Nov 09, 2014 2:15 AM GMT
There was mail in my box today from a guy who lives in my area, but who I’ve had absolutely no contact with. The Subject line was, “you seem like kind of a dick”. The body of the mail was empty. No further explanation, no clue as to where this came from.
A couple days ago, another guy – who I’ve also had no contact with – left a comment on one of my photos. Rather than commenting on the image itself (which was a close-up of the silver medal I won at the Gay Games), it was a warning on the dangers of overexposure to the sun.
I can only imagine neither of these people would be rude enough – or brave enough – to say these things to me out of the blue in real life. They feel entitled to do so because it’s the Internet, and they’ve been fooled into believing their opinion actually matters, and they can say whatever they want with no serious repercussions.
The first guy – who said I “seem like kind of a dick” – was obviously trying to make me feel bad. Who would do something like that to someone he’s had no personal experience with, unless he was a complete dick himself? I hope he’s not too disappointed, but the only reaction I had was to think he “seems like kind of a loser”, which I told him in my reply, and thanked him for self-identifying because it saves me from wasting any time on him.
I wrote back to the second guy thanking him for the warning, which only yielded another paragraph from him on sun damage (he hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm). He seemed well-intentioned enough but seriously, I'd never write him out of the blue to tell him he’d look a lot better if he lost that layer of fat (I’m sure he doesn’t consider himself fat, but then again I don’t consider myself wrinkled). So, I let it go and made a note not to waste any more time on him.
I think what disturbs me most is that in both cases these guys apparently consider themselves to be the “good guy” in the situation, but in fact their behavior was utterly rude, at a level which simply did not exist before the Internet made it so easy. It seems like people lose all semblance of civil behavior the minute they sit down at the keyboard.
In the words of David Byrne, “Well… how did I get here?”
A couple days ago, another guy – who I’ve also had no contact with – left a comment on one of my photos. Rather than commenting on the image itself (which was a close-up of the silver medal I won at the Gay Games), it was a warning on the dangers of overexposure to the sun.
I can only imagine neither of these people would be rude enough – or brave enough – to say these things to me out of the blue in real life. They feel entitled to do so because it’s the Internet, and they’ve been fooled into believing their opinion actually matters, and they can say whatever they want with no serious repercussions.
The first guy – who said I “seem like kind of a dick” – was obviously trying to make me feel bad. Who would do something like that to someone he’s had no personal experience with, unless he was a complete dick himself? I hope he’s not too disappointed, but the only reaction I had was to think he “seems like kind of a loser”, which I told him in my reply, and thanked him for self-identifying because it saves me from wasting any time on him.
I wrote back to the second guy thanking him for the warning, which only yielded another paragraph from him on sun damage (he hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm). He seemed well-intentioned enough but seriously, I'd never write him out of the blue to tell him he’d look a lot better if he lost that layer of fat (I’m sure he doesn’t consider himself fat, but then again I don’t consider myself wrinkled). So, I let it go and made a note not to waste any more time on him.
I think what disturbs me most is that in both cases these guys apparently consider themselves to be the “good guy” in the situation, but in fact their behavior was utterly rude, at a level which simply did not exist before the Internet made it so easy. It seems like people lose all semblance of civil behavior the minute they sit down at the keyboard.
In the words of David Byrne, “Well… how did I get here?”
but....but.... 
