More Ignorance in Action: Premier Trump

This tweet came up in my feed, and I was immediately reminded of Trumps refusal to disavow David Duke, the former grandwizard of the KKK.

In both cases, we have a politician whose platform focused on caring about the little guy (allegedly) and bringing greatness back to their respective area, e.g. Ontario or the U.S. Now we have two figures who both refused to disavow outspoken racists. Watch the Trump video, the interviewer describes that David Duke is a former KKK member (at least three times) and Trump still keeps saying he doesn’t know who David Duke is.

Now Ford basically argues “oh it’s busy, you know” to avoid having to disavow Faith Goldy. Before I continue with the Goldy point, I wanted to bring up this tweet.

Okay, I could possibly see where this user is coming from, if he didn’t already have his mind made up. If he really wanted to see if Faith Goldy qualifies as truly being far-right, he could Google her. He chose not to. He has internet access and refused to Google her name because subconsciously, he is worried he could find information that reveals Goldy is racist, and that Ford is giving implicit support to a racist. His laziness becomes something else: Support for Faith Goldy.

Update: This Twitter user is also a fan of Ann Coulter.

 

If you don’t think Goldy is racist, check out the below video.

Here are my favourite bits from Goldy’s video:

“I’m not a refugee or an immigrant…I don’t believe diversity is our strength…I believe in European Canadian identity, not multiculturalism…When studying our nation’s history I pronounce its founding peoples settlers and pioneers, not immigrants.”

Make the decision for yourself. Look up information for yourself instead of being a slave to your biases.

Now, if Ford wanted to disavow Goldy I am sure he would have by now. He could have Googled her name, just like I did, and come across videos like the one above. When I Googled Goldy this was one of the first results. If Ford is getting criticized for posing with Goldy, then he or some staff member likely would have Googled her. He knows who she is. He knows what she stands for. He just doesn’t mind.

Bungiegate

I was scrolling through Twitter when I came across the below tweet from video game developer, Bungie.

As a brief recap, two people were murdered, and ten were injured at a shooting in Jacksonville. The shooting took place at the GLHF Game Bar on Sunday, while the bar was hosting a video game tournament, the Madden Classic.

So out of respect for its fellow gamers, Bungie decides to hold a day of silence. Makes sense right?

Not according to some of the angry trolls in the comments. When I use the word troll, I don’t use it to denote people who say stupid or hurtful things just to get a rise out of people. That definition implies that these people don’t genuinely believe in the words they type. When I say “troll,” I am referring to the spoiled and ignorant people who infest the online community, and ultimately ruin it.

Apparently, a launch trailer for Forsaken was supposed to debut during this period of silence. So, these gamers, only care about that and were quick to criticize Bungie’s move.

The level of selfishness here borders on sociopathy and I don’t know why it surprises me. I mean, this is the same community that was involved in Gamergate. Spending a few hours on Xbox Live makes it clear how insensitive/racist/sexist gamers can be.

The tweets that really stuck with me are ones like this:

So Wolfchadren is actually trying to sound virtuous here. He wants us to realize there are people dying all over the world, and thinks we shouldn’t just care about highly publicized ones like Jacksonville. Other tweets follow the same logic, bringing up areas like Gaza. A part of me can appreciate what they are trying to say, but it rings hollow here. Bringing up other people’s death comes across as an disingenuous copout to defend their own selfishness e.g. “I want my trailer and I don’t care about Bungie’s act of respect for my fellow dead gamers.”

I doubt that people like Wolfchadren care about people dying in Gaza or anywhere else in the world. Read the third sentence in his tweet again: “It is good to remember but for those who have nothing to do with it things should just stay normal as planned.” Wolfchadren doesn’t care about change. He cares about things staying the same. The trailer was supposed to be released today, and now a pesky show of respect for dead people is getting in the way. I am using Wolfchadren as a case study but he is not the only person with this mentality. Read through the thread for yourself.

Maybe I can’t just blame this on gamer culture. I am sure there are other examples of this callousness all over the internet, but this is the first such example I have witnessed. People can find anything to argue about, but I never thought a day of (social media) silence would be something that people can disagree on.

The Rabbit Hole

There have been far too many moments I go on a social media platform with the purpose of making my own post, and end up staying on the platform afterwards. I get sucked into the rabbit hole and the platform that was meant to boost my platform ends up being a drain on my time, ultimately killing my productivity. I started Instagram with noble intentions of getting more followers for my Twitter and Facebook, and more viewers for my blog. The ultimate goal was to get more people reading my blog, so that I could create a following for my books.

As I described in a previous post, I quit Instagram because it was just a big distraction. I would post 3+ times a day, watching the likes and followers pour in. Then I would realize no one liking or commenting was actually checking out my site. Then I realized I was becoming enslaved to the platform. A weekend away from it meant followers with ADD would unfollow. I spent more and more time posting, but I also spent more time on the explore page. I tried to avoid the instamodels and cat videos, but some of those crept through. Even when I focused on following comic book artists and writers, I would still spend more time on the platform than I originally intended. My deficient attention span (which I am working on) would lead me down the rabbit hole, exploring content that ultimately just distracted me from the reason I joined the platform in the first place.

When I have a day off work, I like to start off with something productive. I eat, then I usually write or go to the gym. Then I try to practice guitar for a bit, then job hunt and so on. Social media is a distraction that can get in the way of these other tasks. At the same time, it is something that lends you legitimacy or status if done right. I haven’t been doing right. Distracting myself for minutes at a time, while also losing followers because I’m not posting enough for their liking. When I am working, I like to stay off social media for hours at a time. However, this can lead to a gap in the posts that followers and potential followers crave. As I continue to work on my fifth book, I worry that I’ll have a body of work and no one to share it with. The paltry 125 followers I have on Twitter, could be 50 by the time I’m done the book if I don’t make a conscious effort to post throughout the day. With that said, I’ll take on the challenge and try to contribute more to social media, while doing my best to withdraw from it.

I’m Not Racist But…

I think anyone who genuinely isn’t racist has caught on to the fact that the new breed of racists reject the label of racist. Trump is just “telling like it is” when he demonized Mexicans and Muslims, people say they have black friends when they get called out for racist thoughts etc.

We have seen this numerous times before but I came across something on Twitter the other day that still left me dumbfounded. I have previously discussed rapper Talib Kweli’s penchant for fighting back at the racist hordes that flock to his Twitter feed, and the person below was another one of them.

So, I know people might be quick to say this man (@GennethKrant) is just a troll. However, his entire feed is filled with these pseudo-intellectual racist statements.  Read what this person wrote here, really try to understand him, and then realize that it is impossible to. This entire statement is one big contradiction. You can’t commend “terrorizing illegals” and disapprove of marrying Jews and then say you are inclusive, “fair and reasonable”.

Maybe this person is clueless enough to think he is not truly racist since he doesn’t use racial slurs and has black acquaintances who he hangs out with sometimes (while still viewing them as beneath him). The new racists are the Schrodinger’s cat of racists, simultaneously racist and inclusive.

More Right-Wing Straw Mans

For those of you who do not know, a straw man argument is an argument that does not address the argument an opponent made. Typically, the straw man is created by either exaggerating or simplifying an opponent’s argument

For example

Person 1: Racism still impacts minorities

Person 2 (Straw Man): You’re saying minorities shouldn’t work hard since racism holds them back anyway!

This may seem like an exaggeration on my part but the online realm is rife with straw man arguments. This post is actually motivated by an argument some racist (sorry, alt-righter) presented on twitter. According to them, acknowledging that racism still impacts minorities just gives minorities a license to become lazy. Sadly, this thread was met with a wave of support and criticism of liberals who would try to create a utopia where no one has to work hard.

This particular straw man argument is a very popular one and shows the strength of denial and straw man arguments. A lot of people on the right wing, and those sympathetic to them, love to complain about liberals being the ones that never listen to the other side or heed facts that contradict their world view. This straw man argument is one example of an argument that is borne out of willful ignorance.

No reputable figure who studies racism or even acknowledges its impact tries to argue that minorities shouldn’t bother to work hard or improve themselves, since racism will stop their progress anyway. This is not an argument that liberals make. There is plenty of evidence to show that racism still impacts minorities, such as the study that people with racially ambiguous names get more responses to their resumes, even though the resumes are identical. So people who don’t want to face the facts can simply ignore the actual details of the study, see the headline that says “racism” and jump to a stupid argument.

My mother never told me I shouldn’t bother to work hard because of racism. I was taught that I would have to work twice as hard to get the same respect. She was right. If I fail, it’s because I’m a lazy black guy. If I succeed, people assume I am unqualified because they don’t understand how affirmative action works.

We are stuck in a cycle where people say we can work hard and succeed, and are then treated with suspicion if we do succeed. Racist assumptions abound as people wonder if we AA’d our way in or if we are selling drugs to support our lifestyle. This is the beautiful colour-blind world we live in.

Why I Quit Instagram.

I’ve lost track of how long it has been, but a while ago I created my personal Instagram account. It was something I started mainly as a way of staying in touch with friends and family overseas. While Facebook is still a popular option, one could say that Instagram is one of the fastest growing apps and one that people my age (26) gravitate to the most.

I rarely posted to my personal account, but I did spend time scrolling through the black hole of the explore page. I was presented with cat videos and “instamodels” galore, but my interests also led me to search for movie and comic-book related material. Soon enough, I started following a diverse group of actors, authors and artists. I wanted to avoid the narcissistic side of Instagram, with its selfies and workout videos, and take in the real talent that the platform had to offer. I also knew that I wanted to share my own thoughts on comics and movies, just like I did on my blog and my other social media accounts.

I have never been the kind of person to get 30 likes on a facebook profile picture, so I decided that I couldn’t pursue my interests through my personal Instagram account. Thus, @moviegrapevine was born. I enjoyed the freedom to embrace my geekiness in all its glory, attracting other like-minded people and becoming part of a community that was an audience for my writing and also motivated me creatively. I later followed up with a second account specifically for my creative writing, @wmoviegrapevine.

The purpose of the Instagram accounts was to direct more traffic to my blog and my YouTube channel. I became hypnotized by likes, and the odd comment, thinking that this surely equated to more readership and more views. It was actually Twitter that made me realize the truth. I have posted links to articles before. Three likes, so I must have three views on the article. I then check the article’s stats, and the article has no views. Even with a less visual medium, people still like or even retweet material that they have not truly engaged with. A like on Twitter or Instagram does not equal another view of your base: the blog, YouTube channel etc. that Instagram is intended to be a funnel for.

Of course this seems obvious now, and I was never naive enough to think that everyone liking my posts was also reading my blog. However, I had a small group of followers who consistently liked my posts and there was the assumption that they must be reading my material. However, the analytics for my site made it clear that wasn’t true. That harsh truth also made me look at my own behaviour on Instagram. There were plenty of accounts I followed, and consistently liked, that had their own related sites or videos. I always said that I would check out their content, and then I never did. This wasn’t due to any apathy or malice on my part, it was simply due to the abundance of books, websites and videos that already take up my time. Speaking of time, I was spending more of it scrolling through my explore page, spending twenty minutes on Instagram when my intention was to log on and post within five minutes.

All of the above realizations led me to realize that Instagram was only a big distraction. I had to analyze if my extra data usage, and the associated costs, were really worth it. I had a few hundred followers, which was still paltry in the grand scheme of things. Additionally, the followers I had weren’t actually engaging with the material on my website or my YouTube channel. Ultimately, my accounts were not meeting their goals. All they succeeded in was giving me validation. I could post art or a picture that I liked, and have other people express their approval. I could post a short poetry piece or an excerpt from my book and have people compliment it. None of this meant they would be interested in anything I shared outside of Instagram, but for a while that didn’t matter. Ignorance was coupled with bliss and I lived under the illusion that my distraction was a sign of productivity, and that it actually meant something. It took me too long to realize that it didn’t. It was a diversion; from my other works and my other platforms.

I can’t say it’s Instagram’s fault, it is the fault of my attention span. Now I want to redirect that attention span to my Facebook and Twitter, while I continue to blog and work on my fourth book.

Talib Kweli’s Twitter Fingers

As a child, most of the music I listened to was whatever my parents were listening to. I heard the pop and rap on the radio, but also older R&B and reggae. When I was thirteen, I started listening to music independently, getting into the alternative rock that was popular in England (my home at the time). As I grow older, I continuously seek out older music of many genres, wanting to diversify my tastes.

I first heard about Talib Kweli Greene (known professionally as Talib Kweli) when I was doing my undergraduate degree at the University of Ottawa. I forget the context for his name being brought up, but I believe he may have been doing a show somewhere in the city. Years later, when I joined Twitter, I was randomly motivated to find his account. To this day, I have not listened to his music. I will, but this post isn’t about his artistry. Anyone who follows Kweli knows he isn’t afraid to engage anyone who tweets to him or about him. Some of these tweets come from people criticizing his career or music for one reason or another, but a lot of the ones I’ve seen are people who accuse him of being racist.

As I’ve discussed before, “colour-blind racism” is the modern racism. It is a naive mindset that racism, both instutional and individual, is dead now except for those pesky people wearing white hoods. It treats any mention of race as being racist, while also defending comments, mindsets and behaviours that rely on racist assumptions. People will say they don’t see colour, and then argue that black people would get killed by cops less if they just obeyed the law. People will say they don’t see colour, but then refuse to date anyone whose skin doesn’t match their own. People will say they don’t see colour, but then assume a black person with a good job isn’t qualified for it.

Racists are drawn to Kweli like moths to the flame. There is a sort of vicious cycle at work, where someone attempts to call Talib out for perceived racism, e.g. Talib’s declarations of being proudly black or his previous responses to another racist. Then once Talib dismantles this racist’s arguments, another jumps in to attack him because he dared to discuss race. Such is the hypocrisy of the colour-blind racist. While they have their own racist assumptions and beliefs, they are quick to throw out the word racist for those who call them out on it. “I’m not racist, you politically correct social justice warriors, (other right wing buzzwords) race-baiters are the real racists. I just think I should be able to say I don’t want more black people in my neighborhood without libtards attacking me. Black people are violent after all! That’s not racist, I have black friends.”

I have sometimes wondered why Kweli bothers to respond to these people, and some tweets from fans have also expressed the same question. Some of the haters accused Kweli of doing nothing but tweeting all day, but a look at his touring and musical output shows he is a productive artist. He handles time well, but I guess I still wondered why he bothers. Then I read Kweli’s own answer to the question, and it all made sense.

People are always quick to label racist online comments as the work of “trolls”, people who write inflammatory comments and derive enjoyment from the uproar they produce. The word “troll” implies that the poster doesn’t actually believe what they wrote, they are just saying it to see how people react. This kind of mindset, where we just ignore online racists, is downright irresponsible in this day and age. As Kweli points out, the alt-right is an entity that was birthed online. Real people reside behind the alt-right sites and comments that have proliferated online. These people have jobs, families and the ability to vote. They got Trump elected, with their own votes and their ability to spread misinformation that reinvigorated the resentment of minorities that many people in America harbour. Kweli combats racism through campaigns and events and he knows “twitter fingers” may not be for everyone, but it is one of the tools he employs to combat the ignorance that is stoked by this new climate of right wing backlash.

The people who decide to accuse Kweli of racism demonstrate one racist assumption after another, and a straw-man understanding of concepts like white privilege. User @adamant919 had the audacity to use the term “black privilege” to describe black people’s supposed natural gifts and our “handouts” with programs like affirmative action, which actually benefit white women more and don’t lead to unqualified applicants getting selected for jobs. Funny enough, the user appears to have deleted his account since. This isn’t the first user that has deleted his account following an encounter with Kweli and it gives me some hope that some people might realize the error of their ways. However, someone can delete their account out of a sense of embarrassment, without actually reflecting on their views.

This Slate article offers an interesting case study of the infamous Hunger Games (2012) racist backlash, where supposed fans were upset that the character Rue was played by a black girl, even though Rue is described as having dark brown skin in the book. One fan began collecting these racist tweets, such as “Rue being black ruined the movie” and created a tumblr account to showcase them. This article follows up on this tumblr account, reaching out to some of the twitter users to get their thoughts.

The user who wrote this tweet argued that she didn’t mean to be racist. She was just surprised that Rue was black since Rue was supposed to remind Katniss (the white, main character) of her sister. Firstly, “remind her of” doesn’t always mean “look like”. If she was truly “colour-blind” then Rue’s skin colour shouldn’t have even registered with her. Aside from the terrible excuse offered by the twitter user, the author brings up a point that a lot of people like to use for defending racists online: “This kind of drive-by scapegoating does not seem conducive to genuine reflection (and it definitely doesn’t encourage reflection in the individuals it scapegoats).  It allows us to point the finger at other, younger, relatively powerless people, rather than consider the ways in which we’re implicated in a problem that is much, much larger than a few misguided teenagers on Twitter.”

I have heard people say the same thing to Kweli about his Twitter comments, and it usually comes across as very disengenious. Some of the users from the Hunger Games example may be teenagers, but some of them are grown men and women. The same goes for the alt-right. People who throw out the “don’t shame people” argument out act as if there are no attempts made to examine racism on a much larger scale. There is plenty of information online, in classes, on tv that sheds light on the much larger problem of institutional racism. People choose to ignore these sources. People choose ignorance. They reject enlightenment as left wing propaganda, the work of libtards or social justice warriors. People surround themselves with friends and sources who share the same views and refuse to challenge any of their assumptions about the world. How exactly should their racist comments be dealt with?  Conservatives love to throw out the argument of free speech to defend bigotry and no one is saying they don’t have the right to make such comments. My question is: If someone is willing to go online and criticize someone’s skin colour or attack a rapper for his liberal beliefs, why are we discouraged from exercising our free speech and shining the spotlight back on them?

As Kweli says, if someone is already racist “when I respond to them, it doesn’t matter what facts I give or how much sense I make. They’re going to be who they are.” Being kinder to the racists won’t make them more prone to ‘reflection.” The real purpose behind responding is to avoid having your message become silenced. There were probably millions of people, viewing one racist comment after another from the alt-right and thinking that all those comments wouldn’t have any impact on their lives. They stayed silent, and let misinformation and racist rhetoric fill the void. They may as well have packed Trump’s things and moved them into the White House for him.

Social Media and The “Lynch Mob”

I have always been interested in the debate concerning social media and its effects on people’s lives. There have been numerous cases of someone receiving offline harassment, threats, employment loss or even violence due to something that originated online. Since 2014 we have had movements like Gamergate come into the woodwork, attacking the supposed corrupting influence of feminism in video games and defending death threats as a manifestation of their free speech. This becomes the crux of the argument about social media and its real world effects. If we have freedom of speech, why should people care what we say about people online or in a video?

Earlier this week, comedian Patton Oswalt criticized Trump in one of his tweets. Real estate agent Tony Brust then responded, “”Oh (bleep), the little troll has an opinion again”. This first comment is insulting and unimaginative, but it is not the tweet that resulted in Brust losing his job. Instead of quitting while he was ahead, Brust decided to bring Oswalt’s deceased wife into the argument: “I’m a psychic and I am channeling his wife’s opinions.”

Once Oswalt’s twitter followers saw this tweet, they also noticed that Brust was using his professional social media to tweet. Users immediately found the link to Jim Maloof realtor’s and began calling the company and posting complaints about Brust’s behaviour. Brust is now out of a job.

People may disagree with me for this, but I see this as a form of poetic justice. Many will be quick to use the free speech excuse, but I find that many people misunderstand what free speech means. Brust did not go to jail for his tweet. That is the crux of freedom of speech, freedom to criticize the government and law enforcement without legal consequences. Freedom of speech does not mean that someone is immune to criticism and consequences from their peers. The government didn’t demand Brust’s resignation, Oswalt’s twitter followers did. Maloof Realty had to distance themselves from the bad press and did so in the most logical way. It is their freedom to choose to protect their reputation and their earnings by cutting off the cancerous tumour.

I also find that people often forget that freedom of speech is a double-edged sword. For example, President Trump said the Hamilton cast was out of line for criticizing Vice President Pence, but he also supported the unfounded allegations that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim. Trump had no problem using his freedom of speech to assert that a President’s birth certificate isn’t valid, but he was also insulted that the Hamilton cast would have go off-script to address his VP. People invoke freedom of speech as an excuse when people express views they do not agree with.

An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

From http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/donald-trump-birther/

I make it clear that I don’t agree with bigoted comments, and I don’t criticize someone simply for having the audacity to say something bigoted. I pick apart their argument for inaccuracies and bias. I always thought this argument of freedom of speech vs social media was isolated to teenagers and young adults who were still mentally maturing. If my time as a teaching assistant served as any indication, the next generation has a long way to go. Anyways, debate about this online from the Chicago Tribune to Cracked demonstrates that people of all ages are divided about Brust’s fate. Aside from the freedom of speech argument, some argue that “lynch mobs” don’t help anyone. This complaint also comes across as hypocritical since lynch mobs like Gamer-gate are often supported or defended  (usually with the excuse of free speech as well). It is alright to send death threats to women for their involvement in video games, but it is not okay to get someone fired for cruel comments they publicly made to someone else. I honestly suspect that the people jumping to Brust’s defence either support what he said, or are sympathetic because they often make similar comments online.

Employment is partly based on skill, but should also factor in someone’s character. I wouldn’t want someone like Brust to sell me a house or an apartment. Some may think it is cruel that he lost his job over something so foolish, but that is his problem. Brust is the one who didn’t have enough restraint and foresight to see the consequences of his actions. As the Cracked article explains, studies have found that people with more empathy have a better understanding of actions and consequences. Brust clearly lacks the necessary empathy, and maturity, to realize that his short-sighted tweet took things too far. Why is he worthy of our empathy? Social media is not private. You can make some profile’s visible only to a limited circle of people, but once you engage in an argument or conversation with someone else, the conversation becomes public. If you can apply for a job online, don’t be surprised that you can also lose one online. Public actions, have consequences.

 

Updates

Hello everyone,

Likely won’t be posting again until Monday so I thought I would wrap up this week with some updates.

Firstly, analytics are now installed and they reveal that my instagram accounts and other social media have barely helped to increase readership. I got caught in the trap of assuming that vanity metrics (followers, retweets etc.) equaled engagement. If you are a reader or a user who has joined through social media, it is much appreciated.

There are times when I have tweeted a link to an article and assumed that everyone who liked the post must have read it. Checking the amount of “link clicks” then makes it clear that some people just liked the tweet and ignored the link. Maybe a certain word caught their attention. I had one post that criticized girls who “like hockey players“. It seems like a bunch of girls just saw the words “hockey players” and thought “I like hockey players!” before liking the tweet.

Although my dream is to make a living writing full-time my more practical career goal is to become involved in public relations. PR emphasizes the importance of social media for increasing visits to a website and increased engagement. Although there are many successful examples of this, it appears that I need to take my own website as an object lesson of a social media campaign that has yielded poor results. I’m going to have to look into the steps I need to take to convert more twitter followers and Instagram users into readers of the website. It is great to have an audience on other platforms, but my original goal was to create one large audience instead of multiple, splintered ones.

On to less depressing material… I finished reading 100 Bullets and will be writing a short review for comicommand over the weekend.  I am currently reading Preacher and the first five issues already have me hooked. I might check out the tv show afterwards.

For those reading this, have a great weekend.

The Validation Machine

Our society is crumbling under a new epidemic,

This is not a sickness that comes and goes, like the flu,

Or one that will have its time in the spotlight before it’s overcome, like Ebola,

We are dealing with a disease that will mutate and become the black plague of this generation,

A renaissance will not follow the plague this time,

This disease will bring us out of our renaissance and into the dark ages,

The disease has many forms and is known by many names,

There are many ways for it to be transmitted, but there is one that I want to target,

The disease is narcissism and the instrument of transmission is social media,

 

Blaming social media is too simplistic though,

The disease starts before we are even old enough to use it,

We have parents who tell their kids that they are great at everything,

That every terrible piece of art they present is astounding,

That every participation ribbon they receive is the mark of a champion,

These children grow into teens, who aren’t ready for the real world,

The real world doesn’t coddle them the same way their parents did,

They face failure, rejection and disappointment,

With these experiences, the disgruntled teen faces two options

1) Embrace the challenges and become a better person for doing so, letting these experiences become lessons

2)   Or they can let these experiences crush their confidence, leading to a path of insecurity and overcompensation

 

Most people opt for the second option

All hail social media,

 

Likes, comments= validation,

The teen in still insecure,

They have not truly accomplished anything that gives them real confidence,

Titles like “model” are hollow,

They don’t work with an agency,

All their pictures and ‘profound’ thoughts aren’t part of a wider effort to promote work they have created or a brand they are developing,

Their bodies, their vapid minds are the totality of their brand,

I do not want to focus on women either,

Men are guilty of this attention seeking as well, either through posting pictures or pining for women in other pictures,

 

Men desperately seek their own validation: attention from the opposite sex, maybe even the same sex

Yet these same men will be taken aback when people they talk to are stuck up and rude,

Don’t spend your free time inflating someone’s ego with likes and comments, and then be surprised when they develop a superiority complex,

You may not talk to all the same people you follow and like on social media,

But you must realize that most people you speak to are on the quest for validation,

They will have their own horde of adoring men and women who make things worse for you,

This horde gives them the ego needed to disregard the people they speak to in real life,

We are all part of the cycle of insecurity, validation and narcissism,

When society crumbles this time,

It won’t be due to a great war,

It will be an insidious disease that slowly stripped away the foundations of hard work, civility and resilience,