I am part of the last generation who experienced life before the internet while also being able to embrace it as an integral part of our life.
It has been amazing and as an [over]user/sharer on pretty much every platform out there, it’s fair to say that I am a big advocate of it.
However things have been changing.
Maybe it’s due to the hell of 2020.
Maybe it’s because we live in such political times.
Maybe there’s simply more pricks out there these days.
But it’s not nearly as nice as it once was.
It’s been happening over some time, but the warm, supportive nature of the mid-2000 blogging community has definitely gone.
I loved that time.
It actually was a community rather than just a bunch of people being on the same platform.
And while people disagreed with each other, there wasn’t the spite you see today.
OK, sometimes there was – but when it happened, the community united to stamp it out.
The attitude was ‘by all means have a different point of view, but maintain respect for the other person views as well’.
It was self-policing … a community who openly opposed anyone who was being toxic towards another, or being condescending or desperate to not just ‘be right’ but wanted to ensure the other person looked foolish to all around them.
But that’s the environment we have on social media most days.
All social media … from Twitter to Linkedin and everything in-between.
Sure, sometimes the internet reveals it can be a community again.
United for something good or meaningful.
But sadly that’s now the exception, overtaken by a bunch of arrogant, condescending, self-righteous pricks.
Who are mainly men. White men.
Who are happy at the destruction of another.
Ridiculing them.
Humiliating them.
Of course trolls have been out there since the earliest days, but we are witnessing a new breed. They’re not the people who we can easily dismiss as vicious fools simply seeking attention.
No, this lot are much harder to spot.
Because they’re able to be personable one second and destructive the next … leaving a stream of people confused and broken from the experience of the interaction.
Broken in terms of who they are.
Broken in terms of what they believe.
Broken in terms of thinking they can contribute.
The ‘I-am-better-than-you’ attitude is everywhere.
It is social bullying of the highest order … where groups form around cults of personality and feel it is OK to ignore pleasantries, debate or reason and feel it is perfectly acceptable to revel in trampling on another.
No one – or very few – would ever dare do that to someone face-to-face and yet they think this is perfectly acceptable behaviour on social platforms.
Well it isn’t.
We have enough hate and anger in the World without us happily adding to it.
And while some may say, “it’s only a small minority doing it”.
They’re confusing the small minority who do it all the time with the large majority who do it some of the time.
And while I appreciate we can all make mistakes or have a bad day – and those so people can show incredible compassion towards others at certain times … the fact is, when we fail to acknowledge our bad behaviour – whether through embarrassment or arrogance – we are showing others it’s OK.
To not care about others.
To think our views are superior views.
Which is why we should maybe all practice something Jill has told me since we got together.
Never do or say anything to someone you wouldn’t do with your significant other next to you.
Because if you do, you can’t complain when you’re punched in the mouth.