I'm becoming more and more aware of the number of people who simply like to hear themselves talk. Well, in this technological era I suppose I should say the number of people who like to see themselves type. Everyone has an opinion. They have the RIGHT opinion and anyone who deviates from said opinion is a total and absolute imbecile. You, my friend, are a complete and utter moron for having the gall to actually disagree with someone. How dare you?! Jerk. What pains me the most about all of this is that these people who are so offended by your differing opinions often act like immature opinion columnists when they mock your stance/belief/viewpoint/post/whatever because you're not allowed to say something, but God help the internet if you don't read what they say.
This, my friends, is crap.
I absolutely believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions. If you think that eating non-organic food is going to kill you but someone else thinks that eating McDonald's is fine and dandy, then so be it. You have differing opinions and that's what makes the world go 'round. What I'm finding hard to understand is why people feel the need to become so combative or snarky or passive-aggressive even is something is posted that doesn't necessarily stand true for them. I'm honestly a bit sick of the bashing I see. We're all adults here (by "here" I mean the people I'm connected to via social media. I can't say the same for everyone, I'm sure). Why is it that we can't simply say, "You know. I don't agree with what you're saying here and I believe X but we'll have to simply differ on this topic". I see that type of behavior so rarely that I want to commend every person who actually does to that. Here, please take this medal for being an adult rather than a middle school student.
Everyone is becoming so easily offended and driven by emotions rater than logic or reason. People type the first words that pop up in their minds and just let it flow until they hit the Enter key. They barely leave enough time to check for grammatical errors or whether the overly long paragraph they wrote makes sense. We're becoming a society that defaults to bashing someone or something that doesn't fall in line with what we like or believe or support. The funny thing is that it seems like there are universal things that are okay to bash. If I make a post about how bigger women are beautiful, I bet I would get praise from most of my friends. However, if I make a post talking about how fit women can do some awesome things, I'll get yelled at for "dissing" women who aren't fit. If I make a post praising someone's religious beliefs and how they stood by them even in the face of adversity, I would get likes galore on Facebook. However, if I made a post about how someone stood by his or her atheism even while getting criticized or attacked for it, I would likely get a couple of comments, some of which would wonder why I was praising someone for having a lack of faith.
The point is, we're all different. The beauty of this world is that every single person is completely unique and yet we manage to form relationships with one another. We date one another and form friendships and work relationships and families and we're all interconnected with these people who share different beliefs, ideals, likes, dislikes, body types, palates, styles, ancestry, etc. We make it work because if we were all the same, it would be absolutely boring as hell. Could you imagine what life would be like if everyone had the same body type, liked the same music, drove the same cars, or had the same taste in food? It sounds like a horror movie that I'd actually get nightmares from. I want to know why we have such trouble fostering mutual respect for one another in spite of these differences. I want to know why we find it to be okay to express our disagreement with something and follow that up with facetious or even disrespectful posts showcasing our large vocabularies, sarcasm, and general one-upping proving to ourselves and the offending party why we're better. In fact, some such people mock the "offending party". Nothing proves that you're taking the high road quite so much as mocking the person with whom you disagree.
So, friends, let's get it together. I know that there are some posts that we just can't resist commenting on. I think it's awesome to have opinions on things and want to share those opinions. But let's make an effort to express those opinions in ways that exemplify the best parts of ourselves and brings about respect rather than criticism.
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