Voices in My Head
Replay: Social Media Trolling, Online Comments, and Learning to Focus on the Real War
October 11, 2017
Don’t get me wrong, I get it about Social Media. It’s a great way to find out about local events, connect with your family and friends, build new networks, real news, and silly memes. It’s the dark side of it that’s been bugging me. The side where people (assuming it’s real people) hide in wait to hurl the craziest conspiracy theories, personal insults, and death threats at others. I mean social engagement is great but this is nuts.
It all makes me wonder sometimes, what is the point of engaging with people online that you really don’t know or even want to know? My first reaction to the crazy comments to online posts and trolls getting off usually is, “What’s wrong with these people?”. My second reaction is, “Get the f**k outta here!” They’re gone from my life. But, it is sad the one place that was supposed to be about social engagement and building networks has often become something else.
Add the crazy to this question: when did we lose our sense of humor, irony, sarcasm, and perspective. The Word Police. The Drama Police. The “You Can’t Say That” Police. I’m not sure what’s worse, all of them or the “Unless You Believe in What I Believe” Police. This is not just people on the deep right. This is also, and possibly worst, people on the left. Listen, all my life I’ve come to expect a certain type of intolerance and vitriol from the deep right. I also remember some of my encounters with the deep left but more moderate left and right folks who could engage in serious dialogue. Now, it’s about rushing to judgment, being tried online by none of my peers, and sentenced to death in absentia. Oh, don’t think for a minute I don’t believe that some of them really want me dead.
I keep reading and hearing this frightening explanation that Free Speech is not what I think it is. That there is certain speech (I know it when I hear or see it) can never be allowed to fester in the atmosphere because well, it might hurt people’s eyes and ears. Say what? I mean first, who decides what that speech is (I know, you know it when you hear or see it), and second, your eyes and ears might be violated? Well, let’s whack them off the face of the earth.
If I even hear stuff that I think is offensive to me (and you really need to pass a line), my response usually is, “Get the f**ck outta here!” I just maybe listen out of curiosity, turn them off, and just move on. But, I don’t want to whack them. I’m more concerned with that person who is also carrying a big gun while they’re saying whatever they’re saying. Focus on that little fact. They have a lot of guns. Not that they’re saying nasty dumb things.
While we’re getting upset over a video that may be real or not (I want a few more facts before I go get my gun and beret), a stupid meme, or a really creative twist of a demeaning slogan, there’s real political actions and policies being implemented where we need to be focused. Demonstrations and direct action are great. Believe it or not, the harder part is the everyday grassroots political organizing, running candidates, getting them elected, changing policy, those are the more challenging actions and they take a long time. Otherwise, you’re just a mob that gets beaten down once and a while by the state apparatus.
Look, there was never an idyllic time when we all would gather and Kumbaya around the campfire. In my lifetime, whether it was the McCarthy fifties, the civil rights and anti-Vietnam sixties, the affirmative action and everyone else freedom movement seventies, the anti-Reagan eighties…you get the picture…we have always fought, argued, and dissed each other.
This time is different. People seem more deep-rooted angrier, scarier, more divisive than ever in my lifetime (if that’s possible). That’s why I’m more focused on real people with real events. I’m chilling out Social Media Trolling, the Online Comment War, and learning to focus on the real war.
I want to focus more on the everyday people with guns and terror in their souls along with the elected officials and unelected bureaucrats who can do real harm to me and us through economic, political, legal, and violent means. Not just saying it but doing it. While people were smashing windows, blocking a speaker, trolling for memes, or screaming indignantly about emails and waxing on about speeches to Goldman Sachs, the entire crazy right-wing (with a little help from Russia) was organizing dazed and confused voters to elect the most unqualified person in modern presidential history. Now, they’re dismantling government and any progressive legacy we had.
Chill, people, about the dumb stuff and focus on the real stuff. Focus, people, focus.
