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.