I'm a blogger. Have been for quite a few years now. They were much more frequent back when Yahoo360 was up and running and when they shut that down I tried a few before settling on this one. I don't use it often but try to when I feel I have something to share or need to get something off my chest that is making me have thoughts of hiding rolls of pennies in my pillowcase and then challenging my husband to a pillow fight. As a blogger, I have also been a reader of many and I have to wonder at what point did "expressing yourself" become permission to be a malicious bastard?
For years and years and years people have preached love and acceptance of others, can't we all just get along, be kind to your neighbor, do unto others as you would have them do onto you, and I have to say, these people obviously don't surf the web! Or maybe they do and they are just hypocrites hiding behind the freedom to express themselves while claiming "It's MY page and I can say/do whatever the hell I want!"
This doesn't just apply to blogs. It applies to any place on-line you post really. Chat rooms, your facebook, myspace (do they even still have that?). Anyplace you can access online and hide behind the anonymity of the internet. Or should I say "feel" you can hide behind.
Anytime you post anything, and I mean ANYTHING, on-line there is a chance it will come back to bite you on the ass. HARD. Sharing parts of yourself can come with high consequences. Consequences you better be willing to accept when putting fingers to keyboard and typing out the secrets of your world cause sometimes what you think is anonymous or "just your opinion" can be hurtful, hateful and just possibly may cost you things in your life you hold dear like a job, spouse or some other loved ones respect (there's a wellknown blogger who now makes her living off it after she got fired from her job after posting about a co-worker).
We all have bad days. Sometimes get angry with someone/something and say things in the heat of anger we wish wish wishhhhhh we didn't say and could take back. If you are arguing with someone face to face and say it you just pray they have a memory like mine and eventually they forget (or the pain of those words dwindles some), but you put those angry thoughts down in type and blatantly spell out who they are towards, that is out there for good! You see it. Your friends see it. And usually the person you were being a "malicious bastard" towards sees it. And while at that moment you too may have wanted to hide rolls of pennies in your pillowcase and challenge them to a pillowfight, eventually you calm down and sanity kicks back in. That is, of course, until your "friends" and other readers start the comments. The comments that I "hope" are made in the attempt to support you and not made in an effort to egg you on and get you even more riled up. The comments made based on their own opinions of the one-side of the story they have been getting but cause they are your "friends" may feel it is their DUTY to jump in there and ALSO be a malicious bastard towards whomever you were pissed at. Ahhhh "gang mentality".
As I mentioned, many of us likely have days where someone makes us feel homicidal thoughts. There have been some ongoing issues in my own world the last few months that could open up a verbal floodgate that could quite possibly never close, but out of respect for people I LOVE. People I don't want to hurt (other then the occasional penny pillowfight or half-sized rolls for those under the age of 16), I keep that crap off-line and discuss it with the person it SHOULD be discussed with, not the billions of people on the internet who have no part in the issue.
As a parent, I feel, it is my responsibility to try and teach my children that while you are certainly entitled to your opinion on things there is definitely a way to relay that opinion to others while trying to cause as little hurt, hate, or offense. After all, I certainly don't want anyone purposely hurting, hating or being offensive to my child so why would it be okay for THEM to purposely be hurtful, hateful or offensive to others?
2 comments:
can you imagine, just how my mind spins at all you've said here? in regards to SO many things in the past 10 years or so? So strange to think of our children navigating those hallowed and harrowing halls of the internet(s).
I agree and it is interesting to see how people online may preach one thing and practice another. I am quick to forgive people but have found others not as forgiving even when there is nothing to forgive. I forgive person A but person A never forgives me and it is the same thing they did that I did... at last I think.
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