Cheapshot jokes aside, the internet has gave birth to a new and terrifying group of people. Everyone knows one. The grandma on Facebook who links an article not realizing that it's not real. The aunt who believes every rumor they see and pass it along as fact. The people on various who take things out of context and get outraged. The people who make comments on articles and posts that have nothing to do with the original post at all. Everyone knows at least one and sigh with a mixture of disbelief and embarrassment for that person.
In my own personal opinion, I believe that it takes almost nothing for people to be offended these days. There are countless amounts of posts about things that get people all riled up over nothing. Before I start digging into these people, let me start by saying this (by putting it in bold so I don't get roflstomped about being just as bad as the people I am talking about): I think that it is great that people have opinions about things. That people are supportive about things. That people have issues they care about. Everyone should have them and spread them if they are supportive and caring in nature. I love people like that. The group of people who I am talking about are the kind of people who don't care or don't bother to do the research or actually read what they are commenting on. It's like a plague on the internet these days. In the age of Google and other search engines, you would think that people would go, "Wait, this doesn't sound right. Let me do a quick internet search on one of 5 devices that have internet access around me before I post about this." But my good people, they do not. No research, no reading, not one thing. It's all headlines, quick skims and rumors with this group. If anything looks offensive or scandalous, they will be the first ones to post about without bothering to see what it is they are talking about. My favorite examples of these include the "original Statue of Liberty the US turned down", the "joke out of context here", and basically the whole anti-vaccine campaign (which baffles me to as why that is an actual thing).
I myself have been a target of this phenomenon. One day, I was just scrolling through Tumblr, minding my own damn business about things. That week, I had been seeing a lot of posts telling people not to listen to Robin Thicke's song Blurred Lines because it was going to be number one on some sort of chart. Being the person that I am, I got upset. Not because I like the song, but because this website prides itself on telling people to stop telling people to not listen to something because they don't like it. So I pointed out the hypocrisy of those posts, telling people to chill. (Quick sidebar: I don't thing anyone on that site was listening to Blurred Lines anyway and the popularity of the song can be contributed to the following: People confusing Robin Thicke for his father, the catchy beat that middle aged white people can dance too, and the other two points combined. End side bar.) No more than five minutes had gone by, when someone re-blogged my post , replying to it "Says someone who has never been sexually harassed," not only missing the point of my post entirely, but starting an argument over something I wasn't even talking about. I can only assume that the person saw the words Robin Thicke, Blurred Lines, listen and to. Luckily, I had a friend reblog the person's response, calling them out on it.
So what does satire have to do with all this? The people I have been talking about do not get it. The point of it is lost to them. As a quick example, some may believe that The Colbert Report is actually for real and not the genius piece of satire that it is. This causes a lot of problems for the rest of us. People are up in arms about offensive jokes that are actually making fun of the people who do the real thing. If anything sounds slightly offensive, they will jump on and start a crusade against the "offensive" person. And then when it's pointed out that it was a joke/satire, they go "Oh yeah. I knew that." NO. NO YOU DIDN'T.
As much as I would like to say that we can stop these...I'm gonna call them trolls again...I fear that we cannot. We can provide links to accurate information. We can show them the wrongs they made in a civil manner. Sometimes they will apologize and correct their mistakes. Sometimes they will spit venom back at us like that dinosaur with the frill thingy in Jurassic Park. As long as there are things to stand for, there will be people who make the other people look bad by screwing up royally and not admitting it.
The trolls won people. We might as well start listening to Gangnam Style and What Does the Fox Say again. Because trends and memes are beautiful things. Right? Right? Guys where are you going.....
-----------------
Adam Bento, The MC of The Talk Box Podcast
Send me hate mail or love letters to:
@CaptainDadam on Twitter
captaindadam on Tumblr
No comments:
Post a Comment