.

I've known people to own up to all sorts of maladies -- often with more than a twinge of pride-- but admitting to being a fraud would rival child molester for infrequency of genuine public confession.

I suppose those who issue these types of threats against public figures or anonymous internet nicknames wouldn't see it that way. But since these threats are almost always in response to something that has angered them, and becoming angry, making a threat and then following through with the threat actually happens all the time (if not we wouldn't need so many prisons) I don't see how they could, deep down inside, view themselves any other way.

If anyone has any idea what the thrill of the anonymous, idle threat is, free feel to chime in.

Threats are also welcome, as long as they remain anonymous and idle.