1050: I Said A-Snark, Snark, A-Snarkitty Snark, A Snark-Snark-Snarkitty-Snark

Another day, another day of snark on the Internet. This time the sources were twofold: firstly, the Pope joined Twitter (and, apparently, his first tweet will be on December 12, begging the question why the account has been set up and announced now) and secondly, it emerged that Kate Middleton (or whatever we’re supposed to call her now) is pregnant and suffering from “acute morning sickness”, apparently.

Neither of these things are of particularly earth-shattering importance, and both of them can be easily ignored. I have spent most of the day ignoring them both completely, and am only mentioning them now out of frustration — not at the things themselves, of course, but rather at the reaction to them.

The Pope’s presence on Twitter was, of course, greeted by numerous sarcastic replies and fake retweets; the news of the “royal baby” (as it is now known) was greeted by general disdain and constant repetition of “THIS ISN’T NEWS”. Well, whether or not it is is a matter of opinion, of course, but if you don’t think it’s news and have no wish to contribute to making it news, you could always, you know, stop talking about it.

I don’t know if my weariness with this sort of thing is just a symptom of getting older or general fatigue at having seen so much snark over the past couple of years in particular, but either way… yes, I am tired of it. Because it doesn’t let up, either. You can unfollow and block the people who are being a pain, but they’ll get retweeted and quoted; you can close your social media windows altogether, but then you can’t talk to your friends. (And when you are, at least for the next couple of weeks, a long way away from your nearest friends, yes this is a big deal.)

It is probably related to my general fatigue with the Internet-based slacktivists (previously discussed here) who rant and rave about a particular issue (usually, at the time of writing, sexism) until they’re blue in the face but then don’t appear to actually do anything beyond declare certain blog posts and articles “mandatory reading” and then ignore any attempts to actually engage in discussion or education.

The ironic thing with this behaviour is that it drowns out the actual message they’re trying to convey. In the case of the fervent anti-sexism brigade, who are quick to splatter anyone who disagrees with them with the “privileged white male” brush — perhaps fairly in some cases, perhaps not in others — it means that the underlying message of tolerance, acceptance and equality gets lost in all the noise of people shouting and screaming and demanding that everyone unfollow a particular person on Twitter because they said something they don’t agree with. (It wasn’t me.)

Not only does it drown out the message they’re trying to convey, it makes me care less, which is the complete opposite of what they’re trying to do, surely. I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but I certainly do. The more these people froth at the mouth and shout and bellow and point fingers and demand that people read this article by their friend, the less of a shit I give — because I don’t want to be associated with them. Not because I disagree with their ideals — as I’ve mentioned a number of times previously, I agree with what they’re arguing for in most cases! — but because the confrontational, aggressive way in which they try to get their points across is just so completely loathsome to me that I don’t want anything to do with it.

So I block them. I literally silence them. Which is exactly one of the things that they complain about, usually without any sense of irony that their own furious, righteous anger is itself intimidating and silencing people who genuinely want to discuss, engage and understand these complex, non-binary issues in greater depth.

I didn’t take the decision to block a bunch of these people lightly, and I occasionally feel guilty that I have done so. Many of them are supposedly “respected” figures, and some are friends with people that I consider to be friends. But I haven’t unblocked them.

Why? Because I have tried to engage them in discussion. I have tried to see these complex issues from a variety of different perspectives and talk about them accordingly. I have tried to have a rational, reasoned debate. And yet the last time I attempted to do this — I forget the exact topic now, as I unfollowed the Facebook comment thread shortly afterwards feeling genuinely upset — I was shouted down with the words “get a grip”. No attempt to engage. No attempt to discuss or debate. No attempt to help me understand their points of view. A simple shutdown.

I gave up at that point. That is when I wrote this post. That is when I simply decided to avoid confrontation altogether and “stay out of trouble”, as it were.

This isn’t how it should be, surely. People should be aware of these issues and feel able to discuss them openly without fear. Fighting hate with hate is counter-productive and achieves nothing except alienating people like me while causing both “sides” of the debate to dig their heels in and argue ever-more aggressively.