The Internet is Weird!!!!

If you have gone a day in the last month where you haven’t used the internet raise your hand. That’s what I thought, none of you. We use the internet every day whether we are on social media, checking email, reading the news, or have fallen into one of the other thousand rabbit holes you could fall into on the internet. In the last 6 months I have been spending more time on the internet, mostly due to increased time on social media, and the jury is still out on whether or not that is a good or bad thing. However, one thing is for sure.

The internet is a strange place.

Don’t get me wrong I have met some fantastic people through social media, and I absolutely consider them friends even though we haven’t met in real life. You all know who you are. But I have also run into some interesting situations and people on the internet and that is really what I want to talk about. In the last couple of months I have had more than one. . .uh. . .interesting encounter on the internet.

The bulk of these have occurred on YouTube, I have a few YouTubers that I follow pretty religiously and often comment on their videos. Three times over the last couple of months someone has responded to a comment I made with some pretty nasty insults about my character or appearance, which really in no way even relates to the video or the content of my comment. Truth be told I don’t let these types of things bother me that much, although when you aren’t expecting it, it can side swipe you for a minute. And usually the comments are gone by the time I even get notification that they were posted. That being said am I the only one that thinks it’s odd to attack a person you’ve never even talked to let alone met?

The other area, in which I see some of the most hateful attacking comments, are on new stories. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a political story, a tragedy, or a fluff piece about a celebrity. EVERYONE has an opinion, and sometimes people’s opinions are downright nasty. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you politically doesn’t mean they are stupid or unpatriotic. The tragic death of a child in an accident is not a time for you to comment on how stupid you think the parents are for letting the child do X, Y or Z in the first place. And for heaven’s sake celebrities are people too and what gives us the right to tear them apart because of their appearance or the things they do or don’t do?

Now don’t get me wrong there are times that I read a news story that makes me frustrated, and there are times I struggle to understand the other side of an issues. And when I get really worked up I have been known to think to myself or even say out loud and I find something or someone to be idiotic. We all do, we are all human, and we are all flawed. However the absolute vitriol that gets spewed on the internet is disturbing. I often wonder, would these people say these things to another human beings face? Or is it the anonymity of the internet that allow someone to spew such hatred?

I suspect it’s the latter that makes people comfortable with being as audacious as they are with their comments on the internet. That being said maybe if we weren’t so divisive in our daily lives and comments, it would improve our overall way of the seeing other people and maybe we could have a little less of an us versus them attitude. Some would argue with me that it’s the media’s fault for the “us versus them” attitude and they need to stop being divisive in how they report the news. The reality is that the media is a reflection of us. They write and print what sells, if we decided we didn’t want all the drama and hatred in our magazines and papers and stopped supporting media sources that printed stories that way, it would change.

I could go off on several tangents from here but I’m not going to. My final thoughts are these. Maybe when we read a story on the internet we should take a step back and see if we can understand both sides of the argument before leaving a comment. And when you do leave a comment whether on a news story or on a social media format, take a moment and ask yourself, would I say this to a person’s face, even if they were a stranger? If the answer is no, then maybe your comment needs revision. If you answer is yes and it’s a comment full of hatred, well that’s probably a topic for another blog entry.

Be kind to your fellow humans, we are all doing the best we can to make it in this world. 

There's Still Good People Out There

Some days it’s pretty easy to get swept away in the negativity in the world. Politicians arguing in the latest debate, nasty comments left on a post or story on the internet because they don’t agree with each other. All too often these days it seems that we focus on the ways in which we are different from each other rather than the ways in which we are similar. At the end of the day most of us are just humans doing our best to make in this world and make what we believe to be the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and the world we live in. That makes us more similar than anything.

Despite the negativity that seems to fill my TV and computer screen and the lack of friendly greetings when you pass someone on the street, occasionally something happens that gives me hope that maybe this world isn’t as negative as the media would like us to believe. That happened to my office mate, Emily, and I last week. So let me tell you a story.

Emily and I recently purchased new chairs for the waiting room, which left us trying to figure out what to do with the old ones. The chairs we had were actually in good shape except the seat covers had been torn. So we figured we could donate them and someone else could get some use out of them or would may want to recover the seats. The day came to load the chairs up in Emily’s SUV and haul them LITERALLY across the street to the second hand store.

Convinced we can get all 4 of these chairs into her Honda Pilot and get them across the street we start putting them in, then take them out, then put them in, take them out, reevaluate. . .you get the idea, it was like playing Tetris, a game I have never been very good at. Finally we get them all in the back of the car but we can’t close the hatch. Luckily for me I have a father that made sure I was prepared for any situation and had a bungee cord in the trunk of my car. I went and grabbed it and then we started to fiddle with how to strap the hatch down.

 As we struggled through this whole process a guy had come out side and was having a smoke break. As he watched us struggle with the hatch and the bungee cord he said:

“Do you guys need some straps, I’ve got straps in the back of my truck”

I responded “No I think we’ve got it, just need to get this bungee cord hooked” as I said it one of the chairs slipped and started to fall out of the car. Emily and I grabbed it and started packing them back in.

“Do you want some help?” They guy says

This time I said “That would be great, if we just had an extra set of hand I think we can get it”

He came down and we started evaluating how to make this work. He was trying to think of ways to help us get them in the car without using the bungee, but we were trying to avoid removing the car seat from Emily’s back seat. We told him we were LITERALLY going across the street so it didn’t need to be perfect just secure enough. Then it happened. . .

“If you are just going across the street why don’t you just take my truck?”

Keep in mind we had never seen or talked to this guy before. We didn’t even know is name. Neither Emily nor I said a word we just stood there and stared at him. I don’t think either of us could believe what we had just heard. Finally I mustered a “Are you sure?” He laughed a little and said “Well unless you planning on stealing it, yeah I’m sure.”

Not really knowing what else to do or having a better plan, Emily and I agreed. We pulled the chairs out of Emily’s car and she moved it out of the way while Daniel (we finally did introductions) ran upstairs and got his keys and pulled his truck forward and helped us load them in the back. Then simply said, “have fun” and disappeared back into the building.

Then Emily and I just looked at each other like who is going to drive this thing. See what he neglected to mention was that his truck was a Toyota Tundra. Far bigger than any vehicle I have ever been in let alone driven anywhere. In case you were wondering I got the honor of driving by default since after Daniel went back in the building Emily made a bee line for the passenger’s side.

We had a pretty comical ride over to the second hand store as we joked that we hoped Daniel wasn’t calling the police and reporting his truck stolen. And making guesses as to what my dad would say about this whole situation. You see my dad is a little high strung about things and often gets worked up over nothing so it is kind of fun to guess what he would say.

At the end of the day our efforts to be good people and donate these chairs failed as the second hand store wouldn’t take them because of the tears, so we did all that and ended up hauling them back to our office building and putting them in the dumpster. But the impact of Daniel’s generosity has and will stick with me for quite some time.

So as you start your week off and we are bombarded with the latest political infighting, or hear about some awful thing someone did to someone else on the news, or even in your own backyard, experience someone being rude at the grocery store, remember this story. In a world that can seem so negative and uncaring at times, you never know when some very nice stranger will see you struggling and offer assistance in the most generous ways. These are the things that make this country and this planet great. The day to day interactions of everyday people helping everyday people. We don’t need to be made great again, we still are and always have been great.