Absurdity

I see so much hate online, it feels like it is worse and worse every year. Not even just the hate, the apathy, the trolling, the glee in "owning" someone else, getting a rise out of them. The lack of honest conversations and people having conversations from convictions because they believe strongly in something. Instead they make comments just to get a rise out of people, everything is a laugh. Less and less I see compassion, respect, civility, understanding, acceptance, empathy, kindness, the things I think most importantly should be taught in schools. How to be human, what it means, morals.

I feel I got a lot of my thoughts of morality from the shows I watched. Sure there were the basic good VS evil shows, but there was media that taught us that things aren't all black & white, there are shades of grey to it all. Star Trek Next Generation, X-Men Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, just things that made us think and question what is right and wrong, and what it means to be right or wrong. Critical thinking, a love of reading. I'm thinking The Next Generation a lot lately, as I just feel Picard had a way of hammering that moral lesson home, a theatrical approach that just kind of stops and makes you think. There are many other shows I could think of I am sure that were important to me growing up, The Odyssey, Samurai Pizza Cats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Some I'd obsess with more than others.

It really felt strongly growing up and watching these shows like Star Trek that there was so much hope, that things were getting better and the world was slowly shedding violence and coming together as one to just enjoy life. I remember when Tatu from Russia was making it big, so many movies had Russians as the villains and now we were all coming together to enjoy music and Pokemon, and play Warcraft 2 online together and other games. Runescape. I had Russian friends, and Ukrainian friends, and people I met from all over, South America, Africa, it didn't matter we were all just playing games, consuming media, and having fun. Yes there were wars and horrendous acts, but there was this feeling, at least for me, that hey World War 2 is over, cold war is over, these are fights but in a few decades everyone will just get along. There was the two tower attack, and it felt like "Okay it is this group of people, but once it's done it's done and peace and understanding will come back".

Lately in the last decade or so I have seen the internet, which gave me such hope of uniting us all start to turn on us. It had gone from everyone having fun, playing games, making and sharing music, sharing our lives, to just another battleground. Politics and divisive tactics snuck in and suddenly there is cyber-bullying and hate pages and misinformation. I used to love to listen to Art Bell and Coast to Coast, now suddenly all the conspiracies felt dangerous, people refusing vaccines, a lack of trust and faith in our fellow humans to be the best they can be. People started "Swatting" each other online and once friendly games that seemed to unite the world now seem to have turned into another way to divide us.

Gay marriage was legalized in Canada nearly 2 decades ago, it felt we were shedding hate, that there was nothing to hate anymore. Sexism, racism, gays, Russians, Chinese, enemies the old media told us to fear were gone, we were entering an age of acceptance and equality for all. Sure all the old movies have Russians as the bad guys, but now we play Warcraft together and have fun and share music. And hey they might not accept gay marriage right now but give it a few decades and the world will be a peaceful accepting place.

The hate we tried to escape from by joining together online has seemed to spread now into all facets of our online experience. Every fandom I am in it seems people are not able to just enjoy it and be excited, there is that level of hate there. Doctor Who, Marvel, Angry Birds, anything people are hating and complaining about it. I remember when Iron Man came out it felt like every forum I was in was 95% positive experience, or being part of the Doctor Who forums as we explored the cracks, the excitement and energy in the fandom was amazing, and I loved being a part of that moment as we would wait for the next episode, a week of speculating together. Perhaps streaming has ruined that for us a bit, but I feel the fandoms have ruined themselves too, letting nostalgia ruin the good moments we do have now. Letting our politicians into our media and fandoms and bring their fights here now. It used to be X-Men was progressive, everyone knew it, it was there to fight racism and prejudice in general. If it wasn't for you then you weren't part of the fandom. Now the fandom seems divided in half, not just X-Men but any fandom, those who like it and those who hate it (or liked it). But now with mainstream media increasing their online presence, they target anything they can for engagement, moral outrage on either side, people pay more attention to bad news than good news and they stoke the fires among us. News used to feel more neutral, someone posts an article we discuss it, but more and more the news seems to have finely honed edges.

I grew up watching show like The West Wing as well, another good one to add to the list of shows that helped shape my moral compass and I loved the idea that they would have impassioned debates because they care about the people and a better future for humanity. They didn't want to see people suffering they just had different ideas of how to get there. the different political parties would argue, but usually without name calling and insults and treat each other in a civil intelligent manner, and it feels now there is a loss of that striving for intelligence in our political discussions and more focused on "gotcha moments", trolling, "owning" the other side. It is more of a dirty fight than us pushing ourselves to be better through discussions with others.

Now it seems like instead of winning a war against hate, we have simply moved the battlelines, gay marriage is accepted, racism seems to be moving on the way out (or at least it used to feel like it was moving out). Now we have new battlelines, same war against hate. Now trans people are being targeted more and more, with an increasing amount of hate being pushed on them just like so many marginalized groups before. Now growing up to me trans was transvestite, loved Rocky Horror and it made sense to me. Gender is a social construct to explain traits society feels should be placed on the binary. Dresses are female, suits are male. Pink girls, blue boys. Now to me gender doesn't make a lot of sense, it is just a lot of social traditions that have built up over time based firmly on stereotypes of the sexes, and the assumption that your sex matches your gender. Now I personally understand being a transvestite more than a transsexual, your body is your body and masculine and feminine traits are just made up and don't really matter, if anything I understand non-binary a lot more as gender being a binary is just an idea society has pushed on us and really men can wear dresses and woman can be hairy and anything in between and fuck stereotypes or societal pressure to fit into just a single role or mold. To me it is like hey I can have a long beard and like pink dresses or wear heels. People saying hey I don't identify with these masculine traits just because I am biologically a male makes sense to me, the traits are all made up, but then to say "If I'm not X then I'm Y" and only identify with feminine traits doesn't make as much sense to me, why not something in the middle and just be what you will be. It feels to me they are giving into society's ideas that there are 2 strict genders. I don't understand the need to me to alter the body to match your sex with your gender, but I will listen to those people and perhaps they don't feel their sex matches who they are and they should have the right to choose that about themselves. It is important to remind myself though that I am not them, and that is not my truth but theirs. Their decisions are theirs and should remain their choice between themselves and whoever they choose, doctors, friends, it is their choice not to be forced on by others. They know themselves best. When 1 side is spewing so much hate I will distance myself from that and look at my thoughts and actions and make sure I am open to the path of kindness; when 1 side seems to be the side of hate and violence, I will always choose the side of acceptance and love.

I hope we can get back what we have lost, regain our innocence as a society and shed this hate that is building up in such toxic levels in our online forums. To come together to share music, play games, and not trying to "own" eachother but bring each other joy. People need to do hobbies they enjoy more, consume media they enjoy. Why keep doing something you hate? Same goes for interacting on online forums, if you keep getting upset, and yes there is always something to be upset about, then maybe step away and read a book or do a puzzle, play board games with friends. If the online world has turned on us from the hope and promise it once was then we need to make more welcoming and connecting spaces, and maybe just step away from the internet and media more and interact in person more.

I worry as well the self censoring online may lead to going backwards on things such as sex positivity, talking about sexual assault and uncomfortable topics, and push being progressive to the background. Social media for example not allowing nudity or female presenting people from being topless can push back equality that has been long strived for. It may not even be to not get banned, though that can happen if a lot of trolls start reporting your content as I've recently seen in some sex positive pages I follow, but just the algorithm will push your content down and there will be less engagement.