I'm hugely upset by the death of Caroline Flack. I mean overwhelmed, stopped in my tracks, upset.
And I don't think I've ever watched a programme that she's hosted. So its not a deep connection, not at all. I just can't get my head around anyone thinking that death is the only way out for them. And when its someone whose young, beautiful and by all intents and purposes has their whole life ahead of them it makes it all the more shocking.
And I'm pissed off. Pissed off that this is what we've become and how its now the norm to raise people up and then tear them down, just because we can.
I've always worried about social media and the impact that it has. I remember talking to a good friend a couple of years ago, who worked in a school, and she told me that the rise of social media will be the death of our children. When I was at school, bullying was rife. It was a thing. And sometimes it was the toughest thing to go to school and face it day after day. But now its a whole different ball game. Now its not just at school. Its not just in that 6 hour time slot. It can be 24/7. With the rise of social media platforms comes the rise of relentlessness. The never ending circle of being able to "get" at someone. You don't have to do it face to face, you don't have to say things out in the open. You can now be a keyboard warrior, you can say all sorts of shit and have literally no consequence. Because in theory, you can say whatever the hell you like and no one need ever know its you. And you can say it all day every day.
That's a really scary place to be. Dangerous even. And there are loads of keyboard warriors. We've created a platform of "hard nuts" that behind the screen can be the nastiest people in the world. And wouldn't dream of having these conversations with you if it meant a potential punch in the face at the end of it.
We've lost the art of debate and trying to get people to think outside of their own little bubble. All of our opinions are different and that's a beautiful thing. But,we no longer listen to others' point of view, we no longer debate reasonably, we bitch, name call and spread hate because people disagree with us. Brexit was a big realisation of this. Twitter was awash with "Remainers" and "Leavers" all who had different opinions, and all who wouldn't dream of listening to the others opinions, and try and understand each others thought processes. No, you were either racist for dreaming of leaving or a scum bag for thinking of remaining. Unpatriotic if you remained and thick if you wanted out. It was infuriating to read and became incredibly boring when reasoned argument went out the window. It just became a slanging match of incredible insults because people thought differently. And no one even tried to see if from a different perspective, because their perspective was right and everyone else was just stupid because they didn't agree.
And this is what everything has become. You can't disagree with anyone now without an onslaught of abuse. It really comes down to that. No reasoned debate, no "have you thought about it like this?" "What about this...?" Its just "my way or no way."
And this just isn't the way it should be. I love nothing more than a good old debate, heartily trying to get someone to change their opinion to be the same as mine, to get them to think differently but also to get someone to make me think differently, to make me change my mind. Because I think I'm self aware enough to recognise that I can see it differently and I can have my mind changed. And I love that about debate. Its healthy, its exciting and its rare. Because you can no longer debate. Not without being shut down if your opinion isn't the same.
This became evident recently on a local community group on Facebook, when someone posted how annoyed they were with the fireworks because they had a dog that was upset. And so a "debate " started. Which lasted approx 30 seconds when the admin of the group told one member who thought it was ok to have fireworks that they could always find another group to become a member of. And there you go, shut down. No debate. Agree with me or be blocked. And I don't think that's uncommon. But its an epidemic of the mindset of what social media makes us, we can't talk unless we all agree with majority? And I usually disagree with the majority ( despite wanting to listen to their view) but I really don't like being shut down.
And I kinda think this all feeds into the whole social media, keyboard warrior thing. The way we've all just become horrible.
What I struggle with is the whole skewed analogy thing too. How people make their thought process right in their head because if it happened in a different context then it would be looked at differently? If that makes any sense. Like if Philip Schofield was cheating with a woman, he'd been vilified , yet coming out as gay made him an apparent hero? Yeah, but he wasn't and he isn't. If Caroline Flack had been a bloke and had hit his partner? Yeah but she wasn't and she didn't. Its all just a bullshit way of making our not very nice thought processes sound more reasonable. You can't debate a point confidently based on an analogy. You just can't. Because the analogy is just that. A comparison. Not a fact. You can only debate based on fact. You can make up a hundred analogies to suit your agenda doesn't make your argument right or foolproof.
And I'm really worried, with the whole "be kind" movement, for no other reason than this is just given, isnt it? We should just be nice by default. Not by making a hashtag out of it. And the death of a celebrity ( or anybody for that matter) shouldn't bring it to our attention. Be kind should just be a thing. And the fact that it isn't is terrifying because we have a whole generation of people/ children who don't think that being kind is the right thing to do. This blows my mind. And the irony? The very people that think we should "be kind"are tweeting those they think are responsible for the death of Caroline Flack in an aggressive, keyboard warrior, nasty way. Horrendous stuff on my timeline today from people that think you should bully or be bullied. Its incredible. And so very very sad, but an absolute state of our times.
And there is no answer. You can tell people all you like to "be kind" but if your default setting isn't kindness in the first place then no amount of telling someone to be kind, is going to change that.
We need to be better. We need to teach our children the act of kindness because we've lost that somewhere along the line and social media has been an outlet for far too long for the nasty hate filled bile that makes people like Caroline think she has no other choice than to take her own life. Can you even begin to imagine how she must've been feeling? Its too painful to think about.
Social media will be its very own downfall. I hope. We all realise to a degree that we spend too much time on there. We all have our phones glued to our hands checking on Facebook/ Twitter every 10 minutes Posting everything going on in our lives.
I guess we need to go full circle and realise that family, board games, chatting, debate and all the stuff that is considered "crap" to our teenagers, is maybe the way we have to go to make our children kind and people that mess up occasionally want to feel that life absolutely goes on...
We all have a reason to live. All of us. And its sad that Caroline thought she had no other choice but to die. And for us all to think that we have to be kinder... Ffs...
