I broke up with a follower after less
than 24 hours. The breakup was quiet, yet
it has its place in the queue for this week’s blog. First, some other loosely connected items.
According to The Bookseller, Jonathan Franzen feels writers are being 'coerced' into social media, and that new writers are told they won't be considered without 250 Twitter followers.
Some people find this overstated, but I
did hear an agent tell an audience that if he couldn’t find a link to a new
writer through Google, he didn’t bother reading their submission.
I later had a private meeting with him and,
if there’s a word for people who hate writers, (mis-scribonist?), I suspect
that’s what he is. Hopefully, he's not
standard agent material. Regardless of
his psychopathy (sorry, had the wrong hat on for a moment), he’s the reason I
started blogging and Tweeting.
Writers in the 21st century
aren’t in Kansas anymore and I, for one, am glad. Electronic cut and paste alone make it all
worthwhile for me. However, virtual
social engagement sometimes is devoid of virtual social graces. If we’re truly coerced into social media, we
need to consider the impact of a place without niceties. In descending order from horrific to my experience,
let’s discuss bad examples.
Lauren Mayberry (Chuvches) wrote a Guardian Music Blog about cyber abuse
directed at her solely for being a woman.
In response to her previous posting, one of the trolls said he knew
where she lived and would come rape her anally so she knew what rape culture
really was.
Then there’s Writer One who went into vocabulary
meltdown on Twitter, fuck being
spread fairly thick. Why? Because a journalist used a negative word
about Writer One, a descriptor not nearly as bad as the meltdown proved to be. The journalist had to block the writer.
Writer Two also challenged a negative
comment made by a journalist, and they had a short exchange. The journalist stayed rational yet unwavering
in the face of Writer Two’s slightly aggressive but civilised comments. Two sane adults, right?
Although Writer Two didn’t disembowel
the journalist, Writer Two RTed every one of the journalist’s comments and 60,000
followers did the job instead. One of
them reported the journalist to an employer.
In the end, Writer Two got a Tweeted apology. I imagine it was heartfelt.
Okay, so what about my Twitter bust up? Not quite so sensational. One of those situations when someone who
follows someone you follow, ends up following you. Ray, let’s call him, was unusually witty, so
I followed him back. He happened to be caught
up in trans-Atlantic travel that day and kept me smiling with his funny
Tweets. And then he wrote this:
'And I'm not all that keen on Americans in America, but put 'em in an airport and I'm all like Tina, bring me the axe.'
The difference in these examples is the degree. Each of them is an assault on the recipient's sense of inviolate well-being, and certainly out of proportion. They come from a deadening of empathy, which is the only thing that separates you from bullies and trolls. Once you stop feeling it, then you're on your way.
The internet, and social media especially, really let us off the empathy hook. We live in a world that
no longer gives you three chances. You
have a bad day, I have a bad day, I don’t think before I type, you don’t think
before you hit ‘send’ . . . the next thing you know, what you are thinking about
is an axe. When you say it out
loud, you convince yourself it’s a joke.
Because we all know how American (Black, Asian, female, disabled, poor,
LGBT) people are. They ask for it.
I have to admit that I do a very
good impression of an asshole myself from time to time. When I do, I hope to be forgiven and because
of that, because Ray has good traits, I wanted to turn the other cheek. But the thing about using aggression, even if
that aggression is garbed in humour, is that people stop listening to you. All they can think of is how to stay safe. When we are sexist or racist or use celebrity
to squash the small fry, we silence not only the other person; we silence ourselves
as well.
There are people on the other side of
our cyber actions. There are
consequences. Be kind. When you’re not, say you’re sorry. It isn’t rocket science, guys. Just play nice.
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