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Thanks for the serious reply. I don't think the internet was always like this, and I don't think this is how it should be, but it is what it is. I think you are right that it is childish behaviour, but you are neglecting that western civilisation is in the grip of arrested development, and perpetual teenagers outnumber adults 100 to 1. I think the turn happened with the advent of social media - Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it. You can still just kind of march through it all ignoring all the petty bullshit, but when status gamers dominate, not playing is refracted into just a different - dramatically disadvantaged - style of play.
But I also might be using status games wrong. I don't mean to suggest everyone is neurotically analysing every thing they say for how it will affect power relations - there are quite a few people who do that, but I don't think most people think about it at all. You don't have to think "ooh, this will boost my cred with the in crowd", or "I have to agree with this because I want to impress that person" or something like that. It doesn't have to be your primary motivation - it doesn't even have to be a concious motivation. Someone they don't respect tells them something and they become skeptical, but if someone they do respect says it they change their mind. Or laugh at your boss' joke harder than it deserves because he's the boss and because everyone else is laughing. That's what I thought a status game was - and everyone does it, even animals. I was pretty obsessed with reading about animal behaviour when I was a teen, and I thought those things were described as status games, but I might have mixed the term up with something else.
But I would also like to point out that you apologised to me, a stranger, and modified your behaviour.
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