So...I got trolled. And I didn't realise for a whole month, lol.
Well, all I can say is...thanks for ruining it for me. I really hoped that the first comment I received would be somewhat positive, but I guess this is the internet after all, and as long as one can hide themselves in the crowd they'll say whatever they like.
But that's not really so bad. What really gets me is that people are actually like this. They think this is the internet so it doesn't matter, that that person is not real, so they say whatever they like.
And without intending, they reveal their true selves.
In a moral vacuum, what you do is entirely up to you. The anonymous internet is that moral vacuum. There are very few laws and regulations that effectively extend here. There are no pressures on an anonymous user, and little way to track them. No one will know.
Except you.
And increasingly what I see is that no one out there is decent. At all. The fact that most people would reach out and harm someone else without a care in the world is proof of that. And I'm not even talking about those that encourage people to kill themselves, but the little things like accusations and disparaging comments.
You ever read the comment section for a product online and see a bunch of positive reviews and a couple of negative ones? What makes the most impression? How many positive reviews outweigh those negative concerns? 5x? 10x? 50? How much difference is there between that kind of place and this? A private blog with someone accused of this or that. Of course an author will defend themself, but you wouldn't trust them to be unbiased, would you?
No, you'd trust a third party.
On a blog with a single comment, the seed is planted. This person is untrustworthy, someone you shouldn't affiliate with, someone who holds unsavoury views. None of which is true, I should clarify. Whether you like me or not (and there's much not to like), I carry no beef against anyone, regardless of colour, religion or sexuality. Yes, I'm still human and not a robot, but I tend to draw my lines on a case-by-case basis.
Do I make generalisations sometimes? Sure. Do I demean other people based on their race, belief, or sexuality? No. Unless they're crazy and believe I should be killed because I'm not some favourable archetype. Or believe I should be shut down and kept underfoot based on any of those three things.
My friend just read me another blog on how people have changed. Instead of protesting and picking fights for matters of life and death, now people want to take offence at any slight perceived insult and package it as a cause, because they have none.
And that's just sad. There are enough real problems in the world that we don't have to go out of our way to manufacture more. Want to really feel like you're a righteous person? Go feed a starving child, help set up a shelter, tend someone's wounds, march for someone's rights. Heck, do anything that requires you not to just sit at your desk and rub salt into people's wounds. But no, it's too difficult to actually make a difference. That would require actually giving up comfort, and what is a human life compared to that comfort?
It's different for me. I look in the mirror and know I'm not a good person. I know that to live my life I'm ignoring the thousands of people dying that second. The hundreds of thousands of people dying that day. I know I place my life above theirs, every single day of comfort. And that's why I live my life as a balance. If I'm going to have a net effect on this world it had better be positive.
But there's a dearth of people who've ever spared those souls a thought, and I guess that's why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Why it's so easy for people to tell people to die, or accuse them of whatever they want whenever they want. If you have no idea of the weight of your life, of the life-saving choices you choose to forego every day, it must be pretty easy to assume no one else does. That every one else is just as self-serving and hateful as the next, and the smile they wear is just to hide the dagger behind their back.
But hey, the next time you see me talking to a dude in a skirt, ask yourself why I would be talking to that interesting person if I hated them. And then maybe, just maybe, think about revising that opinion.
