This troper recommends reading the HeartwarmingMoments pages to anyone who goes through things like these. In my comparatively dark moments (which luckily don't approach anything like these often), it's a real aid.

This troper really ''really'' gave up all hope for the people who were nice to him after seeing people morph into some of the most hypocritical jackasses over the ''pettiest'' things. Really...you don't want to know what happened, but I had these happen with FanDumb and HateDumb...and that was just throwing salt in the wounds of other sorts of shit that happened.

As long as you don't become one too, and try to shine through the darkness, and be for others what most weren't for you, there's always hope.

This troper had something of a DespairEventHorizon when his internet forum degenerated from a place dedicated to civil discourse to a cesspool of hate speech, and finally self-destructed when the hosting company got sick of it all. I came to realize that the Internet (except for TvTropes, of course) is largely populated by Jerkwads, and that trying to get people to act civil toward each other will get you called, at best, a killjoy, and at worst, a fascist. And that maybe there really is no place on the Internet for intelligent, rational discussion of important things. It also gave me something of a HeelRealization, since the forum was largely composed of outcasts from another message board. We migrated to escape the Jerkwad behavior we percieved there...and then WE became the Jerkwads to each other. Or maybe we always were the Jerkwads, and they were right to cast us out...

SNDL: This is how I felt at the end of December 2, 2007; due to reasons I know I'm not allowed to put here. Next day in early morning, however....

This troper is recently hitting one and is ready to just leave ''LeagueOfLegends'' forever. I'll tell you why: I wound up playing a game with DefenseOfTheAncients and HeroesOfNewearth players. Traumatic flashbacks to the times I played ''DefenseOfTheAncients''...horror...the horror...the scummunity of the game practically turned me off from ever playing multiplayer games.

This troper crossed it several years ago, following four years of caring for a girlfriend with severe agoraphobia, a suicide attempt after both of his closest friends abandoned him within ten minutes of each other, and the slow death of his father to lung cancer. I'm still there.

This Troper has been disappointed with the staggering amounts of willfull ignorance and sheer stupidity exhibited by many ''many'' people in his country (including at least one of our major political parties) for a while now, but what really drove it home was seeing a list of countries based on things such as (low) infant mortality, scientific literacy, lack of corruption in government, and the like... and the United States is nowhere near the number one spot in any of them. Fuck you, history classes that teach American exceptionalism! YOU LIE! That, combined with the over-the-top ActivistFundamentalistAntics that have become par for the course for one political party, and the sheer unwillingness of the other political party to go about fixing things, has convinced me that I will be a very old man indeed when the United States ceases to be an Acceptable Nationality Target and is treated with the same respect as the rest of the First World... assuming I even live that long to see it happen. For all I know it might take centuries to undo all the stuff that the South knowingly and deliberately ruined.

It doesn't take much to lose hope. For the most part, the reason that most of the world is so apathetic is because they have looked around them and realised that there isn't much to hope for, and that they should deal with whatever happens. Now, for the unfortunate few people of this world who just can't look away...we break. We become so tired sick of seeing the violence and depravity that always lurks just beneath the surface, ready to come up and devour us whole. We begin to see the eyes that we once saw only from within the maw of the abyss in our own mirror, and we lose all faith in ourselves, in humanity, and in higher powers. When this happens, people change. Some die by their own hand, but the rest evolve. Some find principles that must be lived by. Some go mad from the revelation and go into hiding. Some take up arms and fight, trying desperately to change things. Call them a hero or a villain, however way you want. What's important is that it is these people who try to influence the world, and the reason that they become what they do is because they despair.