Chat Rooms.. The measure I use to show just how bad things are
Chat Rooms… Remember those? Yes yes! I know those are now replaced by FB Groups/Reddit groups/ Forums and what not.. but I miss em.
I am old enough to remember and have used Yahoo chat rooms. Those chat rooms before they became toxic, before they became the domain for unrequired filth, before it was a hunting ground for predators and before we all vanished from it due to the sheer absurdness of it all.
So why do I miss them? Before they became all that, it was actually a fun place to meet strangers across vast oceans and land. Just random people getting together and starting to chat, just because they could through the internet. Friendships were formed with complete strangers, opinions were discussed, tantalising tales shared. I know it sounds like fantasy, but it was all that, once.
Once, we were just people meeting in a public place. Doing the obligatory line : n/a/p … name, age, place. Then it simply flowed from there. Sometimes people breaking away from the main chat and direct messaging each other to get to know something more interesting or continue a discussion thread. Sometimes that leads to email addresses being exchange and friendships forming out of the grid that was the net. I chose my net handler for the purpose of getting people interested. “coolgeek entered”. Which gave off a chorus of laughter/interest and pointed question at the absurdity of a “cool” “geek” and why was it my handler. Yet, there we were, we did not bash each other with hurtful comments or degrade others cultures. It was a place of discovery and intrigue.
Now, we have lost all trust, all decency, all innocence in that. I could sense it slowly creeping into the chat rooms. First it was simply the odd offender. Then it was the list of chat rooms on the side bar with unmentionable names. Later, it was the outright collapse of it all into a rambling bout of filth slung like a volley. Don’t get me wrong, an artfully delivered “filth” in the realms of Samuel Jackson is always welcome, but what we witnessed is something definitely more sinister and unappealing.
I have a distinct memory of two friends I made during those good times. An Australian (who I still occasionally keep in touch with) and a South Korean. We actually were able to share experiences, write long emails of the trivials of school life and impossible teachers.
However, what all this in a way indicates is the increase in intolerance and the decrease in ability to express oneself maturely.
As usual, all things are relative. The amount of people interconnected through the internet has mind bogglingly increased since then. It is a valid argument to share that perhaps these bad apples were always there, yet in the relative size of the population on the internet the numbers were too small then to be noticed, too small to be an annoyance. Maybe perhaps it is still a small percentage, but the accumulated voice of such people have reached a critical mass. A critical mass that affects everyone on the internet. However, I still find the overwhelming goodness in people across the net. People who still reach out to strangers to just chat. People with mutual interest naturally connecting. So no, it is not the end of civilisation. Yet these “trolls” are not anymore some resentful kid, or a resentful kid in an adult body, but sometimes hired hands to spread destruction, mayhem and entertainment. Who’s pay is every single irked/disgusted response they illicit. It is compounded by the “militant” arm chair self righteous (and ultimately self serving) / deemed politically correct activists who feel every troll needs to die. For me, both parties are trolls. Ironically both parties show an extreme sense of intolerance, and bask in their self righteousness or unleashed anarchy.
There are a large number of people hidden in the layers between these group. Where a meeting between an atheist and a religious person is just that. A meeting, not a confrontation. Where they share their own perspective. Where both are tolerant to the others view and only asked to be respected for their own. Accept them as they are. We don’t see that often enough now. Not about the other person is/in/will/be dissolution/ignorance of spirituality/ burn in the fiery pits/ how both hate each other. That is the biggest fall in our collective consciousness. Imagine, all these archived FB posts/tweets expressing our global civilisation to anyone trying to learn about us.
It is time the middle layer be more open, be more visible. We need to create spaces where not the righteous/ not the angry are echoed but the rational thinker and the spiritual dreamers are. Where opinions are opinions. Where discourse is ample and confrontations are turned to learnings. How do we do this? Creating a close group? Yet, this is the challenge. You can create a “close group”. Then again, who controls the key to the group? How do you not fall to the pitfalls of vanity and “decide” who is worthy to be in the group? Are you not again being intolerant? Did you not feel at the start of the article that I simply assumed that “they” are worse? Do I have or were given that privilege or right?
We need to have a collective shift in our thinking. Imagine the world where diverse opinions / cultures / religions (or the lack of it) simply exist not as a division but simple attributes of a single species named human. Where it is a celebration of individuality and collective tribes. Where we simply learn acceptance (not tolerance.. tolerance is an admission of inconvenience, of outward restrain). See, everyone if accepted: Creates no “I am better than you” or “What you are is wrong”. It only creates, “I am what I am”.
Yes, I am not naive to think all that is simple. We are still humans driven by primal instincts to protect, procreate and dominate. We still need some semblance of control to protect the greater innocent against irrational aggressors. Don’t blame irrationality though. We know, somewhere deep within us, removing irrationality is to remove our human quality. To remove irrationality is to lose the sense of wonder, love, happiness and all those experiences that move us. Can we however, do something about aggression and hate?
