Anger causes higher level of engagement. If you see a post or comment you agree on, there's no reason for you to comment. More engagement - more clicks - more ad revenue.

Some people's have natural born desire to seek for conflicts wherever they go - on the internet or outside of it. These people feel right about anything, and constatly seek to prove everyone is inferior around them.

There's a human need to make some kind of impact on others. Some people do it by building up - posting positivity, or creating art, or whatever. Others do it by tearing down - posting insults, or vandalism, and so on.

The negative path is much, much easier.

They’re scared of what they don’t understand. They don’t leave their bubble so they have an extremely narrow world view. When they’re constantly in an echo chamber and that stops working how they expect: RREEEEEEE

And some people are just dicks. They don’t know how to socially interact in a normal way. So they get their jollies “trolling.”

Yeah. I don't get it either. Some people are just miserable and want emotional company.

One of the great things about lemmy is that when I block someone toxic it has a significant impact on the quality of my feed.

Politics isn't always heated. Most politics is actually pretty calm. For example, this post is political, but it's not heated or controversial. I think that treating politics like it can't be calm is what makes posts like this heated.

do people like this genuinely get enjoyment from surrounding themselves with negativity?

it's an emotional outlet. they can't regulate their emotions without lashing out. I just block people that don't know how to get along well with others.

I like to encourage a silly sort of reaction, rather than a hostile one.

I was playing Rocket League the other day, and said that the enemy team's mother buys off-brand baked beans. I got called a doughnut.

If someone is being angry, try calling them various fruit. Then again some people are just straight up chikoos.

There probably is a root cause or at least a cluster of root causes, but I couldn't tell you what.

I've personally known 2 people who fit the profile you're asking about. They get online and they're just so hateful, spiteful, mean, and negative. There's not a lot of commonality between them, but I see some things that might count. Hard for me to know if these are applicable to most people behaving badly online, though.

First and foremost, neither of them behave this way to that extent in person. The worst of their behavior is limited to online interactions. Both of them are terribly flawed people and nowhere near what I would call a great person, though, even in person they are both a lot to handle at times.

These guys have an opinion on literally everything, their opinion is right, and anybody who questions that or has an opposing opinion is to be mocked and belittled. They are egotistical narcissists for sure.

While they seem to have a decent social circle, there are some strange aspects to it. For example, despite all their friends, their family (including close members like parents, children, siblings) are mostly/entirely estranged. And, their friendships often seem a bit shallow and transactional.

These guys both have rigid social expectations of others, and expect other people to follow those standards without having to be asked or told. Like, if a child forgot to say thank you after they were given a gift, they won't ever let that go. 10 years from now, they'll talk about the time that Kimmy didn't say thank you when she was 9. Or if a woman declines their chivalry, then she's a bitch from now until eternity because that's "rude".

There's some pretty subjective opinions on what constitutes "hateful". Some people are just comfortable in their little echo space and refuse to have their world view challenged, and when anyone says something that doesn't align with their particular take on reality they resort to calling people something-phobic. It really goes both ways.

They get their Russian payments.

Affirmation.

They're generally desperately insecure and unable to find anything of any value in themselves, so since they can't build themselves up, they try to tear other people down.

And it doesn't work very well, so if they come to depend on it, they have to do it virtually nonstop.

I think it's the same as with being toxic irl. I would guess it's a sort of revenge against society that has hated these people for doing something before. Or maybe people feel injustice when others do what they can't. Sometimes, your peaceful opinion might be an attack for somebody if it represents something they fight. It also may make these people feel less helpless and more self-worthy, i.e. compensate for the hate they've received themselves. Trauma, to put it simply

There are a lot of reasons for this. Some people never learned how to manage their emotions or how to disagree in a mature manner. A lot of people feel frustrated, angry and powerless in their everyday lives, so being nasty to others online provides a weird sort of catharsis for them. Others simply never acquired the necessary social skills to successfully function in society to any significant degree. Still others are narcissists who derive feelings of power from making others feel small. The list goes on and on.

People often focus their anger at anything but its object to avoid feeling impotent... you know, like when people are having a bad day and thsy snap at something random.

Edit: it's a power thing... you know, "if i can torture/correct/make fun of internet randos then i am not completely powerless, which is what i fear because i feel i have no power over that thing that actually hurts me. I hurt people to feel control over a hostile life."

Being angry is a very easy to access motivated place. I suspect some of the nastier folks just aren't good at motivating themselves otherwise

Go ahead and try it with me

It's all egotistical and to appease what social insecurity that they have against anyone. Some entitled users, think they're disrupting some status quo they believe that they see, so they think that being an asshole, they're disrupting it and 'making it better'. It's all arbitrary bullshit.