Anger: What Riles You Up?

Thanks to everyone who responded to the Big Ol' Anger Survey! You'll notice the entry is friends-only now. I didn't expect people to get quite so confessional. You folks rock.

Let's start with the results to the first question: What gets you angry? (Just like JMPP, I'm reducing everything to numbers. You are 89.3456% angrier than the general population.)


Click on Clarence and his friend to find out what makes Harlem angry.

Injustice tops out the list by a huge margin. Fourteen of you listed injustice, cruelty, or oppression. Somehow, this is not surprising. Closely related—some form of intolerance, bigotry, misogyny, racism, or general asshaberdashery pissed off seven of you.

The next biggest grouping had to do with being dismissed, condescended to, or otherwise not taken seriously: Seven people got riled up about that.

Seven people hate teh stupid.

Six people felt some sort of antagonism towards authority figures, be they Bush or your teacher.

Other significant irritations: lying (4), everything (4), the news or some current event (3), yourselves or your own failings (3), other people (3), the media (2), frustration or unmet expectations (2), entitlement (2), and bad drivers or slow walkers (2). Five of you said something specific that couldn't be grouped with anything else. Three of you were obviously trying to make me laugh. (It worked. By the by, "Pluto-huggers" was my favourite response.) I found it odd that only one person mentioned betrayal, so I didn't group it with the rest of the miscellaneous responses.

The idea I started with is that anger gets a bad rap because it is the emotion most capable of producing change. It's anecdotal, but your responses do seem to fit neatly with that. Hmmm.

Also surprising: Not a one of you mentioned Harlan Ellison grabbing Connie Willis's boob at the Hugos, despite Boobiegate being the one of the leading sources of anger in the blogosphere at the moment. What gives, people?

Anger: What Riles You Up?

Thanks to everyone who responded to the Big Ol' Anger Survey! You'll notice the entry is friends-only now. I didn't expect people to get quite so confessional. You folks rock.

Let's start with the results to the first question: What gets you angry? (Just like JMPP, I'm reducing everything to numbers. You are 89.3456% angrier than the general population.)


Click on Clarence and his friend to find out what makes Harlem angry.

Injustice tops out the list by a huge margin. Fourteen of you listed injustice, cruelty, or oppression. Somehow, this is not surprising. Closely related—some form of intolerance, bigotry, misogyny, racism, or general asshaberdashery pissed off seven of you.

The next biggest grouping had to do with being dismissed, condescended to, or otherwise not taken seriously: Seven people got riled up about that.

Seven people hate teh stupid.

Six people felt some sort of antagonism towards authority figures, be they Bush or your teacher.

Other significant irritations: lying (4), everything (4), the news or some current event (3), yourselves or your own failings (3), other people (3), the media (2), frustration or unmet expectations (2), entitlement (2), and bad drivers or slow walkers (2). Five of you said something specific that couldn't be grouped with anything else. Three of you were obviously trying to make me laugh. (It worked. By the by, "Pluto-huggers" was my favourite response.) I found it odd that only one person mentioned betrayal, so I didn't group it with the rest of the miscellaneous responses.

The idea I started with is that anger gets a bad rap because it is the emotion most capable of producing change. It's anecdotal, but your responses do seem to fit neatly with that. Hmmm.

Also surprising: Not a one of you mentioned Harlan Ellison grabbing Connie Willis's boob at the Hugos, despite Boobiegate being the one of the leading sources of anger in the blogosphere at the moment. What gives, people?