Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Why's everyone so nasty?


It seems lately I haven’t had a lot of time to blog. And it’s sad, because it really is one of my favorite things to do. But since I have five minutes, I thought I’d pose the question – does anyone else notice how many angry people there seems to be running around lately?

Blogger extraordinaire Laurie Ruettimann recently wrote a post about a nasty email she got from someone who was freaking out about Laurie’s opinion of French manicures. I’ve also had my share of haters (browse my blog, it won’t take long to find one.) And you can’t even watch The View without that annoying Elisabeth Hasselbeck yelling at you about how Obama hasn’t cleaned up the steaming pile of poop that Bush left yet.

So what are your thoughts? And please don’t say it’s the economy or unemployment. I know that if you’re reading this, chances are that you went to college – and if you went to college, chances are that you have a job. What’s really going on here?

3 comments:

Kathy said...

Wow.

I think that society as a whole is increasingly more comfortable saying anything and everything that comes to mind. If the author of Ruettimann's hate mail had been standing face to face with Ruettimann, chances are the conversation would have been more civil. But email gives us a sense of anonymity, even though we might be personally acquainted with the person we communicate with. It isn't face to face, it isn't even voice to voice like the telephone - so we can express ourselves and be absolutely horrible to each other.

Onstage, like Hasselbeck (and others) we can be rude and opinionated because - well - we're celebrities and our opinions are the only ones that matter, even if they're ill-informed, rude, and hurtful.

If no one agrees with me, by the way, you do not have the right to insult me. You might make me cry.

GenXpert said...

OMG @Kathy - I just checked my Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/generationXpert) and there was the nastiest comment! If you get a chance, go check it out.

Michael said...

I think you are spot on Kathy.
I surprised that a negative blogger didn't get to bash you first before I made a positive comment in support.

I find this to be especially true for any blog involving govenment, politics, crime, race, sexuality or contraversal subject.

I think the one point that isn't mentioned as a cause is many of these web-blogs reward frequent posters, with points, status, and most frequent posters get pushed to the tops of lists. Therefore they spout just to keep themselves at the top of the lists of most frequent posters which is sad.