If you play online games, even if you 've never heard the term "griefer", you've likely met one. A griefer is a player who enters a game or chatroom with the sole intent of disrupting or ruining every one else's game.

Spouting constant profanity or racial epithets, saluting Hitler, insulting other players or simply interrupting an otherwise harmonious gaming experience, you know the griefer when you meet him (I say him because I've yet to encounter a female griefer in 10+ years of online gaming).

GamePro's Sid Vicious (the irony is not lost on us) spoke with a psychiatrist about the griefer phenomenon in an effort to learn more about what motivates griefer behavior. No report as to whether or not Sid plans to schedule a later appointment for himself.

The pyschiatrist sites many plausible reasons, including a misguided desire to lead, but we're gonna stick with our reasoning that griefers only do what they do from loneliness caused by a general lack of social skills combined with a vitamin D deficiency from underexposure to sunlight.