Internet and drama
So I haven't been able to find much to do reviews on so posts has been very slow lately. I figure I should do something else to keep this blog more active. So I thought maybe do some personal posts just to experiment and if it doesn't go well I will stop them. They will be labelled and tagged as "thinking out loud"The first topic I'd like to say my thoughts on is internet drama. This might be a touchy subject so I just want to make it clear that I am not here to offend anyone. In all the years that I've been alive and been on the internet I feel that acting on your feelings is a double edge sword.
I am not one to take things too personally unless one really out to put me down. Even if someone is totally against my beliefs I do not go raging on them. The angry mob mentality that you see in the media is definite a perfect example of what I find to be ineffective. Sure, angry is a great way to respond to something quite messed up, and get the perpetrators to own up but I feel that it doesn't always work. At times it may do more harm than good.
When one is high on a strong emotion such as rage one would most likely not think rationally. And when they are faced with back lash they feel to defend themselves and things just goes in circles. To me this makes it seem that both sides are keeping their minds narrow for the sake of winning against the other. Even if proven wrong and admit it they could most likely go about it in a rude and snobbish way. As a small example, I answered a question in a forum and one person indirectly called me post to be rude. I quickly responded to apologize and say that I did not intend to offend anyone. This person then responded to my apology in a rude way explaining that she had an experience with negative views of her work which had upset her, and somehow my post triggered her. Nothing in my post was in anyway relevant to her past experience and therefore she implied that my post was negative. My post just listed things and I did not mention views of any kind. To me she took my post too subjectively. I did not reply to her after her reluctant tone of "letting me off the hook" as I think nothing I will say would not affect her claim of being really sensitive. Must everyone really go through the trouble of keeping in mind of overly sensitive people?
I did a piece on a sexual assault a long time ago, and an anonymous contacted me about it asking if I condone such acts and why I didn't have revenge. This seems to be a common misbelief that having a kink of taboos means that you condone it. There are studies showing that most of these people who have these kinks have a disconnect with reality (2D ≠ 3D) and like it for different reasons that are safe. Yet I see people who have these kinks to be harassed online. To me this is so wrong. To me I see no reason to seriously consider the offended person's argument if they invite a mob mentality. No matter how much you hate this person with the kink, there is no justification to cause a person so much distress and fear over a misunderstanding. Even if you are past victim of horrible violence, that does not give you the a free pass to target people , dehumanize them, and hurt them. That is to me quite hypocritical. They are still people. Why go through the trouble of making a long public post of your rage over a person without contacting said person for clarification to see if you are right or just jump to your own unfounded conclusions? Do they even realize that outing these people in public would invite a angry mob mentality thus causing them much distress and fear? Back to the anonymous that contacted me, I did the best that I could to explain to her that I do not condone such acts, and that the fictional work is one of artistic sexual self expression. She had admitted to take the work to apply to herself so she took it very personally. How does one really respond to this? Especially when she wants revenge. At that point its clear to me that this is going to go in circles.
Sexual assault is a serious issue and definitely not something to take lightly. To take the defense and argument to people who use these taboos as a form of self expression is too far to me. Especially if it isn't in anyway under the typical rape culture characteristics of trivializing rape, victim blaming etc. Labeling people this easily to wrong as people are not that simple. It is hard to relay your views since it will just fall on deaf ears. People would just not understand. Most of the time I see these posts and tweets to be pretty high on the rage level. As I mentioned earlier that such strong emotions would hinder your rationality. Like the anonymous who took my work of self expression as a personal attack to her. Like the person who implied that my answer with objective facts is a negative view. We can't really do much other than to clarify and apologize. And if they did not take your clarification into consideration and they keep pressing well ... it'll only go in circles so it be best to just leave it.
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