You Don’t Win Internet Fights by Yelling Louder
Why calm always wins — even online
The internet brings out the worst in people.
It’s a place where everyone wants to be right, but no one wants to learn.
People think arguing online is about domination — about clever insults, fast fingers, and outsmarting the other guy.
It’s not.
It’s about composure.
It’s about control.
I got into a “debate” recently — or what started as one — about immigration, identity, and belonging.
By the second comment, it was all slurs and cheap shots.
Someone even told me to “get out of their country.”
Another threatened to call ICE — on a Canadian.
Living in Canada.
And when that didn’t work, they went lower.
They even reduced themselves to insulting my life’s work.
“Karate? Karate is shit.”
Buddy, don’t test me on my karate.
I don’t need your validation.
This guy had to look me up to even know I did karate.
To what end?
He went out of his way to learn more about me — just to throw an insult my way.
Like he could ever understand forty-one years of dedication to learning and self-improvement.
Maybe that’s the real problem: validation.
People go online looking for it, and when they find constructive criticism instead, they don’t know how to take it.
No — not maybe. That’s it right there.
And if you don’t believe me, fact check me.
I know what I can do.
I know what I’m worth — and believe me, it’s a lot more than what people like that are capable of.
I don’t need to test my karate against someone with no openness to learning.
I’ll knock a loser like that down any day — not with a punch, but with patience.
Because I’ve devoted my life to putting myself at the bottom wherever I go, so I can learn something.
Every opportunity is an opportunity for growth.
But if you don’t allow yourself to learn —
if being right is more important than being better —
if validation is your fuel —
then I don’t know what to tell you, except this:
You are wrong.
And you will never be right.
Karate taught me that control isn’t about overpowering someone — it’s about not needing to.
The same applies online.
You can throw a hundred verbal punches and never land a thing.
Or you can stand still, breathe, and let your opponent tire themselves out.
The internet is just another kind of dojo.
Every comment section is a sparring floor.
You step in, test your timing, your discipline, your patience.
And sometimes — like in real sparring — you realize the best counter is none at all.
Because the second you start fighting angry, you’ve already lost.
You’re not arguing anymore — you’re reacting.
And reaction is weakness disguised as conviction.
People mistake loudness for strength, but real power is quiet.
Measured.
Certain.
If you’ve ever trained in martial arts, you know this feeling.
The moment your opponent swings too wild, you already know how the match ends.
It’s the same thing here.
When someone comes at you with rage, you can almost see the imbalance in their stance.
You don’t need to strike.
You just need to let them trip over themselves.
And they always do.
They stumble on their contradictions, choke on their certainty, and expose everything they were trying to hide — fear, insecurity, loneliness, and yes, xenophobia.
Because that’s what really drives it —
not logic,
not conviction,
not facts.
Just raw emotion looking for a place to land.
Ego is the mask.
Fear is the face underneath.
And when someone argues from fear, they always overextend.
They swing too wild.
They forget what they’re fighting for.
That’s not victory — that’s gravity.
The truth doesn’t need defending.
It just needs space to breathe.
So next time someone comes for you online — calls you names, twists your words, or tells you to get out of their country when you’re literally standing in your own — remember:
You don’t have to win the fight.
You just have to stay standing when it’s over.
You don’t win internet fights by yelling louder.
You win them by refusing to kneel to the noise.
Don’t think so?
Fact check me.