Blame it on the weather (gray and rainy up in my corner of the world) hell blame it on my perimenopausal hormones. Or maybe just chalk it up to the fact that underneath my warm sunny smile, there is raging bitch that lives beneath the surface. In any event, I am greatly annoyed. We are living in crazy times, crazy politicians, crazy pseudo politicians, extreme cruelty…just loads and loads of bad shit. Yet many of us get online and wax poetic about this shit but the truth is many of us are just as guilty of being part of the madness that threatens the very fabric of our society.
We talk a good game about compassion and care yet the reality is we thrive on madness. Did you ever think about the fact that in social media the stars of this new frontier are often the cattiest and bitchiest folks? Last night I was brain dead after a really long day at work followed by an evening of math games at the kidlet’s school. After we finally got her down for the night I decided to spend some time on Twitter (my new favorite place to waste time online) and I was struck by the fact that even in cyber space we have the clearly popular folks. The folks who get a bazillion followers and follow back at best 25% of the folks following them. That’s cool, no one says you have to do automatic follow backs, hell one of my real life friends is big on letting folks know she doesn’t follow folks back.
No, what I have noticed is that the folks with the most followers are often some of the snarliest folks around, now as a person known for my own personal brand of snark and sarcasm that may be the pot calling the kettle black. Yet the reality is even in cyber space we want our tweets to titillate us. We don’t want the mundane unless its Oprah Winfrey or some other celebrity. No if it’s an average Joe we need them to get ratchet on folks as some of young superstars on Twitter say. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that yet when we look at the physical world we live in and see how folks are living or not living. I think its hard not to see the connection between the cruelty that exists in the real world and the sometimes cruel mob style behavior we can see at times even in cyber space.
Just a few weeks ago I took part in an online campaign that got crazy. People took what they were reading too damn seriously. I admit there were times I laughed but when I took a moment to stand back I was ashamed of my actions. Yes, the woman who stated that campaign may not haveĀ been as informed on the subject matter but as a empathetic person I can’t imagine how painful it was to read folks questioning her choices, her lifestyle and hell even insulting her hair. (what the fuck did her hair do?)
What happened is that we got caught up in a circle jerk of cattiness, without bothering to think of the ramifications of those actions. Problem is that the new frontier of communication makes it quite easy to do this with no regards to the folks we might be roasting on the other side. So as a person who suffers at times from too much empathy I have accepted that my fortunes will not be made in this brave new world. While I bitch at times fact is I am pretty tame compared to what seems to appeal to folks these days.
I like to think that while my corner of the social media world is small it is very rich with connections that last more than just a few minutes. Have a good weekend!
I think this idea is part of the reason I’ve been avoiding serious blogging lately. I’ve just not been wanting to put more of the same bitchy crap out there. Zen Assassin wrote about a similar topic (http://zenassassin.wordpress.com/?p=566) how we bitch and bitch yet sit back and allow it all to continue to happen.
Great post again, I enjoy posts like yours that force me to think and even possibly (*gasp*) act on it.