It is suprising that many americans, for the lack of a better term, seem to be "butthurt" over this event.
Look at this news on reddit for example, first it was ridiculed, and speculation was high that it might have been a crash or accident, that the Iranians had luck, and that it in fact never happened, just propaganda. Then the Iranians showed it, and many comments said "its old tech any way". Why the butthurtness?
And now, "the takeover wasnt so high tech anyway".
tl;dr - I don't think it's "butthurt" so much as people making it up as they go along.
There is sometimes a cultural or sub-cultural imperative to have and express an opinion on something even when there isn't enough information to go on.
I'm not sure how much of that is being American and how much of that is being on the Internet[0], but essentially it's not enough to just read the news anymore. If you don't have an opinion or belief (preferably a strong one) many people will regard you as ignorant, even if you're working from the same set of facts as they are.
When there's not enough information, it seems that people look first to familiar memes or established narratives. When it comes to US-Iranian relations, it's usually either the idea of American military supremacy (so it must have been an accident or Iranian bluffing) or the idea that the US intends to go to invade Iran any day now (so it's somehow an American ploy to start a war). There is a grain of truth in each which surely plays into the whole truth, but there are far too many unknowns for anybody commenting on the Internet to say with the kind of confident certainty that we so often do.
A site like Reddit (or HN, or anything with a comment box) amplifies this, because people like posting comments, and how can you comment on a story if you haven't decided what your opinion is about it? So people skim the article or just read the headline[1], draw conclusions which may be highly speculative, and then post whatever they think based on at most a few minutes of thought. And they might do this a dozen times a day, for years. So it becomes really natural for people to dash off whatever the easiest thing they can think to say is given the context, even as the context changes and the story evolves. On a popular story you might get dozens or hundreds of people saying the same handful of things.
[0] Or how much of it is what some call "Male Answer Syndome".
[1] Check out the length of headlines on /r/politics/.
The OP was clearly describing the hive-mind of reddit, which does in fact follow American ideologies due to the overwhelming number of Americans who do use it.
However at the same time a lot of them claim to be critical of US govt's policies on war, drones, extra-judicial killings and so on. All that taken into account is surprising that they as a group would rush to discredit Iranians' capability and ridicule this situation.
It is interesting that they are essentially playing along to the US govt. propaganda. The govt. knew what had happened but lied, telling the media a malfunction occurred, and the drone 'drifted' randomly into Iranian territory. I expected them to lie and make shit up. That's fine. But is is interesting that groups liberals are also doing that, without being coerced or forced to do so. It illustrates an interesting process that happens were supposedly fairly liberal individuals still end up White House lapdogs without even realizing it.
It is also funny how after more evidence comes out, neither the media, nor say, Redditors, go back and admit their previous mistake, instead the strategy moves to "ridicule".
It is interesting that they are essentially playing along to the US govt. propaganda. [...] It is also funny how after more evidence comes out, neither the media, nor say, Redditors, go back and admit their previous mistake, instead the strategy moves to "ridicule".
You shouldn't under-estimate how much propaganda being done by a variety of states is being done online through the use of sock puppets. While I'm not trying to claim it's happening on reddit specifically I wouldn't be shocked to find out it was. This is one of the (afaik) stated main purposes for the "persona management stations" that various US military & intelligence services have been procuring and using. I've only heard it framed as foreign language propaganda targeted at conflict areas, but it isn't hard to see the temptation to target US based sites of International appeal.
Look at this news on reddit for example, first it was ridiculed, and speculation was high that it might have been a crash or accident, that the Iranians had luck, and that it in fact never happened, just propaganda. Then the Iranians showed it, and many comments said "its old tech any way". Why the butthurtness?
And now, "the takeover wasnt so high tech anyway".