Internet Fights

Internet Fights

Obsession Level: I'm Not Impressed.

I have quite a few obsessions to blog about that are on my mind, but then I signed into good ol' Facebook today and saw that a fight had broken out on a friend's page, so this anti-obsession was just begging to be written.  

I have noticed that internet fights are everywhere.  People just can't seem to help themselves.  The power of being safely tucked behind your computer screen where you'll never have to actually confront anyone seems to really get to people's heads.  I understand the entire idea of freedom of speech, but I also have a sneaky suspicion that someone thought that would also imply that people would use their heads before speaking.  This, however, is often not the case.  Also, people seem to pick the dumbest things in the world to want to fight about over the internet.  It's like they'll latch on to any topic just to have a "battle to the death" on someone's chat forum or facebook page, often saying things they wouldn't dare say in person.  I really don't find myself impressed by any of them.

Let me share with you a little of this morning's fight which spurred me to write this.  It was a fight over television shows.  I kid you not.  The two original people involved (because others joined later, of course) were fighting over if it was "OK" to watch more than one show.  The one implied that because they were a fan of one show, they could not watch the other.  The other person advocated, originally, watching both but then things got messy.

I'll digress for a moment to make two points.  1.  I'm not against a good spirited debate or discussion, so please don't misunderstand that.  2.  If it were not "OK" to like more than one thing, I think my life would be unbearable.  I'm faithful to my obsessions and I hardly ever let them leave my life, but we're not monogamous as you can clearly see.

Now back to our programming...what could have been a simple, lighthearted debate escalated quickly.  People began throwing about all kinds of slurs and insulting entire populations of people, not to mention what they were saying to each other.  The kicker is that they DON'T KNOW EACH OTHER IN REAL LIFE!  Needless to say, nobody "won" this fight.  There is no winning of an internet fight.  There's simply the back and forth until someone puts a stop to it or someone finally goes away.  

My point to all my friends out there is this.  If you like a good spirited debate or discussion with other people, and can remain civil, then by all means go ahead.  They can be fun and even educational at times.  

Internet fights, however, where people cannot discuss anything without resorting to the use of an extreme number of obscene words, slurs of all kinds, and caps locked insults are just ridiculous.  They aren't impressive.  Nobody reading them is like "You know that person there who just turned on the caps lock button and strung together any number of curse words is just a really amazing role model for human behavior."  If you feel you cannot remain civil about something that someone posts and discuss it in a mature, educated manner, it's probably best for you not to post anything at all.