I am a tolerant soul but I have limits. Sarcasm has been my closest friend since I was preschool age. One might think I would leap at the opportunity to use it as a base for a blog post. I surprise even myself in turning down the challenge. The thing that truly repulses me is not something I am willing to defend even in jest. Not even with a strong taste of sarcasm. I could key out something faint like the glorious attributes of vomit, something that repulses me physically. I could key sarcastically how a case of vomiting might be the only effort some folks make in cleaning their floors. I could humorously chastise the world for wasting vomit when a single human could produce enough regurgitated food to feed an entire country of third-world baby birds. I could point out the colors and textures in some form of gross art. But in the back of my mind, not even too far back, I would be thinking the most repulsive of all vomits is that which some call posting. Word vomits….I shiver when writing the words.
The idea that some believe it is all right to use foul language or speak insults to others openly, publicly, and all while hiding behind an ill-conceived, temporary user id, is simply too repulsive to make light of. To be in a state of disagreement is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. People are different and having different viewpoints keeps us all fresh. Not all of us have a firm command of our tongue. My grandmother used to say “I got my tongue wrapped around my eye-teeth and couldn’t see what I was saying.” I understand slips of the tongue. I understand sometimes what we say does not carry the intended meaning. What I cannot understand is the prevalent use of racist remarks and insults to the intelligence of people we do not know, have never met, and likely never will meet. What it is about social networks and comment sections of internet news articles that cause us to believe this behavior is acceptable? How did it come to be that one cannot disagree with a statement or idea without becoming the target of hateful attacks? Freedom of speech is very much alive in the USA; however true, this does not give us rights to vomit words into the collective ear of the general public. Choose your words wisely as in the age of internet, your words define you.
I’m pretty sure this prompt was intended to promote tongue-in-cheek humor, so…I’m going to clean the regurgitated food off my floor and fly off to find hungry third-world baby birds who can appreciate the colors and textures in gross art.
The online social spectrum has given the licence to define your own presence and your own identity. Unfortunately, in real life, and not on social networks, people have short term memories, and newer memories over ride the old one, including bad memories. On the online social medium, there is no such thing as short term memory – as memory online is permanent and long term. Being careless in what you write, who you offend or who you fall out with, can come back to haunt you – especially if you graduate and decide to find a job – as social medium is a source that can be used to understand who you are before you are hired.