TL;DR: Ad hominem isn’t just rude; it’s functionally useless and not worth arguing with. The block button is a tool for self care and digital hygiene.

When someone attacks the person making an argument instead of addressing the argument itself, it’s called ad hominem. It’s also great evidence of bots, grifters, trolls, and just downright assholes.

Examples of ad hominem:

• “Of course you’d say that, you’re just a (insult)”

• “You say that because you don’t understand (blank)”

• “You’re criticizing my side for (incriminating thing), but your side did (whataboutism). Hypocrisy!”

• “You only think that because you read it on (group frequently targeted for guilt by association)”

• “You’re just a (insult) who can’t handle reality.”

• “You’ve obviously never taken a (degree) course.”

• “Your opinion is (insult)”

Karma and account age are not accurate ways to tell on Reddit, because these accounts have been spraying and praying for years online, farming karma just like everybody else.

I used to get so riled up about the attacks that it would affect my view of human nature and, indeed, my mental health.

I mean, genuinely, I thought everyone was like this because of how rampant the BS accounts are on every single social media platform. I don’t just mean ‘faith in humanity lost’, I mean I started dissociating from the species because of the genuine cruelty I was met with online.

The personal attacks overrode anything nice that was said, and I wasn’t even online a lot at the time so I couldn’t blame my amount of social media usage.

Eventually, I adopted an online persona, Alien Alexander. Using that literary distancing device, I came online only occasionally when I got an itch and gave it right the fuck back to humanity with scathing reviews of human behavior. I still stand by some of what I said, though a lot of it was exaggerated for effect and impact and influenced by my poor mental health at the time.

The whole “it’s not like this online” argument came in a lot. Also “go outside and touch grass”. Also the petty-ass Reddit care button. (This is condescending performative kindness).

Also—

I’m autistic and struggle to go places and interact with people irl, so all of my human interaction comes from my family and from people online. All of the evidence I had gathered in my entire life growing up with the internet pointed to innate and irreparable evil in humanity, and distinctly few exceptions. It also only seemed to get worse as time went on.

Nowadays, it seems not to be called cyber bullying, and it’s just accepted as an anomaly of internet discourse that everyone just deals with.

The change for me came very recently with the clear reveal of the foreign actors playing Americans on X. It was like a light switch, illuminating human nature and the diseases that make it look uglier than it is. (Ad hominem trolling and fake accounts bent on manipulating public perception).

I value myself more now than I did, so it hurts me none to receive personal attacks (anymore). I also learned to troll back (with civility) and not feel ashamed of blocking people.

Maybe I was late to that realization, but I’m definitely not the only one who has been affected on a deeper level than anyone is ready to admit online by ad hominem attacks.

My advice: The block button is underrated. I love using it.

Can anyone point me to a real-life example of an ad hominem fallacy?

I feel like I've found a few from Trump where he is attacking a person, but he isn't really attacking their argument... is that still ad hominem? Maybe that is considered "ad hominem abusive" though. Not sure. Ad hominem has to be more than just insulting a person... Literally have searched for 10 hours and at this point, I just need another set of eyes.

This is for a homework assignment and it can't already be from an online list of examples-- my teacher will be checking. So maybe sending a link to me rather than the actual quote or quote from a video will keep me safe.

Thanks for any help!