When Did the Internet Become so Mean?
When you look at that you may laugh. Part of it is funny. But there’s some truth to it. How is it that the internet has become so
bitingly mean? And I say this as a very
connected person. I’m on Facebook, I
tweet for my job, my professional development, and a personal Twitter
account. I have an Instagram for my
class, and one for personal use. I
downloaded the Snapchat app. (I still
have no idea how to work it!) I surf
news sites, education sites, sites for writers.
Heck, I have a blog, and I freelance as a writer. I like the internet. I remember when it was so new we had the dial up modems, but there were so many possibilities! We would be able to talk to people online, and get information online. And that all came to fruition; because of social media I have been able to
stay connected with friends, and I have been able to reconnect with friends who
could have been long forgotten. I constantly get information online. And
sometimes a news story comes along that unifies everyone; the ice bucket
challenge for ALS, the teen who took his terminally ill mom to Prom, or cute
lip syncing videos by Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard.
And then May 29, 2016 happened and the internet lost its
mind. I’m sure you’ve heard by now,
there was a tragic incident on May 29th at the Cincinnati Zoo. A child got into the gorilla enclosure, and a
gorilla was put down. It was tragic
because a little boy was traumatized and hurt, an endangered animal was shot,
and I can’t even imagine what this mother was thinking as she watched her son
be flopped around. All of a sudden
everyone on the internet became an animal conservationist. And an expert on gorillas. And an expert on parenting. And began to call for the mother to have her
kids taken away, shot, or called a list of expletives that I don’t feel
comfortable repeating here. (You know what I didn’t see?
Concern for the child.
Understanding for the parent.)
I could go into my thoughts on this. Who is to blame and in fact I almost
did. But then I thought, why. Why do we have this need to blame
somebody? The mom, the zoo, the child,
society. Why do we need to have an
immediate answer and resolution? Will it
make everything better? Will it change
what happened?
Can’t we just read a story without the need to fill the
comments section with hateful language about people we don’t know, and will
never meet? With stories like these,
where people are thrust into the limelight, and never asked to be, why do we
insist on giving them our two cents?
Why are we so mean?
Why don’t we take a minute and think about what we’re going
to write?
(And why don’t we proofread-but that’s a different
story!)
I know there isn’t an answer out there for this, but that
didn’t stop me from wanting to write this. And maybe that makes me part of the problem, I don't know. I do know that way back in the reign of AOL, I never imagined that the internet would be used to spew such hatred.
Reflecting about this, I was reminded that there are
good news stories out there so for your further reading…
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