Dignity Abandoned?

[Zolpheus]

In this great day of internet anonymity, people oftentimes make jokes, or comments they would not dare to do IRL. I remember people making jokes about the Japanese Tsunami in 2011 literally the day after, ending the joke with, "too soon"? To add to these subjects, babies in trash cans, child molestation, diseases, suicide, rape, PTSD, racism, genocide, school shootings (sandy hook) you name it. Not just the topic itself, but recent, specific examples of these topics.

While I have been largely desensitized to this , being an internet dweller myself, I have never really taken part. I realize to a large degree, these are children, or man-children with little life experience, and therefore empathy. IMHO, this does not account for all of those exhibiting this behavior, and it does not excuse it. I also understand that as a psychological coping mechanism, humor is often used to deflect or mitigate the severity of such traumatic events, but ONLY by those effected by it.

So I guess what I'm getting at here, is it feels like people have really detached themselves from the meaning of they words they say. It is not out of ignorance, after all, people don't go into a burn unit, and start cracking jokes about patients disfigured faces, or go Jeer the parents of the children gunned down in sandy hook. They know better, they know it is wrong.

What I am suggesting, is that taking part in this type of undignified, callous behavior.. however anonymous, does not lessen the gravity of such things. By using traumatic events that you were fortunate enough to have escaped, for cheap jokes and thrills, you lessen yourself.

Some may say "It's called trolling, get over it." As if it were just a practical joke, all in good fun. Sometimes it most certainly is, sometimes it is definitely not. A troll in today's terms is defined as "someone who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them." Trolls, like anything else, exist in a wide spectrum, and while some are mostly innocent hecklers, or jokers, all to often though, it tends to go way over the line into areas I simply do not consider to be grey. As used to it as we all are, why does such a toxic sideshow continue to flourish in our community?

In conclusion, I am under no illusion that this post will stem the tide or "really get people thinking" about how this type of toxicity effects us as an interconnected community. It just felt like something that was worth talking about, because I see so much of it.

[Deleted]

Nothing you can do about that. Plenty of people are uncaring dicks and when there are no repurcussions (shunned by friends, family, colleagues etc..) they got nothing to lose and say very mean things.

That's anonymity for you.

[Deleted]

Thankfully the law is catching up and consequences are happening