Well, not in a bar, per se, but on social media. After all, it is the bar of our modern times. It’s where we hook up with friends, family, dates, or trysts. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others are designed for social interaction, with anonymity and limited consequences for bad behavior. Often, these platforms punish people who aren’t causing a problem and turn a blind eye to serious issues.
Double Standards or None At All
They censor art but not lascivious sexual content, as young women flaunt near-nakedness in attempts to lure undersexed males into engaging and eventually earning money. In my day, that was solicitation or prostitution. Today it’s entertainment. They ban people for reposting content the bots flag as a “violation of community standards,” but not the original poster or creator of that content. They say they protect and respect free speech, but only if it aligns with their views or rhetoric. Social media penalizes one person for angrily responding to inciting comments, but does nothing to the offender.
I’ve experienced all of this on almost every social media platform. As an artist, my work has been pulled, removed, blocked, or flagged on my social media multiple times. I have been banned on a couple of sites and had my monetized account prevented from being seen because a machine saw a drawing and flagged it as nudity, kicking it out. It has no human component to distinguish art from pornography or from what is appropriate or inappropriate. Case in point.
Meet the Jerk
A jerk and an idiot meet in a bar (social media). The jerk wants to be seen, to receive incited commentary and responses, maybe to further his career goal of accumulating interactions to boost his ego, finances, or social status. This is nonfiction, by the way. I may have forgotten to mention that. It happened this very morning.
The jerk posted a picture of Brazil nuts and once asked what they were called. The idiot was the one who answered with the correct, degrading name. In fact, let’s just say there was a bar full of idiots. Many responses were tongue-in-cheek, affirming the name used before. I took offense and chastised the jerk. My response incited more idiots to chastise me for reprimanding the jerk, by, you guessed it, more idiots.
My Fury
My comment was that this kind of post had no business being posted on social media, given the degradation. Oh, the responses to that came swiftly. Some, we will call them the intelligent, supported what I had said. That was wonderful, showing me there was hope that we are all learning as a society. But I also received comments to the effect that we can’t negate or rewrite history just because it is offensive and vilified now. Shameful!
Responding that history is not being changed. It is bad history, I wrote. I further stated that even if it was said or done in the past, such language is inappropriate and inconsiderate, had no place in culture then, and has no place in society or culture now. What I witnessed this morning was ignorance on the rampage and lemming-like idiots following the leader, the jerk.
Do not misunderstand me. I know our history cannot and should not be rewritten to erase the unpleasant. If we don’t know it, or can’t study it and its consequences, we will never learn from it. But I did say that even though bad history should be preserved and not changed, we are the ones who should be changing. It should bother us when an asinine comment or bait is tossed out in any form, and we should all be proactive in shutting that person down and championing the victims of such insincerity and ignominy. My final comment on that feed was to ask where the moderators were in this group. Insert crickets chirping. They were nowhere to be found then. Another social media disappointment.
Social Media for the Fail—Again
This jerk was not banned, blocked, or sanctioned at the time. I certainly hope he has been by now. My point is that this kind of behavior slips through, and often, more often than not, to be sure. An artistic nude is removed, and this kind of person is free to spill his venom as if it’s humorous. It is not humorous. It’s offensive and harmful, not just to the people it belittles, but to us who feel the pain with and for them. It is shameful.
I get it. We have an unfortunate tendency, as humans, to lean toward the wrong rather than the right. Once we learn, we must stop what was wrong in the first place and not continue to perpetuate infractions and the insulting victimization of people, culture, and religion. Yes, we are ALL guilty of these kinds of sins in our pasts, but most of us learn from them.
Changing History Forward
I remember this kind of joking in my family when I was young. It made me cringe then, and it still does. It makes me mad. I grew up not feeling what my parents felt or doing what they did. My husband and I made a point of never teaching such bigotry, prejudice, or offensive treatment of others. We never called what we now call ‘persons of color’ black, white, red, or any other color. They are not persons of color, nor are they black, white, red, yellow, or any other slurs that were used. We are ALL people of color. No one alive is white. No one on the planet is black, red, yellow, purple, or anything like that. Go ahead, prove me wrong. I know no one can. We don’t teach our son that kind of distinction. And to this day, he does not see people in terms of color, religion, culture, or nationality, etc.
What he sees is a person’s character, the goodness or lack of it. Why can’t we all learn that? Why don’t we defend people when the ignorant are insensitive or outright cruel? What we don’t seem to have learned over the centuries is that we are all the same. We are all different shades of the same skin tones: cream, peach, beige, almond, chestnut, umber. All shades and tones of brown. Some of us are a couple of shades, as in the case of vitiligo. I was blessed to experience that joy growing up. I was one color and now am another. I understand the pain of being called something you really aren’t. I don’t want anyone to ever, EVER, feel that. So I don’t do it.
I respect people, their shades, religions, nationalities, sexualities, kinks, quirks, imperfections, disabilities, statuses, and any other categories. I don’t want to tell anyone what to do; you do you, but in this case, I will.
STOP hurting people, us, you, others, PEOPLE. Everyone has the right to freedom of belief and speech. But keep it to yourself and don’t poison others with your mentality if you believe it’s okay to dishonor anyone this way. I don’t want to hear you, see you, or be exposed to you, and I don’t want that for them either. We all deserve better. Be better.
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