Ask Yourself This Before Responding to Anything on the Internet.
I talk too much shit on the internet. I go to social networks, where we all go to scream, and I see something bad. I quote the bad in order to laugh at it, thereby spreading the bad and provoking bad responses. I do this despite the fact that I already have a job pointing out bad things and offering bad answers for money, also known as blogging. So, lately I have been using this mantra, not what I tell myself, but what I ask myself before I say anything – especially a response or reaction – on the Internet. I ask myself, “Is this a strategic weapon or just catharsis?”
I learned about this from a representative of the Writers Guild at a meeting of trade unions. I think about it a lot because I do a lot of things that seem like catharsis to me at the moment, but are actually strategic disasters. If I really asked myself this question enough, my wife would be 50% happier with me.
But for now, I mostly ask about this before I say “shit” on the Internet. Because if the answer is “it’s only a laxative,” that doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t say it! But often the answer is: “This is catharsis for the first ten seconds, and then there will be an ABSOLUTELY OPPOSITION.” If I quote – tweet some Republican asshole I’ve never heard of before, what do I think is going to happen? Do I think they will read my intellectual commentary (“Hey moron, your whole worldview is misogynistic”) and say, “Wow, I never thought my statements were shitty, but now I’m giving up on them all! Now I will learn at your feet, sensei?
No, they will quote me back, and their followers will insult certain pixels in my Twitter avatar, and no one will feel good, especially the one who deserves it.
“Social media feeds our appetite for moral disgust and tribal conflict,” says a man with whom I disagree on many issues . She – Editor Quillette Claire Lehmann – sat on a “diet moral indignation.” If the editor of a magazine defending right-wing moral outrage-peddler Jordan Peterson can go on a moral outrage diet, then maybe we can, too. Even if our definitions of moral outrage differ widely.
You don’t need to log out of social media; I know you will never do that. You don’t have to stop being loud and assertive, effective and thought provoking. You just need to ask yourself, have I thought about the possible consequences of what I’m posting? Have I considered, am I getting anywhere? Have I wondered if what feels good now will look really stupid if someone builds it into a blog post ten years from now ? Will this thing that feels good now get worse in an hour? Do I accept the bad that I could get angry about for ten seconds and turn it into the bad that bad people argue with me about for ten days?
And damn it, you might say it anyway. Sometimes you need to.