In Defence of Vent Posting

If you've been on the Internet, you've seen someone venting. The act of sharing anger, sadness, grief—usually with vulnerable, personal details.

Almost universally, these get a bad rap. People are often drained, or annoyed, or resentful towards those who vent, and communities go out of their way to prohibit it. Not to pick on 32-bit Café, but they have a detailed section on mental health topics and discussions in their [community guidelines](https://discourse.32bit.cafe/guidelines):

The 32-Bit Cafe is not a replacement for support groups, therapy, or mental health organizations.

There are excellent arguments against venting that they list, and I'm not trying to change any minds here; however, I do want to write a post in defense of the venters, because I think someone has to.

Something I haven't written about on this blog yet is that I've been a Listener on [7cups](https://7cups.com/@maplepenguin) for over ten years. I've had text conversations with hundreds of strangers, trying to console and comfort them to the best of my abilities as a layperson crisis support volunteer. The spectrum ranged from people who just needed someone to talk to about minor stresses, and say what they've been harbouring out loud in order to let it go. And on the other end, people who had active dangerous plans they were enacting and that I was not qualified for, nor what the site was intended to handle.

What I learned quickly is that, for the most part, people just want to be seen and heard. To have the immeasurable weight of their burdens and trauma they carry to be a gravity felt by others, no matter how temporarily. People want to know that the intensity of their emotions isn't irrational, or too much.

Psychologist Bernard Rimé studied the [social sharing of emotion](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237332741_Social_Sharing_of_Emotion_New_Evidence_and_New_Questions), between 88% and 96% of emotional experiences get talked about with someone else, usually within hours of happening. It's just something we do. And when someone [listens well, the sharing strengthens the bond between people](https://www.ehu.eus/documents/1463215/1504269/Rime_(2007)_Journal_of_Social_Issues.pdf), because the listener's attention and empathy are reflected back to the person who vented, and the venter feels closer to the listener. A related study on friends [working through stress together](https://www.simplypsychology.org/why-obsessing-over-problems-with-friends-actually-helps.html) found benefit comes from both parties in the exchange, not from one person tolerating the other. Venting is how we've always regulated emotion. Together instead of alone.

And we *are* talking about the web, here. [#vent channels on Discord](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.19166) have allowed people