I am an avid content consumer. I look into everything. I deep dive into people’s YouTube pages, Instagram accounts, Twitter pages, basically anything I can in order to learn more about people who are currently peaking my interest. Over the last few years I feel people have gotten more cruel, opinionated, and full of anger on the Internet.
As I was watching the Bachelor this week I looked up some of the girls’ Instagram accounts, and of course, there are rude comments all over their posts already. Even though I am sure these girls have some sort of an idea that they need to brace for some hate, I don’t think you can ever fully prepare for the amount of hate they receive. And they receive hate for what? For going on a show and people seeing a total of two hours of you throughout the course of six to eight weeks? So now people think they know your worth. Now they think they know everything about you. People now feel entitled and determine to throw their opinions and degrading comments your way.
YouTube is even worse. I watch a lot of family vloggers, and they are under a lot of attack. And the things people are attacking them for is for moving, parenting their kids, selling their homes. Things that don’t involve anyone else’s business. You see twenty minutes of someone’s day, I don’t know if you can really claim to know someone and their family life from what they curate to be seen on YouTube.
I swear, just about every family YouTuber I watch has their comments limited on Instagram. It is so sad that they receive that much overwhelming hate that they have to extremely limit their comments. But I don’t blame them for limiting their comments. I couldn’t handle the amount of hate they receive.
I keep wondering, why are comments getting worse? Why are there so many people who think they can shove their opinions down everyone’s throat? And then I realized it is because so many people are driven by anger. I realized this as I now just watch a YouTube video to go and read the comments. I read the comments because I want to see if my viewpoints are validated, and if they’re not it angers me. So then I keep digging to see people attack others who don’t share my viewpoint. It can feel invigorating to see someone’s views I don’t agree with getting smashed. But it is a never-ending battle. I could scroll forever and it would never satisfy that unquenchable thirst for anger and the need to be right within me.
So what do I do? I have to stop fueling that fire. It has to start one person at a time when we decide being right isn’t worth it if it leads to anger and hatred. We have to stop seeking out things that make us angry. We have to stop judging others who live differently than us because it isn’t going to stop them from living. We also need to realize we aren’t as perfect as we may think we are. Comparing ourselves to others who share their lives with us doesn’t mean it is time to try to beat them down to boost ourselves. There’s a lot more to the world than just how we live in it.
There’s a lot of anger in the world. I feel anger has begun to become more attractive to people as the years go on because it is so easy to spread it now. You can be hateful and get no repercussions from it because you’re hidden behind the safety of the Internet. If anything, it fuels your fire. But it is a dangerous fire to fuel and can lose control very easily.
I am not exempt from feeling this anger, but I think it is good to give yourself a wake-up call. Try to get back to seeing others through a better light. Try to be more understanding, and realize that if you shared your life not everyone would agree with how you live it. And I don’t care if people should “expect” hate and negative feedback. I don’t think anyone ever DESERVES that kind of hatred.
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