I have certainly experienced some cyber aggression in my on-line life. It is to be expected as an openly gay, left-leaning, artist with oft-expressed opinions on race, politics, and the Middle East who has all of his settings as “Public”. Not surprisingly, the anonymous commenters have also been the most vicious, hiding behind an avatar and a screen name. I have never bothered to attempt to track them down and generally I do not reply. I also expect some of the backlash given the topics I explore, write about, post about, and (most targeted) opine upon. Even when I have been taken aback by the ferocity, I am rarely surprised by the occurrence.
But today I woke to this tweet:
But today I woke to this tweet:
It is from an anonymous user with few followers and a handful of nasty tweets and re-tweets. He or she mostly goes after celebrities (with a particular disdain for the Kardashians), but has almost no direct attacks on individual not-famous users. Except for me.
At first I laughed. I will even admit my ego was a touch bumped up that some random troll had noticed me and come for me. I felt a bit important for a quick second, until the other part of my ego kicked in – the bruiseable part. I then felt sadness, I felt ugly, I felt gross. My boyfriend and I are going through a break-up, so this hit a little harder than normal and I even wondered if the user knew that. Then it passed . . . because I am a grown person and this little twat is nobody to me. He or she is a sad little person tweeting meanness from behind a shark avatar.
But then I wondered, “what if I were 14 years old?” The part of me, however brief and silly, that was hurt and upset by this is my inner, closeted, terrified teenager self who rose up with indignation and promptly burst into tears. As a hopefully-functional adult, I can recognize those feelings and brush them aside. But if I were a frightened, lonely teenager . . . well, we all know where this story goes. And I am definitely not fourteen . . . but I felt as if I were.
Once again late to every pop-culture game, I am currently in the middle of season 2 of The Americans on FX. The current plot issue (or one of the many) is the rise of the internet as a new form of technology. For the seven folks (myself included) who haven’t seen the show yet, I won’t put up any spoilers. But on the show, the question came up, “Who has access to this?” Scientists, universities, the military . . . set in 1980-something the answers were expected and ominous. The implication was that, eventually, that list would grow. At some point in the not-so-distant future, access would be granted to everyone.
We all have that access now – access to information, to gossip, to news, to entertainment – and we now all have access to each other. We can find people we know or don’t know, and we can follow them, talk to them, and even attack them. With just a little bit of know-how, anybody can get to anybody else.
It would be easy to talk about politics and grand responsibility here. To extol the virtues and slam the atrocities on a large scale would be the obvious route. Trump, reality TV, sound bites, ISIS, nude selfies, drone strikes . . . the list is truly endless of what goods and evils the internet has brought to us. But those things are other. They are not personal, they are not us, they are not me.
Who am I on line? This little mother-f&*ker came after me, and he or she made me feel, however briefly, ugly, small, and stupid. This person also made me feel superior because I would never do such a thing because I have the courage to put my name and face behind my opinions. But am I superior?
Have I ever used the separation of the computer screen to hurt someone, unjustly justified by my self-righteous lack of anonymity and made brazen by the cyber-distance between us?
When I write about conflict, it is necessary to brush aside the very personal feelings of many people on the other, opposing side. When I spew my venom about racism, I must negate the fears of certain people and in doing so de-legitimize those fears in the name of what I feel is right. If I go off on a political candidate, I can only do so if I am assuming that the supporters of that candidate have, through their support, agreed to engage in an argument. With my self-assigned lofty intellectualism and emboldened by my insistence on transparency, I have decided that I am justified in attacking others. But who assigned that justification? Who approved it?
Perhaps I am no better than the shark avatar who came after me.
Words have meaning. They have power. They are weapons and tools of healing, aggressions and treaties, expressions of deeply felt love and viciously painful hate. Do I take responsibility for my words?
To this random Twitter user I am ugly, my boyfriend is gorgeous, and I do not deserve him. I am not worthy of the beauty he brings to our relationship and this user hit on a hard truth – my lack of hot-ness, both inside and out, is why I am about to be single. He or she didn’t say that, but that’s what I heard. That’s what I read. Somehow, without knowing me, this shark got deep inside my soul and publicly revealed my sad truth.
Do I do that? Are my words so hurtful that they unearth a sadness in readers who feel opposition to my opinions? Have I ever taken responsibility for the impact of what I post? Am I a troll – a cyber bully who happens to have a face and real name?
I am not going to respond to this person. I will not defend myself or attack back. But what I have to do is examine myself and check my own sense of responsibility. I am a person who preaches kindness, but do I practice? I may not use a screen name, but I do use an actual screen as a shield. I cannot see your face, hear your words, or look in your eyes to see what damage I have done. By the purposeful absence of such knowledge, who am I?
If I have ever said you were ugly and that you should teach a class on how to get what you don’t deserve, I am sorry. I’ve probably said it. I have likely made you feel fourteen years old and scared. I do not know how to express my opinion from this keyboard without destroying yours.
Damn it. The shark won. What started out as a short nasty tweet . . . I mean, he or she didn’t even bother to use all 140 characters . . . has broken me down. Who am I? What have I done? Am I ugly? Am I you, random Twitter user? Am I just like you?
I will never know what effect was intended by this tweet, except that this person needed me to know that I am ugly. But while my body image issues have come and gone, I must thank you, random mean tweet-person. I owe you one for making me think and possibly improve. It is high time I reflect upon the ugliness of my words.
At first I laughed. I will even admit my ego was a touch bumped up that some random troll had noticed me and come for me. I felt a bit important for a quick second, until the other part of my ego kicked in – the bruiseable part. I then felt sadness, I felt ugly, I felt gross. My boyfriend and I are going through a break-up, so this hit a little harder than normal and I even wondered if the user knew that. Then it passed . . . because I am a grown person and this little twat is nobody to me. He or she is a sad little person tweeting meanness from behind a shark avatar.
But then I wondered, “what if I were 14 years old?” The part of me, however brief and silly, that was hurt and upset by this is my inner, closeted, terrified teenager self who rose up with indignation and promptly burst into tears. As a hopefully-functional adult, I can recognize those feelings and brush them aside. But if I were a frightened, lonely teenager . . . well, we all know where this story goes. And I am definitely not fourteen . . . but I felt as if I were.
Once again late to every pop-culture game, I am currently in the middle of season 2 of The Americans on FX. The current plot issue (or one of the many) is the rise of the internet as a new form of technology. For the seven folks (myself included) who haven’t seen the show yet, I won’t put up any spoilers. But on the show, the question came up, “Who has access to this?” Scientists, universities, the military . . . set in 1980-something the answers were expected and ominous. The implication was that, eventually, that list would grow. At some point in the not-so-distant future, access would be granted to everyone.
We all have that access now – access to information, to gossip, to news, to entertainment – and we now all have access to each other. We can find people we know or don’t know, and we can follow them, talk to them, and even attack them. With just a little bit of know-how, anybody can get to anybody else.
It would be easy to talk about politics and grand responsibility here. To extol the virtues and slam the atrocities on a large scale would be the obvious route. Trump, reality TV, sound bites, ISIS, nude selfies, drone strikes . . . the list is truly endless of what goods and evils the internet has brought to us. But those things are other. They are not personal, they are not us, they are not me.
Who am I on line? This little mother-f&*ker came after me, and he or she made me feel, however briefly, ugly, small, and stupid. This person also made me feel superior because I would never do such a thing because I have the courage to put my name and face behind my opinions. But am I superior?
Have I ever used the separation of the computer screen to hurt someone, unjustly justified by my self-righteous lack of anonymity and made brazen by the cyber-distance between us?
When I write about conflict, it is necessary to brush aside the very personal feelings of many people on the other, opposing side. When I spew my venom about racism, I must negate the fears of certain people and in doing so de-legitimize those fears in the name of what I feel is right. If I go off on a political candidate, I can only do so if I am assuming that the supporters of that candidate have, through their support, agreed to engage in an argument. With my self-assigned lofty intellectualism and emboldened by my insistence on transparency, I have decided that I am justified in attacking others. But who assigned that justification? Who approved it?
Perhaps I am no better than the shark avatar who came after me.
Words have meaning. They have power. They are weapons and tools of healing, aggressions and treaties, expressions of deeply felt love and viciously painful hate. Do I take responsibility for my words?
To this random Twitter user I am ugly, my boyfriend is gorgeous, and I do not deserve him. I am not worthy of the beauty he brings to our relationship and this user hit on a hard truth – my lack of hot-ness, both inside and out, is why I am about to be single. He or she didn’t say that, but that’s what I heard. That’s what I read. Somehow, without knowing me, this shark got deep inside my soul and publicly revealed my sad truth.
Do I do that? Are my words so hurtful that they unearth a sadness in readers who feel opposition to my opinions? Have I ever taken responsibility for the impact of what I post? Am I a troll – a cyber bully who happens to have a face and real name?
I am not going to respond to this person. I will not defend myself or attack back. But what I have to do is examine myself and check my own sense of responsibility. I am a person who preaches kindness, but do I practice? I may not use a screen name, but I do use an actual screen as a shield. I cannot see your face, hear your words, or look in your eyes to see what damage I have done. By the purposeful absence of such knowledge, who am I?
If I have ever said you were ugly and that you should teach a class on how to get what you don’t deserve, I am sorry. I’ve probably said it. I have likely made you feel fourteen years old and scared. I do not know how to express my opinion from this keyboard without destroying yours.
Damn it. The shark won. What started out as a short nasty tweet . . . I mean, he or she didn’t even bother to use all 140 characters . . . has broken me down. Who am I? What have I done? Am I ugly? Am I you, random Twitter user? Am I just like you?
I will never know what effect was intended by this tweet, except that this person needed me to know that I am ugly. But while my body image issues have come and gone, I must thank you, random mean tweet-person. I owe you one for making me think and possibly improve. It is high time I reflect upon the ugliness of my words.