Internet Tough Guy/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A Real Life wimp who likes to pose as a Badass online.

  • Played Straight: In a Flame War (or even a previously peaceful discussion), Bob threatens someone with a lawsuit or an act of violence.
  • Exaggerated: Bob threatens to use a nuclear weapon on his opponent.
    • Bob threatens to sue them for an amount of money that doesn't even exist.
    • Bob actually posts imagery of himself engaged in violence or of legal papers.
  • Inverted: Bob is something capable of such legal or physical harm off the internet (an IP lawyer or a Force Recon Marine on the legal side, an organized crime boss or a Serial Killer on the criminal side for example), but on the internet, he's the most peaceful, self-controlled person possible.
  • Justified: An MMORPG or First-Person Shooter where the goal is to trash-talk and threaten one's opponents, if done in-character.
    • In the case of legal or law enforcement threats, when a problem has become so severe a lawsuit or police intervention is the best of all bad options - and there are legitimate grounds for filing suit or calling the police, such as blatantly, provably libelous statements made by someone with enough position and money to be worth suing, or threats of actual violence made by someone who has shown ability to carry them out.
  • Subverted: Bob threatens someone with something other than violence or lawsuits.
  • Double Subverted: The nonviolent, nonlegal threat is something he's actually capable of doing and he actually carries it out.
  • Deconstructed: No one believes such threats, and the people making them or taking traditional Internet Tough Guy stances are seen as pathetic and wimpy, using threats and bluster as Compensating for Something.
  • Reconstructed: The Internet Tough Guy finds somewhere else that he's actually believed to be what he says he is and can scare people.
  • Lampshaded: "Looks like we have another twelve year old keyboard commando again."
  • Parodied: The things that the Internet Tough Guy says are read out loud in his normal voice.
  • Averted: The shy introvert is still thoughtful and kind on the internet.
  • Enforced:
  • Invoked:
  • Defied:
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs:
  • Played For Drama:
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