Internet outrage is the new war that we are all
fighting, some negotiating it and some actually inflicting it without even
knowing what effect it can really have on us and the anonymous person we are
communicating with.
It is known, that when we are alone our behavior would be natural, when we know no one
who knows us can see us, we can behave like we really want to. It is because of
this that many of us sing in the bathrooms, dance while driving, fart freely in
our work cabins and cheat in exams if there is no risk to be caught.
Internet or
social media is an extension of ourselves and while its far ahead in being good than bad,
but a disturbing trend being observed lately is of excess bullying, abusing and
intolerance on the internet. The point is that my identity is known on facebook as
its mostly friends socially that I am in contact with, so my comments on any post or photo are
pretty moderate, but when I am commenting on a group where I am just a profile, which is full of people
with similar interests and maybe passions but are not known to me in person, I
can turn into some sort of an unreasonable knuckle head and criticize
unreasonably any person or view , because I would never have to really interact with any
of them in person so no chance of social embarrassment in real life
With
anonymous identity ,Where I find it nice is when people develop guts to flirt
with the opposite sex, or women are able to speak their hearts out and express
themselves on twitter, arguments can sometimes turn really ugly and any cute
woman can suddenly become a “ b*t**” and some sweet guy become a “ b**ta**” . I
might never have the strength to actually interact with the opposite sex,
internet gives me that strength and also gives me the power to abuse what / who
I really like.
On the
internet nothing is mentioned in isolation, If I say “ SRK is good” then I mean
Salman Khan is bad, if I say"BJP is good" then it means Congress is bad, if I
say Barcelona is good then it must mean Real Madrid is bad, which can be fair,
but if you are in the opposite camp and you come across a passionate and a very
free troll you have had it, he/she would keep sending you links and photos on
his argument( selectively) until you agree to it. Such arguments do little more
than being counter productive.
Abuses on the
internet is also because of lack of knowledge( literary or otherwise) of most
users, if I don’t have an argument strong enough, I abuse to shut the person
down, the other person might abuse back then I increase the degree of abuse
till the other person backs down.
Internet is
also repetitive in arguments, same arguments get shared again and again as more
often than not there are no arguments, because we got to remember that we don’t
live in a perfect world and no right is fully right and no wrong is fully wrong
its how we would like to believe it. “
SRK hams” “ Congressis suck Gandhis” “ Modi killed Muslims” I mean come on,
these arguments are so repetitive that twitter sometimes has hashtags for them.
One more
trend today is collective outrage against businesses expressed on the internet,
if on a foodie forum one person has had a bad experience in a restaurant, he
will ensure that he would try and ruin that restaurant forever and its possible, with
negative news spreading like wildfire and people being in love with
collectively dissing entities and people together, ganging up in most cases,
any defence by the business owner in that case counts for nothing and his
business can be decimated in a day for an error that can occur at times with
anyone. The fact is that there are firms doing this business of sabotage as a part of their key activities.
I would like
to believe that my football team is the best and anyone disagreeing is usally a
loser, same holds true for almost any choice we have from our school, our rock
band, favorite films etc etc.
Sadly not
just teens, but people in 30’s like us are victims or perpetrators to this,
atleast I often get into arguments with people and feel good to shoot them
down, maybe not with abuses but I would like to have my word top every
argument, obviously I am not abusing or doing it as a part of any plan or
scheme but it is in me and it is in all of us. I got into this habbit
especially during the time of elections when my views were strong and anyone
opposing my view had to be shunned down, after the result of the election was
in our favor I did ridicule the others subtly and shame on me for doing it.
While
internet is certainly the integral part of our lives, every strategy has a cost
and internet gives you the power on your screen and then as we all know “ with
great powers come great responsibility”.
