As I’m sure you heard, during the Oscars the humor site The Onion tweeted an extremely unfortunate joke attempt about nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis.
The outcry on Twitter started off merely aghast. Then, as can happen when people collectively find something to be outraged about, the anger cascaded and multiplied. People called The Onion out, called for resignations and firings, called for heads, and often in language as offensive as the language people ostensibly found objectionable.
On a night where my Twitter feed had started with people being complete jerks to Anne Hathaway for no apparent reason, all the negative energy swirling around Twitter suddenly found an even easier target.
I’m not defending The Onion’s tweet by any means. It wasn’t a good joke and they rightly apologized for it.
But it’s kind of amazing to me how the Twitterverse can be correct about something but manage to take its self-righteous outrage so far it somehow starts feeling wrong.
It starts feeling like a witch hunt. In a medium that by its nature is effectively devoid of nuance to start with, whatever balance is possible is completely lost. And good luck to anyone who tries to stand in front of the herd and appeal for reason.
It reminded me of a similar feeling after Hurricane Sandy, when Mayor Bloomberg had decided the marathon should proceed. The Twitteverse reacted with complete and hysterical outrage.
Before the marathon was eventually canceled, the runners themselves were called out for their decision to run, nevermind that many had spent the entire year raising money for charity, some had been volunteering to the relief effort leading up to the race, and whether the marathon would go forward or not was outside of their control.
A lot of people on Twitter had tons of ideas about what the runners should be doing with their time, apparently missing the irony that they were doing so while staring at their screens and not really doing anything to help. And if you lived here and tried to volunteer, you may have been turned away as I was because there were already more volunteers than were needed.
A lot of the vitriol was channeled when the New York Post spotted some generators used to power the marathon press tent while some of the city was still blacked out. In classic Twitter fashion people were outraged about it, while missing the nuance that those generators could not have been used to power anyone’s home or apartment because of technical limitations, and in the end weren’t used at all.
Meanwhile, that same Sunday the New York Giants football game was allowed to proceed in hard-hit New Jersey with nary a complaint on Twitter, despite all of the emergency personnel and food needed for such a huge event. And after the Oscars, I couldn’t help but wish that people felt 1/1000th the amount of outrage about 8,000 people in Haiti dying due to alleged U.N. negligence that they did about one stupid tweet.
I initially scoffed when Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article asserting that the revolution will not be tweeted, but I now wonder if he’s more correct than I gave him credit for. He argued that the weak ties between people in the social media sphere don’t readily lend themselves to actual concrete activism.
I still think Gladwell underestimates social media (it’s basic human communication after all). But it does seem to me like it gives people the illusion of action without being actual action. It doesn’t readily lend itself to compassion for the people the Twitterverse decides has erred.
Woe betide someone who crosses Twitter, but woe betide us if we don’t take a step back from an instantaneous medium devoid of nuance and stop and think. Chances are there’s something out there more important to be outraged about and something far more productive we can do to channel our anger.
Art: The Deluge by Francis Danby
No doubt the Quvenzhanes of the world will indeed "soldier on" becoming increasingly aware that oftentimes the battle is the actual war or, as Jay Caspian Kang wrote in "The Dead Do Not Improve," "When it comes time to fight, you don't have the luxury to not fight." It is the chicks, not the aging birds, who are coming home to roost…
Back on-topic, this conversation suggests I reread Marshall McLuhan's prescient "The Medium Is The Massage," which heralded the power and influence of today's communications technology; join me.
Yes, that's right, Bill – aka anon. And I'm glad people reacted the way they did – on account of someone else's feeling other than their own. And they have every right to. And I think if you had been called a cunt on the internet, especially if your name had become internationally famous, you might feel a bit huffy, too. But if someone had spoken up defending you, then the hurt might be softened a little, and your faith in human nature restored…especially if you couldn't defend yourself.
@Wendy
While I respect your right to feel as you do, I have to point out…I've been called far worse than a c*nt in my time.
I didn't care then. I don't care now.
My faith in humanity has been challenged for many reasons, one of them being the utter lack of self-assurance and maturity that would allow one to ignore such childish insults.
Bill
Bill, I think there have to be standards set in the media that take into account decency and self-esteem given the fragility of human nature, especially those who are impressionable and easily hurt. I think we need to set standards for ourselves, too, where we allow others to express their opinions with dignity and without becoming offensive. This shows maturity, too.
Okay, so alittle late, but I wanted to add my thoughts.
First, I think your comment, Nathan, 3/7 at 9:26 was well-expressed.
I also want to say that the apology offered by the Onion was also well-said.
My opinion: I think there is both a downside and an upside to Twitter.
The downside:
I think when people have something in their own life that is bothering them, but they are not sure how to handle it, don't want to think about it or feel helpless to address it, it can be tempting to channel their anger in another direction. Finding a scapegoat can make people feel powerful, it can distract them from problems in their own lives and it can make them feel better about themselves in comparision. That can underlie a witch hunt, and it can get blown way out of proportion and get really scary.
The upside:
I think we're seeing a situation where people who are not used to having an impact, and have felt powerless to have any sort of voice, can now speak out and be heard. And it makes sense, in a way, that people are starting small, with issues that are in the area of entertainment, because it hits in a more personal way. Also, alot of people ignore the bigger problems, because they feel like they have no power in those situations. That may change.
But everything small is connected to everything large, and even on this thread, the discussion has led to the topics of power, privilege, sexism, racism, etc. Good discussions to have.
I have seen the 'twitter/blogger' crowd have a very positive real concrete impact recently – stopping a bad lawsuit, putting pressure on corporations to be ethical, getting a corporation to look at it's practices.
So, I think this is a dual-edged sword. I think it's really important that voices like yours speak out and urge people to use this new power responsibly. But I'm also delighted at the idea that the people collectively really do have power – this is new, and it's wonderful, and it will change the world.
I'm not convinced, btw, that the mob can't be stopped. You said:
"good luck to anyone who tries to stand in front of the herd and appeal for reason"
But I'm not convinced it can't be done. Someone getting into the frey would have to be willing to take some heat. They might need a group of people intervening. But I'm not completely convinced that there is never any way to interrupt it. I could be wrong, but I think there is a need for leadership here – a strong voice that is to be able to impact these things when they happen. It's probable that leaders like this will arise. I hope so.
I still have yet to see the Onion's joke. I don't feel curious enough about it to search it out, thank goodness.
I think of Twitter as less of a mob and more of a herd. A herd is easily spooked and will stampede. While a mob will not rest until its target is beaten out of existence, a stampede indiscriminately crushes whatever is in its way and veers in different directions until it runs itself out.
That said, I hope I never end up with the stampede trampling me.
Thanks for all of the Malcolm Gladwell links lately. 🙂