New Viper owner and Viperclub.com forum member "Lanceromance" thought he'd do a little bragging after besting a Corvette in a street race. One problem: it was a lie, the owner's husband does own a Viper and called him out.
Sir Lanceromance set the whole debacle up like this:
This coupled (sic) tried me on today in a vette. It only took me 4k in 1st gear to pass em. Afterwards I sat and talked to em..really nice people actually. Corvette guys that I've experienced seem to actually respect the Viper and all the jester is in good fun. Hey at least we all like fast cars.
All was going swell and fellow forumites were having a good time poking fun at the lowly Corvette until another forum member, JBW1997, dropped in and ruined all the fun:
CALLING YOU OUT ON THIS ONE LANCERMAN!!! THAT WAS SUNDAY. THAT IS MY WIFE'S CORVETTE! See that the license plate frame says "Vanessa's Corvette." You probalby did not realize we have a Viper too. She hit the gas and you would not even play...and NO, we did not talk afterwards. We saw you take that picture with your camera on Rt.59 and 75th St. You owe the forum an apology for making up this crap.
Oh no he di'int. Turns out the newb Viper driver with only 325 miles on his Snakeskin Green Viper never even ran the race, just took a picture to brag to his forum pals. The plan would have worked flawlessly except for that darn Viper owner in the seat of the Vette.
For some odd reason, Lanceromance has been in forum hiding and hasn't answered the accusation. In the absence of a response, the members have just made fun of him mercilessly. One of the moderators changes his avatar to this great .gif image while someone else took it upon themselves to create an appropriate demotivational poster. The forum members even went into the guys posting history to discover he's been bragging about ripping a hole in the seat of his pants getting out of his new Viper because he was such a buff body builder. Classy. In one of the most satisfying cases of the internet forum pile-on effect we've seen in a while, both Corvette Forums and PlanetLSX picked up on the hilarity and new threads popped up with new shaming and mocking techniques.
Sadly, shaming and mocking is the only effective treatment for the bragging troll syndrome. While the species associated with actual high performance cars is fairly uncommon, it is very widespread genus, with strong populations in the tuner and motorcycling forums. There is no preventative measure against bragging troll syndrome, and natural immunity is though to be hereditary. However it is known to infect those of low self confidence who equate their worth to that of their vehicles. Now that you've seen the effects of bragging troll syndrome, be aware of its symptoms and don't let it infect you. [Viper Club Forum]
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