It is amazing how much difference one antagonistic reader can make to how a statement is interpreted by others. Apart from the priming it makes you a legitimate target.

Quite so. This "bandwagon" behavior is disturbing, and has the unfortunate consequence of incentivizing one to reply to hostile comments immediately (instead of taking time to reflect), to fend off the otherwise inevitable karma onslaught.

Yes, I found Asch's Conformity Experiment pretty amazing too.