This is very worn territory so I apologise if this piece is even more boring and irrelevant than usual.  Recently, I have been checking out some of the news and social networking sites like Reddit, N4G, and others.  Generally I’m pretty impressed with the simplicity as well as the infrastructure of these sites and now I check them daily.  They often have stories and news items that do not always make it to the traditional press outlets and there are communities that follow these sites faithfully.

Recently I got flamed around a piece I’d written that I had posted to one of the sites.  I responded in what I felt was a reasonably mature way that expressed that I thought that the slur against me was a bit of an over reaction and fairly uncalled for.  What followed was a pretty strong stream of anger and resentment. Something I had tried to hold this person to some level of accountability for.

I know, this is the internet.  People get insulted, their sexuality gets questioned, as does their ancestry every single day.  Despite the improbability of it all, we all just seem to have accepted it; and I don’t know why.  My issue with the guy /gal I mentioned above, was that he called me a ‘œfucking moron.’  Again, I am fully aware of the context in which this was written.  However I still wonder, how did we get to the point where some guy just calls another guy a fucking moron based on minimal information and frames of reference?  There is no accountability that’s how.  Because this person does not have to meet, interact, or be accountable to me, he/she/it can say whatever they like.

‘œSo!’  I just heard a handful of you yell at me.  ‘œGet over yourself and strap on a pair of balls!  It’s just the internet.’  It’s not that I’m upset about being called a mean name on a message board.  It’s more that I am genuinely curious about people who do this regularly.  I’m arguing that if you are being malicious, to do so in a realm where you are anonymous and not accountable for what you say, then you are inherently a coward.  People flip the bird to other drivers while behind the wheel everyday. Would they flip the bird, or tell a complete stranger to fuck off even if the other person were rude? Very, very rarely.

To be clear this is not a; ‘œback in my day’¦on bulletin boards, we treated people with respect’¦and walked twelve miles in 6 feet deep of snow for a glass water’  type thing.  I think that I’ve been very clear on this matter in previous articles; I’m not a particularly huge fan of ‘œthe old days.’  The olden times included shitty technology, racism, and people who didn’t use antiperspirant, because it didn’t exist yet!  They did have Raquel Welch though’¦Mmmmmmmm.

This isn’t about being polite or anything quite so quaint.  If you have read my stuff you know that I’m not a particularly polite person as a rule.  My feet get stuck in my mouth so regularly they are usually glisteningly clean, so this isn’t about profanity.  It’s inherently about fear.  To follow through on my little buddy on the news site I referenced, there is no way that were he to attend a lecture that I gave, or a social situation where I was involved, that he would without a context, turn to me and call me a fucking moron.  The only reason he would ever even think of writing that is because he can hide behind the anonymity of the medium in which he is interacting.

My point simply boils down to, if you are the type of person that flames or griefs for no reason whatsoever, then you should check your back for a slight line of yellow stain.  I really question whether people ever ask themselves, before they type something down, ‘œwould I say this if that person was right in front of me?’

Image: Flickr/chimothy27