Sometimes I forget not to read comments on the internet
I read Consumerist fairly regularly, although I take the occasional break from it so I don't lose all faith in financial transactions (buying, selling, minding your own business and getting trouble anyway). However, what really drives me away from the site? The people who post comments on the various blog entries about how one person or another is being screwed by one company or another. These comments are frequently nasty, most often than not in the form of concern trolling, and they almost always blame the people being hurt for their own problem.
Take, for example, a woman who speaks little to no English being kicked off a bus for having a crying baby. Instead of recognizing that stranding a woman off the side of the road--booting her from public transit, no less--is an unconscionable act, the comments are rife with people bemoaning how hard it must be, how dangerous for a bus driver to have to try to drive with a kid screaming in the back. (Who may or may not have been making noise at all, to say nothing of screaming.) Almost nowhere? Sympathy for this woman. No one on the internet ever makes the mistake of doing anything that would generate an unreasonable response, apparently. No one is ever penalized for no reason. These people must not live in fucking reality.
It's a common problem, these sorts of comments, such that there are memes around these sorts of responses, i.e. commenters who chime in with "In before someone blames the OP [original poster, I think]" because, inevitably, even if you're a victim of a senseless crime in which you cannot remotely be assumed to be responsible, someone will say it's your fault. Your baby was crying, ergo, get the fuck off the bus. You were in a bad neighborhood, so you deserved to be shot/stabbed/raped/mugged. It's really, really gross. I need not to read comments any more. This is my reminder to not do that.
Take, for example, a woman who speaks little to no English being kicked off a bus for having a crying baby. Instead of recognizing that stranding a woman off the side of the road--booting her from public transit, no less--is an unconscionable act, the comments are rife with people bemoaning how hard it must be, how dangerous for a bus driver to have to try to drive with a kid screaming in the back. (Who may or may not have been making noise at all, to say nothing of screaming.) Almost nowhere? Sympathy for this woman. No one on the internet ever makes the mistake of doing anything that would generate an unreasonable response, apparently. No one is ever penalized for no reason. These people must not live in fucking reality.
It's a common problem, these sorts of comments, such that there are memes around these sorts of responses, i.e. commenters who chime in with "In before someone blames the OP [original poster, I think]" because, inevitably, even if you're a victim of a senseless crime in which you cannot remotely be assumed to be responsible, someone will say it's your fault. Your baby was crying, ergo, get the fuck off the bus. You were in a bad neighborhood, so you deserved to be shot/stabbed/raped/mugged. It's really, really gross. I need not to read comments any more. This is my reminder to not do that.