Social media brings out the worst
I know that socialmedia is not the real world, just as Kim Kardashian is not your average working mother. There are extremes in life, and we cannot judge situations based upon themore exaggerated edges of the normality spectrum.
But we have all started to spend parts of our days in the virtual world, and in the post-pandemic era, some of us spend the majority of our waking hours communicating with avatars, digital creations, and shadow humans. So the things that are happening in that environment do have an impact on our emotional health, and the way we view the actual world.
Lately, the things I have seen in that virtual universe has made me wish I was never born into the real one. People I liked, or at least tolerated, have shown themselves to be filled with hatred and hostility toward those who don’t share their political views. I know that this is not a new thing, and has existed for at least the past few decades, but I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest that we have crossed a line from which there may be no return.
After the news broke on Friday evening that President Trump and his wife Melania had tested positive for COVID-19, I held my breath. This had nothing to do with my fears for their safety and health, although I managed to get off a quick prayer to St. Jude (my go-to in difficult situations). The reason my esophagus seized up was the thought of what was about to happen in that virtual world where so many of us manifest our real characters (ironic, isn’t it, that we learn more about a person by reading their online musings than by speaking with them in person?). I knew, and I was not wrong, that there was about to be an onslaught of hatred gushing out like Old Faithful from the pages of progressives and Never Trumpers, who are no longer capable of separating their political selves from their non-partisan identity.
The number of folks who have either wished death on the president or engaged in some sick sort of schaden freud because he is now infected with a deadly virus is scarier than the virus itself. They are not the faceless shadows that populate the comments sections of some online newspapers. They are not folks who have used pseudonyms to create online personalities that bear no relation to their actual selves. They are people I have actually met, or at least, would have like to have met in kinder times.
Many of them have started out their posts with the disclaimer of “I am normally a good person but…” and then go on to wish a painful, lingering death on the president.
I posted this in response to those sort of folks, and it was shared almost a hundred times, which is a record for me:
You might argue, as some have, that social media is a distortion of the real world. I would have agreed before social media became the real world for so many people who were trapped in the fabricated amber of the COVID shutdowns. Virtual is real, now.
One of the few public figures who gave authentic wishes of hope, luck and recovery to the president and his wife was Joe Biden, who tweeted out his and Jill’s solidarity moments after the news became public. He also vowed to pull negative campaign ads. That shows class, decency, and humanity. It is a shame that so many of Joe’s supporters lack the qualities reflected in their candidate, in this troubled moment.
I was going to write this column, this week, about the accusations that Trump is a racist. In fact, I had one all written out and ready to send to my editor. It was a good one, and perhaps it will be printed at some other time when the campaign resumes and the bedside watch abates.
But right now, it is important to point out to all of those folks who say that Hate has No Home with them, that they need to check the front door: Hate left, so Hypocrisy could take over the lease.