“People create online personas, they say all sorts of things to get a rise out of people, to make a provocative statement or just plain old trolling. ”
I think that people assume that around here a little too quickly sometimes. Posters have done it with other posters as well (besides Joseph). In some cases, it may be a matter of people being complex and having more than one kavana mixed in, so people assume that they are not-serious when in fact they are completely serious but they just have some other things mixed in (I actually am not referring to Joseph with this last sentence, although it may be somewhat true in his case as well).
In other cases, it is just a result of the fact that people have a tendency to be judgmental and also people are influenced by the things that others say about other people and are automatically “mekabel” what others say even though it is assur (but they don’t even realize that is what they are doing and that it is assur).