Fan-Baiting Tutorial

Here's another form of baiting you can try from your own home, just for fun. Find a comment section on any web news page that seems to be getting lots of action or controversy. Then inject a comment that is odd or out of place to see if anyone notices. For an example, go here and scroll down to the entry labeled 'dwight / 8:29 a.m.' (Apologies to you sports aficionados)

Hmm. Nobody noticed. These rabid sports zombies are too preoccupied with post-game ranting. The goal of baiting is to get noticed and get a reaction. So it's time to mix odd with a little personal attack. I submitted the following :

Dwight says: "Bottom Line: MORMON MAFIA. All insiders know you get a handsome payoff to lean your calls towards BYU when they are playing...OR ELSE. I had an uncle who kept calling penalties on BYU and we have never seen him again. BTW, do any of you guys have jobs or like girls?"

Dang-it. Rejected by the moderator. Did I fail the "Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted" test? Dwight tried again the next day and got in! (scroll down to Dwight's entry here). Now we just sit back and wait for the smack down.

Later...

Wow. It's been a few days and no fan-wrath. Just a kindly, older-brother-type "now, now Dwight...", and then on-going pep rally jive and analysis. Then the comments drop off as the story has faded out of the news cycle. Then it hits me. I'm trying to provoke BYU fans! What am I thinking? All I'm going to get there is forgiveness and tolerance! Next time: Scrap-Bookers!