Spend any time at all sharing information on the Internet, or commenting on Youtube posts, or debating topics on a forum and you will find hostile folks.
Maybe some of them might rightly be called ‘haters’ but the truth of the matter is we have so long been trained in this culture to be nice and tolerant and bite our tongues and turn the other cheek and what we’ve created with this is not more niceness but more inability as individuals and groups to handle criticism, even valid criticism.
I heard this old adage plenty of times growing up: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Nonsense!
I am guilty myself of becoming too annoyed and heated at times dealing with morons, shills and assholes. I often have to take a step back and remind myself, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
Now is the time every one of us could be starting a revolution from our beds. We are safe from the sticks and stones and can become completely resilient to the name-calling.
The straw that broke this camel’s back? I left my teaching career because the education system has become so pathetic that we were ordered to no longer correct student grammar in my beginning Spanish and French university courses, because to be corrected ‘hurts students’ feelings’. It was a new department-wide policy supposedly deemed necessary due to falling enrollment numbers.
If you are a student whose feelings get hurt because you are learning something new and need to be corrected, you should not be at university, you should go back to kindergarten.
Time to grow up and speak up, America! Let’s bring this kakistocracy down, one keyboard warrior at a time.
Internet Enemy #1: The pooh-slinging shills. Learn their tactics, stand up to them, become a fearless keyboard warrior! 🙂
Kensho Homestead 