"The way we evaluate our competence is relative to other people,” Monin told Slate. “If I need to feel good about my language skills, one way that I could do that would be to give myself evidence that my language skills are awesome. Another is to give myself evidence that other people's language skills [are bad]. So by putting down other people, I can feel better about myself."
The main question then is why we love putting other people down. Most cases of correction in this list are people in some way or another making fun of others. Some do it more politely; others do it much harsher. Still, for the corrector, it's often about superiority and control. Even spectators or those who read and "like" the correcting comments engage in a form of ridicule.
In 2021, Macedonian researchers found that those who like to put others down and use disparaging humor usually project their own feelings. Essentially, it's how they adapt to the world that might ridicule them. So, to avoid being the victims, they ridicule first and boost their self-esteem. The researchers theorize that they were likely bullied as children, and developed this as a defense mechanism.
Do you like to correct people, Pandas, especially online? Would you consider yourself to be part of the Internet's grammar police? Let us know in the comments! And if you're in the mood for more fails, check out our previous publication about people who had one job but couldn't even do that one thing right.
