'Hater' is a skateboarding term referring to someone who is highly critical. If you visit YouTube and watch a skateboarding trick tip, you'll likely find at least one or two hater comments. Most of these are primitive, vulgar, and childish, yet, on occasion, one may stumble upon some intelligence. Here are a few examples of hater comments cut and pasted directly from YouTube:
- 'this guys a disgrace for tutorials...'
- 'compressing ur legs does not add style, especially off of a one foot curb. u looked stupid...'
- 'every time i see this douche i have to puke'
- 'I love how he probably can't actually do it moving so didn't demonstrate it. Why the [beep!] is a beginner teaching people how to skateboard, it's so lame. Kids, watch any video but this guy's.'
What do people get out of being so critical? I believe they feel power; something more readily attained through destruction than construction. Take the twin towers as an example. While it took 7 years to build the towers (excluding planning and other preliminary stages), it only took a few hours to demolish them! Ironically, however, it seems the destroyers felt more power demolishing the building than the builders felt building it. Perhaps this is because in just two quick strikes a mere handful of them reduced to rubble what laboriously took thousands of workers years to erect.
Their logic is illusory. In reality, the power manifest in the building process utterly dwarfs that of destruction. For instance, the power underpinning construction was sustained for many years; was the result of the co-ordinated input of thousands of professionals; was built against gravitational pull; involved attention to fine detail; and ultimately resulted in something positively useful. In stark contrast, the power involved in destruction was sustained for a comparatively short time; involved much less people; was aided by the force of gravity; required relatively little attention to detail; and has little to show for.
Haters feel powerful when, with just a few words, they demolish - in their own minds - what took others time and effort to accomplish. In actuality, it's because the hater is infirm that he takes the shortcut to feeling powerful.
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