Animosity

One thing I love and simultaneously hate about the Internet is the complete lack of a face on the other side of the screen. It’s nice when searching for weird porn or buying products. (No sales critters hassling you in person. I like not having to tell Amazon.com “No thanks, I’m just looking” when they offer suggestions, I can just click.)

The other side of that is when people anonymously post nasty comments on people’s blogs or sites or send emails without a way for the receiver to follow their footsteps -- short of checking their IP address and booking a plane ticket to said town. This bothers me because I think it’s changing our culture outside the box on your desk.

We can be mean, rude, say things that normally we wouldn’t have the guts to say to someone’s face without concern for our relationship with that person or how our comments will make them feel. Once we hit “send” it’s done and there are no repercussions.

Shouldn’t these things be taken into consideration when dealing with other humans?

I think there is something to be said for having to deal with people we don’t necessarily agree with face to face. I wonder if that “comment/email me” feature is a way for us to de-evolve. You read something you don't like, send a reactionary comment and go on to another page. You've said your peace and the receiver has to live with it.

I visit a lot of sites where people have strong opinions about subjects that I don’t necessarily always agree with. However, I’m still shocked at some of the comments left by that lovely asshole "Anon" that I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t dare say to their neighbor or someone at the store. (If they did, I’d wonder about the stockpile of bodies in their basement.)

Not that I think anyone should be forced to put their full personal information up, but do you guys think it’s scary that we can hide behind “Anon” sometimes? Seems like there is a short trip to the thinking of “let’s start sending bombs to kill the brown people that we never see the face of because we don’t like them for XYZ.”

Time for the tinfoil.