Contextual References & Wrong Opinions
My life has reached the point where after I introduce myself with my name, my age, and my hobbies, I also add 'replying to comments on YouTube' as a favorite pastime.
I don't know why I bother commenting though, because sometimes I look at a trail of comments and exchanges and think to myself, I shouldn't have started. And sometimes, I chuckle because, somewhere on the globe, an adult white male with strong opinions and undermining statements types furious replies to a teenage girl on some other place on the globe, completely unaware of what he is dealing with and stubborn to the last exclamation point.
This has become such a routine act, I am considering opening YouTube account where the only thing I will do is film myself while I rant about why a comment made me lose faith in humanity. It's hard to imagine what I put myself through each time I scroll down a page (against my better judgement) to check out how people reacted to a video. And by the time I am done reading people's wrong opinions (which do exists), I want to smash my beautiful Mac with a hammer and hope that the internet ceases to exist, which of course, doesn't happen.
You don't understand, I guarantee it. I am a very emotionally invested person both in things I like and dislike, and thus my passions reflect on my physical being. When I am happy, I can feel my blood rushing through my veins and my brain sending neurons of exhilaration to my nerve endings, but when I am sad I can also feel this hollow drop internally and my bones constricting, and drawing together in shame and disparity. It happens. And at those times, I want turn to the people around me, to inanimate objects, or air particles that surround me and shout a long Doctor Who soliloquy as follows:
"Take my experiences. Take my memories. Take all these comments I have seen. I've lived a fairly short life but I've seen a few things. I walked away from terrorist jokes. I have marked the passing of the apocalyptic Femen movements. I saw the birth of cyber-bullying culture and watched as humanity ran out, trait by trait, until nothing remained. No humanity, no nothing. Just me! I typed in chat rooms where the laws of ethics were devised by the minds of a madman! And I watched faces freeze and emotions burn! I have seen things you wouldn't believe! I have lost things you will never understand! And I know things, secrets that must never be told, knowledge that must never be spoken! So come on then! Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!"And yes, I have heard that people don't care, and I have read that nobody cares, but isn't that why we are standing where we are? Our ignorance drives us down and dehumanizes us, and we can still stand up tall and say we don't care. We never cared.
Well, then, should we be proud? Proud that serious problems like equality and representation and environmental issues go unnoticed to us, and we don't give a damn. Proud that we don't see the reason to learn, to listen, or to accept that we don't know everything. Should we really be proud?
Because the last time I checked, I still have to read, I still have to write, I still have to listen and be open-minded, and I have a long way before I can assess all the issues on Earth and decide that I don't care. Because if I do not care and I do not know, then am I really, truly, human?
Lots of differential equations,
~Belle