I think the comment section online should be a beautiful public, objective platform of our collective community; a place where we navigate an intelligent, insightful, humorous, informative and thoughtful exchange of ideas.
The online comment section should be a place where we learn to understand each other’s points of view and where serious conversations evolve over time.
But, in a lot of cases, they are havens for some of the grossest, most abusive, sarcastic, hateful, cruel attacks. I get why we sometimes conclude, after reading some of these comments, that humanity has lost its way.
But I see another explanation for all this hatred and nastiness:
The cause of dismissive and rude comments and frustrating discussions isn’t that we’re bad people: it’s that commenting isn’t something most folks are naturally or automatically good at. It is, however, a skill that can be learned and practiced. In fact, I think everyone online is almost always trying to do something important, but going about it in an unfortunate, thoughtless way.
For example, Let ‘s say we want to communicate an urgent and sometimes well-founded belief that another person is mistaken.
What we are quick to say is: “You are a fucking idiot. You should go fuck yourself!!!!:((((!!”
What we could learn to say, given that no one ever learns anything under humiliating conditions, is a more effective: I wonder if you might have missed something that feels important from where I’m coming from.
Let’s say we want to stand up for clarity and common sense by admitting that we didn’t understand something another person said.
And so we say: “Wtf! motherfucker!
But it could be a revolutionary move, with huge influence on the way other people start to think one could and should behave online, to say: It was little hard to follow your train of thought. Yet, I respect your underlying intentions.
Let’s say sometimes we want to express the humiliation that the cold and indifferent world has dished out on us. At our keyboard in the middle of the night we say: Suck it up bitches; bunch of fucking assholes spewing fuck-shit … !”
We could learn to say is I’m confused because I generally admire you and I don’t entirely see the point of what you seem to be doing now. It would be great if you could perhaps explain things from your very legitimate perspective.
I think it’s important to remember that no one is ever brutal or cruel online by choice. They are hurt, damaged, alone and afraid –because no one has been kind or good to them for quite a long time. Behind every online nasty, abusive, thoughtless outburst, there’s always a complex, painful backstory (which we will mostly never know, but which we can be sure is there) that has made it impossible for the person commenting to feel they can be realistic, reasonable or even civil.
Folks also get rude and sarcastic because, in their isolation and powerlessness, it is impossible for them to believe that others out there could be vulnerable or affected by their insults.
Their rudeness is grounded in a disbelief that strangers could take them seriously and that these strangers just scrolling through their comments could be tipped over into emotional collapse, despair and self-hatred because of their response. They reply with rudeness and nastiness because they feel impotent and, sadly, have forgotten their own power.
After spending awhile in the comments sections, it can be easy to form the belief that humans have grown into monsters. The good news is that, even though comments seem to reflect how horrible and weird the world is, they in fact represent only the fringe views of a small percentage. These angry, sad, hurt, lonely folks try to make us forget about the amazing invisible group of reasonable, kind, thoughtful, intelligent, empathic individuals who are just standing by in silence, just as appalled as we are.
The world is much saner than it appears. (At least I hope so.) The real achievement would be to build an online world every bit as kind, serene, patient, thoughtful, caring and good as most of us are in our real lives at every moment of every day.
Blessings and peace, Paula
