Private Public
The next global conflict will be caused by the internet
On my last piece I tried to compliment the type of humour the Irish exhibit. I expressed my admiration for the way they trust people on the understanding of comedy and respect each other’s judgement on what is for real and what’s just a gag. Where I come from if you don’t convincingly explain a joke you may end up in court.
My somewhat hidden conclusion on that text was that the Irish are intelligent creatures by nature, people who posses a kind of astuteness that no school can teach. I even said (metaphorically) how I truly believed on their discernment to play along when something that is supposed to bother them doesn’t or to simply ignore when something actually does — and I meant it. But then I went public.
You see, it was not my first time out there into the wild. I have been a journalist for a good while now and I know the implications of putting original content up for popular and anonymous scrutiny. However all my published and, most importantly, publicised work before had been done professionally; it’s easy to ignore someone who doesn’t agree with facts.
This, however, was my first opinion piece brought outside the realms of my extended group of friends (namely the Facebook). I had served my people many atrocious things before, but they either don’t know me enough to actually read anything I post or know me too well to simply ignore it and move on. Going public is when people you never met click on your link exclusively to find out what you’ve done wrong.
Flee to the hills! And don’t take your smartphone with you.
All victims of internet haters have at some point raved about their detractors. We all know anyone has a voice online nowadays and that communities around a single, apparently insignificant subject can sprout up from nothing quite easily. I am going to skip this part and jump straight into the frightening possible outcomes of this oh-so-human behaviour:
- Internet hate spreads quickly: whenever there’s a tint of shame on a personal history of a candidate, for example, this will be the only thing people share for a good while, even if it is just a mole on their nose or a criminal past that includes speeding on a school area.
- Internet hate reaches far and beyond: whenever a new type of bird starts giving humans their lethal type of flu, for example, people from the most hidden recesses of the world will come out of their shelters to blame the country where it started, even if it’s the animal’s owner’s fault it’s even got it or the only one to die of it is a cow who was mad anyway.
- Internet hate knows no age gap: whenever a celebrity endorses the “wrong” type of battle, for example, their new generation of fans will promptly join forces with the old one to detract all their movies, even if it’s the softcore porn they barely showed any skin on or the one they lost an Oscar to Meryl Streep.
This list could go on and on and on forever, but you’d probably hate me for that. And on the comments below you’d point out that my writing style doesn’t exactly entice your taste. And your comment would find its way into a forum where people discuss the depredation of the English language by foreigners. And by the end of this week I’d be packing my bags to come back to where I’m from because threats of arson have populated my mailbox.
Of course situations like this happened before the internet and it’s not just recently that the web has become a hatred-enabling place. But everyday now it seems that more and more people are giving time and space for their darker sides and, what is worse, less and less are getting out of their way to try and keep the harmony. The natural man is an enemy to God, so it’s only logical that we should embrace ourselves and wait for the Apocalypse.
I just hope it doesn’t all start after a typo in one of my texts.
