Thanks to Myths and Jayelles.
I read an interesting discussion elsewhere about them (and I'm not going to post a link because I do not want the haters harassing people who are consciously steering clear of them). The fact is that they ARE considered to be complete fruitloops and rather like the old guy who stands on street corners yelling at the traffic, people prefer to ignore them rather than acknowledge them and find themselves become the focus of their attention.
It has become clear over the years that nothing will satisfy them short of the search for Madeleine being halted and the McCanns being thrown to the lions. There is absolutely no reasoning with them because they are blinded by hatred. We have seen time and again how they abuse the McCanns for what they speculate they might be doing or thinking. Very little of it is based upon hard fact. All the while they abuse the McCanns, they give a pass to others who have acted with malice and/or genuine criminal intent. They defend p.a.e.d.o.philes whilst attacking the "evil McCanns" - a couple who are desperately trying to find their child. A couple who have even demonstrated that they are prepared to endure this endless abuse because their focus must remain on Madeleine. They are not going to stop pushing for the abductor to be found just to satisfy a group of frothing headbangers. Since Madeleine went missing, their actions are and always have been driven by love for their daughter. They have remained strong in the face of the harassment, libel, stalking and abuse.
Some of the haters are mentally ill people - we can see that and indeed, many of them admit to suffering from depression, bipolar, MPD... Others abuse drink and/or drugs and a minority are just evil people IMO. I think a few are possibly lonely and are only in it for the company. It's hard to believe that anyone would be so desperate, but as long as they are beating up the parents of a missing child, their fellow haters will give them the validation they crave. Inclusion from a hate group is better than loneliness to them.
I think it's easy to become immersed in the "them and us" which goes on between the pros and antis. Ros Hutton has called it a "war" on a couple of occasions and I genuinely believe that this is another element to it. People feel a need to identify with a cause and to fight for that cause - even if it is a bad one. Such is the emptiness of their lives and their detachment from reality. We know a fair bit about some of them and the consensus between myself and a few others whose opinion I respect is that only one or two do not fit "the profile". One of these may well actually fit the profile IF he/she has split from his/her partner in the past year or lost his/her job.
The bottom line is that normal, decent people do not become obsessed with the family of a missing child to the extent that these goons have. Happy, fulfilled and contented people wish others well and are generally too busy with their own lives. They aren't interested in joining groups to spew hatred about a couple they've never met and in fact know very little about. They have neither time nor inclination to endlessly print and distribute pamphlets full of speculation and misinformation about a family who have suffered the most appalling tragedy. They wouldn't contemplate making daily obscene and malicious photoshopped images of the parents of a missing child to circulate on the Internet "for lolz". It's the kind of behaviour one expects from younger teenagers, yet these are people in their middle ages.
In their delusion, they convince themselves that they speak for the majority of people and seem oblivious to the fact that the majority of normal, decent people are actually shunning them. The wise ignore them because to respond to them results in abuse, stalking and harassment - not just of the person who made the response, but to their friends, families and employers too. Better to ignore.
I keep saying it, but I know that some day soon, the law is going to catch up with a few of the ringleaders. Over the past year, the police have slowly but surely been getting their act together in the fight against abusive online behaviour and the abuse against Kate McCann in particular simply cannot be allowed to continue because it is inhuman and barabaric.
That day cannot come quick enough for many of us.
