also posted this on Facebook
One of the weird things to me about viral social media is that lots of people become obsessed about individual cases that may or may not reflect statistical models of the entire population. This one person was raped. This one animal was killed. This one human was killed. These viral stories represent, to me, the primacy of anecdotes over data. Rather than looking at the overall incidence of sexual assault and who is more at risk and how to reduce that risk -- what should be our public-health approach -- as a nation we obsess over whether one particular incident was prosecuted correctly and whether one particular person should be ashamed of his behavior.
It's a big waste of time, and should be classified as entertainment, not social activism. It is the public stoning of biblical times, updated for current technologies -- we throw "likes" and "shares" instead of stones. At least this way is less bloody.
It's a big waste of time, and should be classified as entertainment, not social activism. It is the public stoning of biblical times, updated for current technologies -- we throw "likes" and "shares" instead of stones. At least this way is less bloody.