For those of you who came by looking for the more physical act of wanking, please keep moving along. Today, we are talking about wanking in a fandom sense, which is to say making an ass of oneself among friends and fans, eventually being mocked for same by people one doesn't know.

1. See the Trees, Damn the Stupid Forest

The first thing any potential wanker must do before setting out to wank is to set aside that most overrated of virtues: perspective. Oh, you've heard of the crisis in Darfur (and may even be able to point out that sad country's location on a map, given two or three tries). You may have a job, a family, and activities outside fandom, away from the Internet. You might be more worried about the price of your next fillup than you are about the airdate of the next episode of Torchwood. You might have a life.

Let it go.

Set aside your so-called "real world" concerns. Sure, the kids are whining and your boss is a jerk and the situation in Afghanistan is a mess and your mortgage payment is going to be late again, but what really matters to you more than anything is that someone you previously liked and admired actually 'ships the unspeakable Dean/Bela instead of the far more righteous and proper Sam/Bela pairing. Clearly, this person needs to be give a Clew, and you are the wielder of the Clewbat. Ignore the deadline you've got on your project, and let her have it! Spend hours on your treatise of why you're right and she's wrong, and let the cat box spill over. This is much more important!

2. Anything You Can Think, I Can Think More Intellectually

It's time for the pseudoacademics to shine! Henry Jenkins (PhD.) made it trendy for fans to use polysyllabic words to describe why they like their shows, but really, we've been doing it ever since the first English major scraped for a topic and presented "Kirk/Spock: A Love Tragedy in Seven Years." We like to meta. Metaing is fun, stretching the mental muscles we may have allowed to atrophy since we fled screaming from our alma maters. Symbolism, metaphor, pacing, language, dialect choices and missteps, poetic allusions and classically-derived scores, these are the joys of meta for your favorite show. We use the fine and gross tools we learned in lit and drama to unfold the depths of meaning in that one scene of Smallville where Clark and Lex are fencing and they're totally flirting only not, because it's TRAGEDY omg.

Now use them to crush your opposition. She says that Colin Baker was obviously the best Doctor. You know in your heart that Sylvester McCoy could totally kick Colin Baker's ass, but rather than saying so in such a vulgar fashion, use your academic background. By which I mean, tell everyone involved that you have an academic background, that you got good grades, ergo you know what you're talking about more than they do. So there.

(An aside: Dr. Merlin understands pseudointellectualism. She's built this column on false posturing and ridiculous discussions of herself in the third person. Thanks for noticing and have a great day!)

3. Making the Personal Important

Next along your voyage of wankery, be sure to point out your personal experiences with the subject at hand, no matter how tangential they may be. If the subject is bestiality, bring up the fact that you owned a goldfish when you were a child. Of course, this will lead to some people asking bout your relationship with the goldfish, that you felt it necessary to mention, so be sure to protest loudly and preemptively that you and Bubbles had a strictly platonic friendship until the day you found him, alas, floating in the tank. If the subject is the morality of writing fanfic about the Middleman as a transvestite prostitute, mention that you wrote a report once about transvestite prostitutes and that made you more aware of their plight than your opponent. (This feeds back to #2.)

Make it about your own particular world and world-view. Make it about the things you've done and seen, and if/when your opposition tries to tell about the things she's done and seen, tell her she's being anecdotal and you believe in real data. (Hope no one notices.)

4. Make the REALLY Personal REALLY Important, Upon a Peak in Darien

At this step, usually when you're losing the argument, you need to regain that lost perspective. When all the mean kids are piling on you just because you said you'd like to see the female lead of your show eaten alive by fire ants so she could get out of the way of your favorite pairing, suddenly it seems like a much more important thing to focus on that whole Darfur situation, huh? Accuse your opponents of not caring enough about the real world. Tell them if they had lives, they'd be out there right now working for social justice, or raising families, or whatever, rather than having stupid arguments on the Internet. You should also comment on their personal hygiene and appearance at this point, or at least your perception of same, because attractive people would have lives.

This is also the point where having a personal tragedy, real or manufactured, comes into play. This is the step that separates the internet arguer from the true wanker.

You've been in an accident. You've twisted your ankle. Your kid is sick. Your grandmother's cat has cancer. Take this and use it. Tell the world about your individual tale of woe, and that'll make them feel bad for being mean to you during your time of personal tragedy.

4b. I Love My Dead Gay Wanker

If you don't have a tale of woe, this will involve some creativity and even some commitment on your part. You may have to claim a recent diagnosis of a serious, even terminal illness.

If things are serious enough in your argument, and you really really need to pull out a moral win, you might want to consider creating a sockpuppet (or enlisting a gullible friend) to report your sudden demise. Pseuicide is popular (and painless!) but being struck by a car, succumbing to aforementioned pretend illness, or other conveniently-not-in-the-paper disaster will suffice.

The commitment part comes in here. If you've just been in a high-profile flamewar, someone will wonder if you've faked your own death. You may have to bribe the local hospitals, mortuaries and newspapers to go along with your ruse. (Be careful not to accidentally double-book your death at two different hospitals or funeral homes, though!) Then, create a new identity, come back to your old haunts, and either be the bearer of the sad news yourself if not enough people have noticed yet, or just sit back and bask in the glow of their tears as they say good-bye. Sure, if you start posting again, someone will eventually trace your writing style, posting habits and IP address back to you, but then you can really let the wankage fly.

5. Blame Canada

Just because you called your primary opponent's mother a whore, said anyone who 'ships John/Rodney approves of child slavery in Indonesia, called the owner of the ISP where the board you hang out is hosted to let them know the mod is wanted in three states on racketeering and drug charges, got banned from Stupid_Free, anonymously (only everyone knew it was you) flamed the comments section of every Bruce/Clark story you could find on FF.net, faked your own death from Coke, and then came back as your own twin cousin from Saskatoon, is no reason for people to think any of this was your fault. You need a scapegoat.

The most infamous scapegoat is of course The Nanny Who Used Our Internet, but that's been done. You may have to blame a burglar, your preteen, your soon-to-be-ex spouse, your neighbor stealing your wireless signal, or even your superintelligent Yorkshire terrier. Bad dog. Bad, bad dog.

Perhaps you can claim it was a social experiment. None of that was really you or what you thought, you just wanted to see how people would react if you poked them a certain way. Like that teacher who made his students act like Nazis, yeah. And everyone should totally forgive you for being made part of your experiment, because it was all for the lulz.

Lack of meds, lack of sleep, these things mostly apply to #4 unless you're using them as a reason to end the discussion in your favor. Don't rule them out if you're in need of a good excuse.

6. Never Give Up, Never Surrender

At no point during the wanking process should you consider backing away from the discussion, giving yourself mandatory cool-off periods of a day or two between heated comments, going for walks or actually dealing with the life you've remembered you have. You should definitely not decide that staying in is only going to make things worse, or that dropping it before you start comparing Dumbledore/Grindelwald 'shippers to Stalin (fascists: the other Nazi comparison, now with bonus Godwin!) might save you face in the morning after you've had your coffee and realize what you said. You should NEVER realize what you said; acknowledging the other side has a point too is a sign of weakness, and a true wanker will never admit it.

If you feel you must apologize, be sure to offer an apology that has nothing to do with the actual content of why your opponent is upset. Tell her instead that you are sorry she was offended, not that you're sorry you offended her or that you understand what was offensive about what you said. Otherwise, you are admitting that you are wrong, and true wankers never admit wrongdoing.

7. Collect the Survivors and Form a New Civilization on a Desert Island With You As Their God

After the wankstorm, or even as it is still smouldering without you, gather your remaining allies, create a new Livejournal or other private webspace, invite in only the few loyal minions you can trust, and bunker down. Change your journal name a couple of times if necessary so that fans who have been warned about CraisMom and HotSebacian can find new life and anonymity (with pals) as MadreDeTalyn, and none of your enemies will be the wiser except those who follow name change tokens.

Start writing in a new fandom. Branch out into profic, and blame any professional setbacks on your old fandom enemies.

Hold grudges. When you encounter your old enemies in new settings, be sure to keep alive the fire of vengeance in your heart against them for old wrongs, and assume anything they say or do is related to the last time you tangled. Report them to wank and Sue comms preemptively, save screencaps of anything you might be able to use against them later, and view their friends with distrust. If you run into them at a convention years later, be sure to bring it all back up to the surface, loudly, in front of the guests of honor.

8. Old Boss, Redux

Repeat as necessary, until you realize you are not a special snowflake, your opinions on the Internet are worth the same as everyone else's (even the Harry/Ginny 'shippers), no one is impressed with your GPA, your life experiences are not exactly the same as those of other fans, your life is your life and your foes' lives are their lives and unless you're an A-list celebrity or politician no one cares about your RL woes, liars eventually get caught, n00bs eventually grow up, and there's always someone who will recognize the person who peed in the pool last year.

You don't have to be good. You don't have to be nice. But if you're going to wank, don't be stupid about it, and wash your hand when you're finished.