ethereal vandalism

[johncomic]

In the past, I have wondered about what moves people to commit acts of vandalism. Why destroy rather than create? (To me, as a creator, it makes no sense.) But eventually I decided that at least part of the motivation is the need to feel powerful, to have a sense of agency: the desire to cause things to happen, to make a visible difference in the world (for good or ill) that people could not prevent you from making. To leave some sort of mark on the world of your own design. 

More recently, I have been wondering why people deliberately create hoaxes and false news items**, distributing them and freaking people out, if only for a time. And now I suspect that what this is, is vandalizing people's minds.


** not all of them are Russian trolls, eh