Vendetta:
The result of the absurd idea that one will feel better after one's opponent is verbally or physically hacked to bits.
I was once the victim of a nonsensical vendetta by a rude girl with a bad case of Copycat Syndrome. As is usually the case with this disease, the girl first copied me, then found out I knew, and THEN began to defend her perceived "right" to copy from me against my will. When asked to remove my writing from her Web site, my copycat began her vendetta. Because she had been caught being unoriginal and knew quite well that what she'd done was unethical, unimaginative, and LAME, she sought to destroy me and any evidence of my superiority. It became a crusade . . . "oh! swankivy has made me feel bad about myself! i must launch a full attack on her!"
Did I mention that she is insane?
I did not make this writeup in order to itemize the details of her copyright infringment, however. I did it to bring a question into the spotlight: Why is it that some people seem to think attacking other people will make them feel better about themselves? How does a vendetta to push down another person elevate the attacker? It just does, I guess. Despite the fact that my crime in this case was my unwillingness to allow the uncredited use of my own personal material, this girl apparently decided it was a crime worth punishing. Worth punishing with a whirlwind of fury, ego, and pointless insults, all the while attempting to show me as the "bad guy" and to convince herself that I was the bitch.
I believe that most people who allow themselves to be controlled by vendettas actually are more upset with themselves than with their victims. And I'll bet you anything that after all the trouble my copycat went through to discredit me (trying to make it look like I copied her, announcing that I was jealous of her, constantly signing her own online guestbook--and mine--pretending to be random people concerned about the issue) . . . after all that, I'll bet you she still feels like she lost. Because in my eyes, there was no fight.