Why are people so mean?

They're upset about their lives

?

people have been mean to them--when they were young--they were humiliated and treated badly

I think a lot of it has to do with selfishness. People think they're the most important person in the world and everyone else is just an extra in the movie of their life - so they can treat them however they'd like. You add in to that the whole "entitlement" attitude people have nowadays and it gets worse.

they are probably only sometimes mean. and they probably don't know that they're being mean. different cultural or social expectations. or they probably had a bad day. my favorite thing to do in that case is to stick my tongue out at someone who's being mean. it disarms people with incredible swiftness.

Most people are generally good but may be having a bad day. There are, however, a few people who are just plain evil. I used to be a guard at a state prison, and met some people like Richard Speck who were just plain mean all the way down to the bone, all the time. I have found that being aggressively nice and friendly is a good response.

Someone was or is mean to them. I have great success in using kindness & courtesy to break this terrible cycle. It's quite contagious.

It's a result of anxieties that stem from major insecurities. Insecurities can come on at any age, but I've found the most mean people have major power or control issues. Anything from a failed relationship, to treatment by family, to a recent berating by a boss can set this off.

I'm a mean person. I'm no more insecure than an average "nice" person and no one was particular mean in my pleasant suburban childhood. It comes from two places. First, I believe that tactless brutal honesty is infinitely preferable to allowing self-unawareness continue. Second, when something irritates me, I announce it. When something inspires me, I announce that too. Finally, "mean" is in the eye of the beholder; it depends on how thin your skin is.

most people are mean because they want to protect themselves making them look strong and secure but most the time those people are th most insecure peoples..

What does one do when brutal honesty is FALSE? Now thats mean. I guess its coming from the brutal honest dumb struck mind; the mind that thinks in quasi negatives as hes thinking about himself while looking at someone else…

Whatever flows from the mouth…flows from the heart….

In Singapore, we call people who are constantly mean to others “chee bye“s.
Chee Bye is a word of Hokkien origin to denote those people who may
have left the womb through the cunt but continues to carry the smell of their
origin into adulthood. It is thought they these people, the chee byes, are under
a curse because just before they were born, their mothers didn’t have time to wash
themselves down there. They are normally born deformed in some way, not
physically but in their emotional and psychological structures. They don’t get along with
other normal people but excel when lumped in a group with other chee byes. In
Singapore, we call a gang of such people “chow chee bye”. Chow denotes “smelly.
malodorous” and implies a group of such people gathering together producing a moral
stench equivalent to the you know what when unwashed for a couple of years. Sad to say, some people are born chow chee bye. You just have to change their names to Chee Bye. Each time you see such a person, just a friendly, “Hello, how’s you day been. chee bye?” should do the trick in making them see their own grossness.

they want revenge. that’s all. lol. eye for an eye ay! But my grandmother says that’ll leave EVERYONE blind.