This is for those of you nimrods that insist on insulting everyone for every little thing...what kind of a knobjob person would do that??
JUDITH TIMSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM EST
‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”
Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, when they learned how much more devastating real grown-up wit could be, have found a new life on the Internet through reader posts on various media websites.
Puerile insults such as these can easily be shrugged off. Commentators should be thick-skinned. But the anger, the rudeness, the personal insults and the basic unwillingness even to engage in civil disagreement over real ideas is growing at a disturbing rate all over the Internet.
American author David Denby, in his recent book-length essay Snark, laments “a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation – a tone of snarking insult provoked and encouraged by the new hybrid world of print, television, radio and the Internet.”
The result, Mr. Denby writes, is “an enormous audience that enjoys cruelty as a blood sport.”
This cruelty is highly addictive. There's a high-school tinge to it. Take the brutish message I recently received from one reader: “You must be some lonely, desperate and (judging from your pic) old frumpy broad with wrinkles. Gross me out or what.” The guy even signed his name.
Or all the hoo-hah over red-carpet fashions at the Oscars. We now can vote on every celebrity's outfit, giving the thumbs down to, say, Reese Witherspoon's oddly strapped dress – what was she thinking? The stars primp all day, but we ordinary citizens, overweight and in our bathrobes, have the triumphant last word. Nothing harmful in that, is there?
Not really, except that merciless judgment on what, on a human or global scale, are relatively unimportant matters, is everywhere. The putdown mentality of the reality show is the major cultural ethos of our time, whether you're an obscure PTA president whose speech is mocked online by other parents, or Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who was savaged last week for his inept response to President Barack Obama's state-of-the-nation speech to Congress.
Never mind that Mr. Jindal's message – an ideological rant against government helping anyone – deserved to be skewered. His unfortunate Mr. Rogers singsong-style message was quickly compared to a hilariously pathetic television character – Kenneth the page – on the comedy series 30 Rock.
Now, his credibility as the GOP's bright new answer to Mr. Obama is in tatters, slain by one of the biggest Internet dragons of all: viral ridicule. (Rick Mercer did the same here for former Canadian Alliance leader and now Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day when he initiated an online campaign to change Mr. Day's first name to Doris. The response was overwhelming, and many people never took Mr. Day seriously again – although maybe they didn't in the first place.)
It's everywhere – the smackdown, the bitch slap, the takeout. The message is clear: Make a mistake in this climate and you are toast. You can convincingly argue that public figures and commentators are fair game. But even Tina Fey, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's comic nemesis, and the creator and star of 30 Rock, made mention of just how devastating the Internet haters can be when she accepted her Golden Globe with a tart message to her online deriders: “Suck it.”
So now we come to the difficult part. What to do about it? Mr. Denby, whose self-consciously arch book was ironically panned in many places, argues this isn't about censorship.
He's right. In a democracy, you err on the side of freedom of speech even if the message is insulting, rude and empty of any real content or idea. Not to mention misspelled and ungrammatical. But there's nothing wrong with insisting on a basic level of civility in the postings. On many media websites, including The Globe and Mail's, there is a way to flag a comment to the editor's attention if you feel it has veered into libel or hate. However, any further vigilance requires significant oversight at a time when media outlets are economically strapped and low on staff as a result.
And many of them, initially thrilled to have a lot of traffic on their websites, are now frantically dealing with hate-mongering (the CBC has been accused of allowing anti-aboriginal slurs on its website), racism, misogyny (almost a given if the news is about a prominent woman) and even ageism as readers, fuel-led by what seems to be a volcanic supply of anger, have their say.
We may have to ruefully recognize the democratization of opinion that the Internet has wrought. It's no longer the privileged purview of paid commentators to opine from on high (or down low). It's a free-for-all. Under the guise of anonymity, and with the ease of clicking “send,” anyone can have at anyone.
My plea to all Internet commentators is to at least step up to a certain level of wit and discourse when you publicly disagree, and to challenge the source of your own anger before you spew it at someone else.
But I don't think that is going too happen any time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.
Originally posted by uzlessIdiot.
This is for those of you nimrods that insist on insulting everyone for every little thing...what kind of a knobjob person would do that??
JUDITH TIMSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM EST
‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”
Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, ...[text shortened]... ny time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.
Originally posted by uzlessI didn't read this.
This is for those of you nimrods that insist on insulting everyone for every little thing...what kind of a knobjob person would do that??
JUDITH TIMSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM EST
‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”
Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, ...[text shortened]... ny time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.
I was just attracted by the thread title.
Originally posted by uzlessToo long to read.. Sorry 😛
This is for those of you nimrods that insist on insulting everyone for every little thing...what kind of a knobjob person would do that??
JUDITH TIMSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM EST
‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”
Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, ...[text shortened]... ny time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.
Originally posted by uzlessYou answered your own question assface:
This is for those of you nimrods that insist on insulting everyone for every little thing...what kind of a knobjob person would do that??
JUDITH TIMSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM EST
‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”
Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, ...[text shortened]... ny time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.
"This cruelty is highly addictive."