Serious talk · 4:49am Dec 18th, 2014
Grab your serious chair and let's discuss some things.
So, we have the breaking news of a brony's suicide. Like nearly all suicides, this is definitely tragic, especially when you consider his age and the circumstances leading up to it. And yet, there is a natural cycle to these things. The first several dozen comments will be the usual condolences of sorrow and grief. These will then be followed by comments stating that the deceased should have known better than to listen to trolls on the Internet and gone outside. In the end, the latter will occupy the conversation, to the point where the person who was once pitied is again an object of ridicule.
There is definite truth in saying that someone should know better than to rely on the Internet for socialization. You can't spend your whole life in front of a computer screen and expect to lead a long, healthy existence. Humans are naturally social creatures, and learning how to operate within society is a major part of maturing and becoming a better and wiser person. But at the same time, many of these comments feel like they minimize one of the worst things the Internet has brought to us: anonymity.
Back in the day, if you said that someone sucked, you would have to know of them in some meaningful way, or be close enough for them to punch your face in. Nowadays, you can call someone anything you want from anywhere, and all they will see is a username, if even that much. Facebook and other social media have made this even easier. There is a real ugliness to what is shown on the Internet, and just saying that it's a part of the deal isn't going to cut it.
And with how tech-dependent our world is becoming, how much longer can the old adage of, "Go outside," apply? I have a computer at my apartment. I have another at work. My iPhone is a portable computer, as is my tablet. I am essentially plugged in at all times. So are many, many people in the world today. It's the way our society is beginning to turn.
I guess what I'm saying is to be mindful. When you troll someone on the Internet, that is a real person on the other side. You have no idea what their life is like or where they're coming from. Show some basic decency and treat others as you would be treated. Seriously, Internet, it's time to grow up a bit.
Among other reasons, wanting to need to be able to go out and talk to actual people is why I don't actually have a phone at all, nor FaceBook or twitter or whatnot.
Man, cyberbullying sucks...
I know I'm supposed to be sitting in my serious chair right now, but in the interest of adding a wee bit of levity, Stanley Parable Serious Table (spoiler warning).
I won't go on a rant about my views on bullying, as there are many who can say stuff more eloquently than myself. I will, however, agree with you. The Internet needs to grow up. My personal code is that if I wouldn't type it on my mother's facebook page, or give it to my 7 year old cousin, then I don't type it. I mean, come on, people, be mature.
(Yes I know that this sounds like (and I probably am) preaching to the choir but still, if you know someone who trolls on the internet, tell them to stop. Spread the word. Insert motivational stuff here.
-C.Storm
The thing is, more and more, I think a lot of the people who say so.e of this stuff really want this kind of outcome.
I don't know, maybe I am just pissed now...
One of the problems is that it is so much easier to be mean than nice on the internet. From a practical perspective anyway. The people who are nice and say constructive things are out socializing and doing things away from the internet. While the people who casually throw around negative comments are more likely to be the type to just spend their time online. Or so it seems to me. Which is a problem when the other main group of often online people are those with undeveloped social skills who don't have the same emotional toughness that being around unpleasant people builds up. Not that it should be used as an excuse. Just one of the things I use to remind myself that goodness should be active.
I think that in general at least some internet anonymity is a good thing. Being able to create a new identity not connected to anything else can be very freeing. Yet it makes the old saying even more true than it was before. Evil wins if good does nothing. Not just speaking up if you see something else being a asshole, but trying to spread and say nice things even if you don't notice anyone being an asshole. We shouldn't be aiming for a zero-sum game after all.
First of all, I agree with you. In fact, when anonymity and the internet go together, I believe Penny Arcade really hit the nail on the head (severe language warning).
There's ... a lot of reasons internet society has become like this. Dislike of personal accountability and responsibility. Easy anonymity. Ease of creating a new persona. People burn their bridges online acting like completely irresponsible tools because there's no incentive for most to build or hold any sort of responsible accountability unless you're one of those rare people who has an income tied to your account—and even then the internet it rife with celebrities and people who make their income from the internet who forget that they're not on one of their other accounts and let loose without thinking. People feel free to act without care or responsibility—after all, they'll never meet this person, and if they stir up too much trouble it's a simple thing to just make a new account in most places. Or find new places.
Personally, I find the behavior repulsive. Some years ago, back when I was just getting back online after a long sabbatical, I thought long and hard about how people acted online, and came to one conclusion: I would choose one name and stick with it, shared across all my accounts. That way, regardless of how I acted, I'd have to think about it beforehand. Just like in real life, once something was said, going back could be difficult. I would have to back up my words, perhaps even on occasion apologize or back down. But I surmised that the added weight of only having the one name, that would always be an identifier, would require me to put my best foot forward.
The reason it works? I've got no failsafe (especially now that I'm published and my real name would be associated with whatever online name I could change to anyway). I have to be courteous, have to think twice about what I post. It doesn't mean I don't make enemies, or get involved in debates (or not get flamed, because that's inevitable).
Internet anonymity, the ability to be anyone anytime, isn't beneficial, I think, for most people. Just because you say something online doesn't mean you're not letting the lines blur. Look at League of Legends pro players. Some of them are absolutely toxic people—or even teams—who've been publicly ruined because their real-life behavior became an extension of their online behavior.
Cyberbullying? Terrible. But to a lot of people who are indulging in the sort of small-minded mindset that produces this action, appealing. There's very little fallout on them, if any, aside from moral guilt. They can say and do whatever they want, even posing as multiple people (a tactic well-documented in cases of cyberbullying), because all it takes is another junk e-mail address or even the willingness to log in more than once.
Granted, we can't force them to change. Even now, doubtless many of the participants who bullied this kid are telling themselves "It's not my fault" while hiding behind a newer, fresher username to find a new target with. But what we can do is strive to be better, more responsible individuals ourselves. To look at the temptation the internet offers to hide behind walls and be "free" of our actions and instead say no, that we will be responsible for our own words and our own posts. We can't force a cyberbully to stop, sadly. What we can do is make sure that in our little space on the internet—and in life really—we're each leading a better example.
...i think you're missing the point behind trolling here.....
Anonymity can be a great thing as well. It isn't right to blame internet anonymity for the lousy actions of some despicable people.
Yes, it will. It could easily be argued that one isn't morally right to bully someone online, but that doesn't automatically eliminate the darker part of the internet. It exists and we deal with the consequences, both good and bad.
Running outside will change nothing except the medium used to bully. I'm not an extremely confident person, but come on. At one point, you will need to ignore the bullies or push back. Communicating in a non-violent virtual world makes the choice unbelievably easy. Block, report, rinse, and repeat. This isn't making light of the fact that bullies are dicks without purpose, but they will persist and thrive if the only counter to their actions is a simple plea for them to stop. If these were reasonable or decent people, we wouldn't be typing these comments into our computer.
Again, it isn't right what the bullies did. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree here. But after that point, I'm going to have to say that people need to toughen up, or at least seek help from a trusted friend or acquaintance that is willing to put things into perspective. If hostile banter drives you to such extremes, something is wrong, and you should seek help. God forbid you go on /pol/.
But hey, someone will likely tell me that I'm victim blaming whilst completely missing the point that I made about being proactive. The actions of bad people will never be excused, but you give them power when you put yourself in a bad situation. Be prudent if nothing else.
Apologies in advance for the language in this comment, but I have some strong feelings about this matter.
The sheer amount of douchebaggery on the internet has always struck me as particularly sad, due to how helpful internet anonymity has been for me. I've never been that good at social interaction - it once took me a year and a half to work up the courage to sit with some people at lunch, people who later became close friends - and the internet offered me a way around that. After all, it was still me behind the keyboard, still my thoughts and my words, and I never saw it as anything but that. The key difference for me was that no one could associate the me on the internet with the me in real life. Regardless of how accurate that assumption was, it gave me a sense of security that allowed me to speak my mind and approach people in a way that I simply couldn't in the real world. Although I do still find it hard to interact with people, I have vastly improved, and I think a large part of it is due to my time on the internet - I never treated it as a way to be someone else, but as a way to be myself without feeling like I was being judged for it. In fact it helped me cope with some bullies in real life that I was dealing with. The very few times I did encounter people who judged me, it was much easier than in person - I've always found it easier to ignore assholes in writing than in person.
Now looking at that last sentence, it look like I'm trying to say that "this kid should have had thicker skin" or some bullshit like that. I am absolutely not - people handle different situations differently, and I just happen to find it pretty easy to shrug off online assholes. It's just that the anonymity of the internet can be such a wonderful thing, as it was for me - and as you said, the internet needs to grow up and stop using it to be a massive dick instead.
What makes this situation harder to deal with was the victim's mental condition, meaning that he lacked the ability we all have to simply delete a comment and walk away. Auteurs have a limited ability to understand normal human social interactions, let alone malice, no matter how 'humorously' intended.
What disturbs me is the people who said that the Internet was basically Adam's only social 'window' on the world. That's alarming because, quite frankly, the Internet is not always (in fact more often than not is not) a healthy place to be, socially. I've encountered people with Autism on other sites too and they generally cause trouble, get trolled and generally are hopelessly ill-equipped to function. One actually told me that her therapist had recommended social media as a way to learn how to socialise normally. This suggestion would make me laugh if it didn't make me weep in anger. I'm not sure if the recommendation is made because it's cheaper than setting up a group session or simply supervised interaction in the community or if it is simply to get the patient out of the therapist's hair. However, no matter the cause, it is the most wrong-headed attitude imaginable.
None of this in any way excuses the trolls, who are the worst form of bullies and should face criminal prosecution for their action. I recommend that they lose their Internet privileges for a few years, backed up with an implanted microchip that will instruct any computer not to log onto the 'Net whilst they are using it.
Well, guess it's time for me to play the asshole, even in this tragic situation. I can already feel the SJWs sharpening their pointy sticks.
There's a lot of tragedy here, and a boy taking his own life is only a small part of it to be perfectly honest.
Oh boy. Where do I start with this?
Firstly, the fact that this guy was a brony is completely irrelevant. Yes he may have been bullied for it, and it may have been a large part of his life, especially on the internet. But that wasn't the reason he's dead. And yet, we're hearing from the media, in the fricking headline, that a 'Brony has committed suicide'. This is why I face-palm so often at most forms of news media. Someone does something rash like this, and they make sure to put into the spotlight the most 'controversial' aspect of that person's life. This wasn't the unnecessary death of a brony. This was the unnecessary death of a human being. Is it too much to ask for these people to treat it as such without trying to force the assumption that him being a brony somehow lead to his death? Yes, he was bullied because he was a brony. But he could have been bullied for any other reason. Hell, he wore glasses. That's more than enough reason for some people to decide to bully someone. And trust me, I know bullying. I spent the better part of my first 16 years on this earth being the target of bullies for any reason they could imagine. Hell, I've been called fat, stupid, smelly, ugly, devil-worshiper, satanist, freak. It got so bad they even got some of the teachers believing I was trying to put curses on some of them. Do you really think I'd want the headline about my death to read 'Fat Devil-Worshiper commits suicide'? I know these people want to grab attention, but honestly they shouldn't be going on about this guy being a brony like it was so important.
Something else important, and I know the SJW are all going to jump ontop of me for this, is that this boy had a mental problem. 'Learning disability' is the correct term, but to but it bluntly, he had a problem talking and remembering things. Let's be frank here, and pretend we all agree on what is reality. Someone with a mental disability shouldn't be left to roam the internet freely. You wouldn't let them wander down a busy, crowded street in the bad part of town, would you? That would just be asking for trouble. It doesn't matter if there's a nice, bright convenience store on that street, it's just not a good idea. The internet can, honestly, be even worse. As someone else pointed out, there will be people that will say 'you should expect stuff like that on the internet'. And, though I know a LOT of you are going to try and argue against this, it's completely true. People are going to say mean, hurtful, nasty things on the internet. And guess what. People are going to say mean, hurtful, nasty things in real life too. Thinking that the internet should be a safe, padded place where no one can ever get hurt means you've lost touch with reality. Now, before someone tries to jump down my throat, I'm not saying that this guy shouldn't have ever been allowed on the internet. But he shouldn't have been left alone there. He's got parents that know the kind of person he is, that know that sometimes he needs to be watched or helped along. Why didn't they do the same when it came to what he did on the internet? I know, a 19 year old is far from being a vulnerable child, but even if he didn't have a learning disability, his parents should have noticed something was wrong, and tried to find out what it was. They even said they had noticed he was upset before this happened, and yet they didn't try to find out what was making him upset. Like I said before, I was the target of a lot of bullying when I was younger. And yes I've had my share of low points. I mean really low. But I had people who made things just a bit more bearable. And I developed a tough skin to a lot of things. But I know how bad it can get. And I know that even if you're down to that point, someone can do something to pull you back up out of it enough to make it the rest of the way on your own. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's out of the hands of parents and friends. Even if they can't jump in and block it form you, you're still within their reach in some way. They can help you. They just have to take the step forward to do so.
And this brings me to some of the real tragedy of all this. The shifting of blame. And I don't mean where people start to blame the victim like so many people expect. No, I'm talking about the blame that should be on the parents for not looking out for their child. For not taking the time or notice that they should be doing something to help their son when he felt his life was going out of control. And yes, some of the blame should fall on the victim, for continuing to feed the trolls that will always be hungry for more, but also more so for the people that didn't take the steps to keep things from going to far. And no, despite what many people will say, that blame does not fall on YouTube, or even the internet in general.
And that's probably the biggest tragedy here. That this story, already as full of pain and blame as it is, is just going to be used by people, who should know better, to force their agendas onto something that should be open for all. YouTube will be blamed for letting people be anonymous. For not moderating comments. For not taking the responsibilities that should be wholly those of the parents. Every time something like this happens, when the whole 'cyber-bullying' debate comes up, you have people screaming that the internet should be made safe. That they shouldn't have to keep an eye on what their kids are doing online. They try to say that sites like YouTube or Facebook have a responsibility to safeguard their kids, when in reality it's no one's responsibility than their own. If you wouldn't let your kid walk through the bad parts of town at night all by himself, then you shouldn't let them walk through the murky depths of the internet alone either. But apparently that's just too much of an inconvenience for some parents these days..
2661614 don't worry , i don't think sjw's can read that much text while maintaining what it said in their minds to poke at with their pointy sticks lol....
of course it's going to be used to push an agenda , that's all the corporate media is , we just have to be aware of what that agenda is and realize that whatever it may be it's probably the opposite of what's in our best interest.....
and the only real tragedy here (aside from the loss of life) is how all of these problems could be avoided/negated with just a tiny modicum of real education , i could fix everything you went over if i was given the opportunity to communicate with the parties involved and have them listen to my advice.....
2661300
oh yeah nice catch there , it was way past when i wanted to go to bed when i read this so i guess i didn't pick up on it right away , but anonymity is by far the best thing about the internet , idk wtf iah was thinking when he wrote that , but anonymity is how we're able to get more leaks from people about injustices from higher up on the hierarchical structure we live under , it takes the power away from the powerful , and gives power to the otherwise powerless , but then all half of the internet ever cares about is who's trolling who and oh look isn't that just terrible let's get some censorship or accountability campaigns going , not censorship of the corporate media mind conditioning programing which makes people act these ways and certainly not accountability for the people responsible for creating these environments that produce these behaviors , oh no , we don't care about that/haven't been educated enough to see that far yet , no what we want is to punish the people who fall victim to these circumstances either by mocking the person's death with the suggestion that we should hand over more control to the power structure , or by prosecuting to lock some poor schmucks up in a little cage for the rest of their miserable lives , fuck people are so fucking stupid...........
man i gotta go watch some mentally advances series now fuck this shit.....
also i like how my previous comment , which suggested that op might be misinterpreting something , got a bunch of downthumbs but no replies , so far all intensive purposes what i've claimed is still standing lol......
2661066 I don't have it in me to go in excruciating detail in pointing out how fucking wrong you are, so I will instead share the following and hope you learn something from this. I recommend you watch both.
2662307 no , you do actually , otherwise your your claim is meaningless......
im not one for poetry , and it didn't address the point of my comment....
the person in that second video was just a complete moron , though it did at least say what i was suggesting in my original comment and thus validating it from your standpoint since you just submitted it as your argument as to how what i said was incorrect , by agreeing with it.....
also i would suggest you read my previous comment which discusses some things relevant to this topic , to give more of an insight.......
What's with the downvotes without responses? Is this some sort of sick irony?
2662307
At least mention the parts where he is wrong. If not, we don't know if you are trolling or not.
2662383 of course it is , ppl like that are too dense to realize it though....
2662307
2662383
There's no use trying to talk sense into him, he's as dense as a slab of osmium and as smart as it too. If you contine all you'll do is go on a ride full of irrelevant side comments, abuses of elipsises, and unintelligable nonsense that leaves you wondering what the hell you were talking about in the first place.