Final

Social media has been a vicious beast from the beginning. Modern social media has magnified this and brought it to the main stage of our minds because of it's very public presence. In the case of Monica Lewinsky it was early in the stages of social media and most of the attacks were done in private while nowadays all the attacks are done publicly in comments sections. However, one thing has stayed the same and that is anonymity online. While technology has made it easier to track and find out who your anonymous attackers are, many people are not willing to take the time to track IP addresses to discover who the commenters are. This anonymity makes people forget about the humanity of the people they are interacting with. Many times people online say things they are never willing to say to someone face to face. One recent event that shows this extremely well was #sorry an exhibit that Shia LaBeouf put on in New York to apologize for his antics at the premiere of Nymphomaniac Volume II in which he wore a bag on his head reading "I'm not famous anymore" and after the hate mail he received online he decided to publicly apologize by giving people the opportunity to tear him apart in person as payment for forgiveness. He was shocked when over 85% of the responses in person were positive while online 90% were negative. He stated on a talk show that most keyboard warriors are too afraid in person to do anything. This is proof along with the case of Monica Lewinsky that people online have become desensitized to the humanity of the person and say things that they would never dare say online.

I believe the same example of Shia LaBeouf is a great example of how compassion could displace shame online. Much like we see where he received two different responses based on the medium if we were able to inspire people to use compassion and start a trend instead of bashing people that others who normally wouldn't comment with compassion would follow the trend and it would saturate the post with kindness instead of anger and hate like we normally would see trending. The problem really is society. We love to see fights and anger. Compassion has no climax that the viewers are anticipating and so we choose to provoke hate in hopes of a great show. This is not unique to our society. As we look back in history we see the Greek Colosseums and the amazing turn out to events in order to see someone who committed a crime and to pay their debt must fight a group of men or a lion in some instances in order to pay their debt. The spectators were not their for justice, they were there for a blood bath.

Can one person change a society? Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world." And while this saying is great will my comment really change a society? Do I have to comment on every post in hopes of trending? The saturation of hate on the internet is becoming overwhelming. We almost need a flood much like we hear about with Christianity in the times of the prophet Noah. With no sign of that becoming a real world possibility I am prepared to do my part. However, I am not the type to comment on every post and every subject online. I am usually caught spectating and waiting to see what happens. Recently with the mascot change and the hate that surrounded Dixie State University online some of my friends in student government and I decided we needed to change the pattern on the Facebook and Twitter feeds by posting our honest positive feelings toward the new mascot. In doing so we witnessed more supporters sharing their voice and assisting in showing the negative that was online that there were positive opinions who were hiding in the shadows because we believed that we had won the fight with our mascot being selected. This is a common pattern. Supporters of a topic feel they have won and will not speak out. We see this in the world of protests as well. You never see picket lines in support of something because they are actively involved in the cause and are moving it forward while protesters attempt to create an angry mob. The silent voice is typically the supporting voice and that is where the change must start.