Americans are a shockingly opinionated people. Everyone seems to have an opinion on everything, and we are all eager to share what we think. That probably explains the explosion of blogs, of which I am a participant, it is true. I don't know that I have so many opinions as I have thoughts banging around in my head, and I have to dump them somewhere to make room for the really important stuff I'm supposed to be remembering every day.
Like where I parked the car when I'm at Walmart. It is very embarrassing to wander around the lot like a participant in a game of blind man's bluff goes bad, looking desperately for your own set of wheels while trying to maintain your dignity. I don't know about you, but I am never fooled by someone striding purposefully around a parking lot, as though they are on a mission. We all know that mission is to find their car and get out of there as quickly as possible, before they see someone they know, and have to explain why they are stalking cars instead of heading home.
I have recently taken to reading the local newspaper online, rather than in paper form. I'm not sure why I started doing it, the real deal is at the end of my driveway, and it's a long walk when you're 48, I guess. When I started, I realized that at the end of almost every article, there is a space for making comments upon that information which you have just perused, free and open to anyone. It doesn't matter whether you have something to say that is genuinely worth hearing, you can comment regardless, which is freedom of the press at it's best and it's worst.
And when I say worst, I am not kidding around. Reading public comments has not elevated my opinion of the general populace. On the contrary, I am depressed at the level of ignorance that seems to abound in our society. It is shocking, disheartening, depressing, distressing. If we want to know whether our school systems are successful, we need look no further than the comment section of the local paper, and it will give you all the information you need to know.
While many of the national magazines and news outlets have gone to the so-called moderated comments, where everything has to go through a person before being posted on the site, our local paper has not yet done so. When you post a remark, it goes right up there, live, unfiltered, just as you wrote it. If it is especially offensive, there is a way to complain to the newspaper staff, who will then review it and remove the offending item, if it's deemed too inappropriate. So there is a modicum of control, but it's tenuous, at best, and depends on the sensibilities of others to be enforced. There is a lot of power to that immediate feedback, and it's enticing, because you feel you can influence others who are reading your remarks.
I think that's what draws the commenters, some of whom appear to be from other parts of the country, but who regularly post on our local news forum. Since Kansas City is hardly the hub of the universe, it's clear that there is some other draw, and I think it's the power that they draw from the freedom to say anything they want, without immediate restriction.
From reading all these comments, it would be easy and tempting to draw conclusions about our society. They are frequently very polarized, either rabidly for, or diametrically opposed, to whatever the topic might have been under discussion. They are rarely polite, and actual discourse is virtually impossible, as each side is fully and completely entrenched in their own point of view to the exclusion of all else. They are not there to listen to each other and learn, they don't even seem particularly interested in changing minds. They simply want to show, in a public way, how much they despise the other position, and state their own case and why it's obvious that they are the fount of all wisdom, to the exclusion of everyone else.
I have been entertained by the lingo of the blogs and commentaries. There are trolls, who go from site to site, leaving scorching remarks simply to inflame passions. There are avatars, which are the so-called screen names people use to leave their remarks. Many trolls, in particular, have many avatars, and will sign in to the same site repeatedly using different avatars to make more than one remark, occasionally even having arguments with themselves in an effort to get a discussion, or more likely, a fight, going. If you leave an opinion that is likely to be disagreed with, [for example, you say something reasonable,] you will be flamed, meaning everyone will disagree vociferously and probably rudely as well.
At first, I was extremely disconcerted by these commentators and their comments. It is almost frightening to think of these people running around out there, looking exactly like everyone else, appearing normal on the outside, but filled with such hate and confusion on the inside. It makes you wonder if your neighbor, your friend, possibly your ex-spouse, might be posting on these sites, and if so, have they gone completely round the bend?
However, after you read these comments for awhile, even in passing for a few minutes a day, you start to see a sameness to them, a similarity in style and content and even expression, that allows the realization to slowly dawn that its primarily the same five people posting comments on every site, throwing their opinions out there. More importantly, no one else cares enough to listen or even pay attention, so they are probably relatively harmless after all.
I was amused recently, when reading a brief item I was researching from another journal, that someone with the same quirky avatar I have seen on the KC Star site had posted there as well. I realized that I had encountered a troll, and I was rather entertained at the idea that someone would take so much time and effort to ooze around the internet laying grenades to set other people off. I don't see the fun in it, but I guess that's what they do to get their power high.
I rarely bother to post a comment on these sites, because no one reads them other than the few who are mainly arguing with each other, and the occasional bystander who stumbles in. I have, on one or two occasions, when I simply could not help myself, posted an impassioned response to something particularly foolish, only to be ignored while they strayed back to their off topic, or ridiculous, opinionated rants.
Most regular readers know that my son is a columnist for his state university daily paper, which gives him a rather large pulpit from which to bully his readers with his opinion on whatever his topic is that day. I recently learned that his musings are not only published in the paper and online, but they are also distributed to college newspapers nationwide, where people read his opinions, and occasionally direct comments his way. This is a rather amazing accomplishment, I think, because it gives him the opportunity to influence people far beyond his sphere of usual acquaintanceship. But it also leads to some interesting conclusions that I have drawn from the remarks he has received in return.
It seems that people who partake in the blogging way of life are living in a different reality, one where cyberspace is genuine, and they feel they know the people they regularly encounter. I have seen different avatar personalities wishing each other happy birthday, happy anniversary, and exchanging condolences as if they know each other in real space, as if they are, in fact, friends. It makes me wonder if these people trolling the internet by day and night live outside the walls of their own homes, or if they are, in fact, imprisoned, either in their own minds, or someone else's jail cell. It makes me wonder what their lives really look like, and if the freedom of the internet is the only freedom they have.
It seems that when you write a blog or a column, people feel that you are old friends, and they know you, who you are, what you are about. They make assumptions about what is important to you, and they think that they have something to give back to you in exchange. I worry for those people. I wonder what happens when their favorite blogger goes away? Who do have they to share their grief, or their pain, or their joy? Is there a real life for them, or is cyberlife their only life, the only life that is genuine to them?
Adam gets a lot of comments on his columns, because as an opinion writer, he is, by definition, creating controversy. It is his goal to make people think and talk and respond, and they do. He has shared some of the more entertaining comments he has received, but the one that I have enjoyed most was short and to the point. It was an e-mail that said, quite succinctly, "Will you marry me?" Although I know it was a joke, it spoke to the nature of the anonymity of the medium, that someone would consider sending an anonymous proposal, simply because they could.
I enjoy writing my blog far more than anyone possibly can benefit from reading it, and I have another life outside the far flung reaches of cyberspace. In my normal, everyday life, I interact with real people who have real lives as well, and it keeps me grounded and humbled. Being queen of my own universe is fun as long as it isn't any more important than a few scribblings tossed to the wind, but I hope that I never lose sight of what is real, and what is merely Memorex.
Of course, that's just my opinion....
