Thoughts on communication...
Okay... I'm having a fragmented set of thoughts today about the way we communicate online.
This is partly coming from the fact that I am waiting - just waiting - for someone to come along and comment on one of Jay's press pieces and try to create some kind of argument. Heaven forbid it involves them trying to defend Mark or trying to make it into a race/gender issue, i.e. she was a little white girl/Mark is a POC/wouldn't it be different if specified genders/colors were different in this situation/etc.
I guess my anticipation of this issue shows a lack of trust in humanity on my part, but it lost my trust a long time ago and now I'm just trying to figure out the best way to function...
It seems a lot of people like to go from article to article, post to post, commenting and trying to see to what extent they can cause a fight and to what extent they can piss people off. I know some of these are probably trolls, but I honestly think that some are just normal article-readers who genuinely feel not only protected, but completely justified being assholes on the internet (anonymous as it is or can be).
It's fine if folks disagree - but from HuffPost to Inside Higher Ed to the stupid celebrity columns I come across, it just seems that people are SO READY to thrown down the gauntlet over whatever it is that's been printed. I just don't understand why. In particular, I don't understand the need to belittle and insult the original poster.
Don't agree with a blogger's opinions? Great. Disagree. Have an intellectual discourse, even! I'll just never understand why people feel the need to immediately defend the alternate point of view in a rude, disrespectful, insulting manner. I'll never understand the impulse to be mean to complete strangers for no legitimate reason.
I.E. I don't agree with you so therefore you are automatically a fuckhead and should be greeted with ridicule.
I just... don't know?
NOW THIS IS NOT TO SAY, of course, that if someone writes something deliberately belligerent and hateful, something that OUTRIGHT attacks you or your identity on a personal level, that you shouldn't respond in kind. It's probably appropriate to respond that way.
But for example, why are there so many hateful comments on Ashley Judd's rebuttal to the media's stupid obsession with her "puffy face"? The commenters on her response are proving exactly what she's brought up - that much of media coverage on women is misogynistic discourse. Moreover, it seems like in this and in other articles of a similar nature, there are many who feel the need to step up and say, "Oh yeah you think women have it hard well men have it HARDER." In many of these articles, nobody says ANYTHING about men having it easy or even that all men or all women are guilty of the types of abuses mentioned. However, that's always that one who feels the need to negate whatever struggle is highlighted by claiming that there is another, greater struggle somewhere else.
Yeah. Life is full of struggle. But why does that mean that a random flippant commenter’s struggle is more valid than the one Judd has written about? Nobody claimed the reverse to be true. It's almost an entirely other discussion but I read SO MANY feminist articles that are torn down in the comment section by people doing the "Oh yeah you think you have it so hard WELL LOOK AT THIS" dance.
I just don't even... for the love of just treat people with compassion there would be so many fewer problems in the world if people did the end.
:D
This is partly coming from the fact that I am waiting - just waiting - for someone to come along and comment on one of Jay's press pieces and try to create some kind of argument. Heaven forbid it involves them trying to defend Mark or trying to make it into a race/gender issue, i.e. she was a little white girl/Mark is a POC/wouldn't it be different if specified genders/colors were different in this situation/etc.
I guess my anticipation of this issue shows a lack of trust in humanity on my part, but it lost my trust a long time ago and now I'm just trying to figure out the best way to function...
It seems a lot of people like to go from article to article, post to post, commenting and trying to see to what extent they can cause a fight and to what extent they can piss people off. I know some of these are probably trolls, but I honestly think that some are just normal article-readers who genuinely feel not only protected, but completely justified being assholes on the internet (anonymous as it is or can be).
It's fine if folks disagree - but from HuffPost to Inside Higher Ed to the stupid celebrity columns I come across, it just seems that people are SO READY to thrown down the gauntlet over whatever it is that's been printed. I just don't understand why. In particular, I don't understand the need to belittle and insult the original poster.
Don't agree with a blogger's opinions? Great. Disagree. Have an intellectual discourse, even! I'll just never understand why people feel the need to immediately defend the alternate point of view in a rude, disrespectful, insulting manner. I'll never understand the impulse to be mean to complete strangers for no legitimate reason.
I.E. I don't agree with you so therefore you are automatically a fuckhead and should be greeted with ridicule.
I just... don't know?
NOW THIS IS NOT TO SAY, of course, that if someone writes something deliberately belligerent and hateful, something that OUTRIGHT attacks you or your identity on a personal level, that you shouldn't respond in kind. It's probably appropriate to respond that way.
But for example, why are there so many hateful comments on Ashley Judd's rebuttal to the media's stupid obsession with her "puffy face"? The commenters on her response are proving exactly what she's brought up - that much of media coverage on women is misogynistic discourse. Moreover, it seems like in this and in other articles of a similar nature, there are many who feel the need to step up and say, "Oh yeah you think women have it hard well men have it HARDER." In many of these articles, nobody says ANYTHING about men having it easy or even that all men or all women are guilty of the types of abuses mentioned. However, that's always that one who feels the need to negate whatever struggle is highlighted by claiming that there is another, greater struggle somewhere else.
Yeah. Life is full of struggle. But why does that mean that a random flippant commenter’s struggle is more valid than the one Judd has written about? Nobody claimed the reverse to be true. It's almost an entirely other discussion but I read SO MANY feminist articles that are torn down in the comment section by people doing the "Oh yeah you think you have it so hard WELL LOOK AT THIS" dance.
I just don't even... for the love of just treat people with compassion there would be so many fewer problems in the world if people did the end.
:D