“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”
Probably one of my favourite sayings from ol’ Iron Mike.
The thing is. We’ve created a consequence free zone where people can be absolute shitheads without any real accountability.
And you see it more where people hide behind anonymous profiles, spew venom at strangers, spread lies, and face zero real world repercussions.
Now I’m not about bringing back schoolyard violence (Even though sometimes I want to stomp someone’s face in)
It’s really just about understanding that humans behave better when there are actual stakes involved.
When your words have weight. When being a dick to someone might result in having to look them in the eye and defend your position.
But social media stripped away the natural social friction that kept most people from being completely insufferable.
In real life, if you’re consistently awful to people, you get ostracised. Your reputation suffers. People stop wanting to be around you and before you know it you’re gonna get punched in the mouth.
Online? You can be a monster and still collect likes from other monsters.
We’ve lost the art of civil disagreement because there’s no incentive for civility anymore. I mean look at the politics side of social media. It’s wild as shit.
I mean come on. Why engage thoughtfully when you can just scream into whatever echo chamber you’re in and get dopamine hits from the fellow screamers too?
Maybe if people had to own their shit instead of hiding behind usernames, they’d think twice before turning every conversation into a piss fuelled dumpster fire.
We need to bring back stakes. Bring back accountability. Bring back the basic human understanding that words have power and you should use them responsibly.
/end soapbox rant
Stephen Walker.
I’m off to go give some love to Bret Easton Ellis with this gem.