With the assassination of Charlie Kirk still looming in my headspace, I figured I’d better put some thoughts down about it to make room for other things, like lyrics from obscure 80s songs.
Being a commentator on the Interwebs opens people up to a lot of stuff. Lucrative offers from deep pocketed donors, YouTube shows, podcasts, the occasional hello from a fan, that sort of thing. The downside, though, is it opens you up to a lot of criticism, too. And sometimes that criticism turns from “hey, I have a legitimate issue with something you said” to “fuck you, asshole, I’m gonna kill you.” Most of the time, the latter can be brushed off as keyboard warrior talk, but lately it’s this kind of talk that permeates the online space.
And as online culture became current culture, the level of hatred has risen to the point I fear we’re on the road to civil war and we don’t have many offramps left before we get there. A lot of this has to do with the notion of revenge. These days, whenever we think someone slights us, we don’t seek to make amends or to address the matter in a civil, mindful way. We’re out to take whatever we can get and fuck your feelings.
We can see a microcosm of this in a seemingly unrelated story. Remember “Phillies Karen”? If you’re not familiar with the story, here’s the breakdown. A Phillies player hit a home run into the stands, and there was a scramble for the ball. Phillies Karen went for it, but was bested by a young boy’s father, who gave the ball to his son because a) the home run was hit by the boy’s favorite player, and b) the father wanted his son to have a great memory of the day.
Well, Phillies Karen didn’t care. All she knew was she wanted the ball and didn’t care about who got hurt by her getting it. She went over to the father and started berating him, allegedly saying “You took my ball,” After a brief discussion, the father made the boy give Phillies Karen “her” ball.
Not exactly the way you want to become famous.
I won’t go into the aftermath because it’s irrelevant to the larger point, but let’s just say Karma never misses.
I brought up Phillies Karen because it encapsulates the very attitude so prevalent in our society right now, and it feeds directly into the larger issue about our road to civil war. Society has become so egocentric and petty that even a minor slight like what Phillies Karen felt turned into a major issue that people feel they have to take into their own hands. And sometimes that leads to threats of violence and violence.
This is where I usually step in and try reason. For Phillies Karen, it’s just a fucking baseball. It’s not going to be the end of the world if you don’t get it, and there was a much better way to handle it than to demand to get “your” ball back. In storytelling, this attitude is called “Main Character Syndrome” and it’s becoming more and more prevalent in society. We are the main characters in our lives and by God the rest of the world better acknowledge it or else!
But that’s just it. If everyone has that attitude, then everyone is a main character, which means no one is a main character. Congratulations, you’ve played yourselves.
Bringing that forward into the political sphere, many commenters on the Left have Main Character Syndrome and do their best to make their problems into everyone else’s. That takes a level of malice I’m not ready to explore personally because even when I’m at my most petty, I try to take a step back and see what the endgame is. What do I want to accomplish if I take umbrage at a comment? A civil discussion? A shit-flinging contest? A dick-measuring contest? More often than not, I lead with the civil discussion and keep things above board. Not only does that show my true intentions, but it pisses off the people looking to get me to react in an uncivil way.
Even when I was young and stupid, as opposed to being old and stupid now, there were lines I didn’t cross, especially over online bullshit. You want to mock me, be my guest and we’ll see who runs out of material first. If you attempt to hurt my life or my family, I will take offense, but I won’t reveal it nor whatever machinations I have up my sleeve. And 99% of the time, I stewed over it, left it alone, and eventually let it go permanently.
That doesn’t happen much today, unfortunately. With every little annoyance or difference of opinion being seen as a threat, people are more on edge than ever. And when something is seen as a threat, people will do anything to protect themselves, including choosing violence to settle a battle of words. And once you make that choice, it gets really easy to justify anything against anyone.
Such as the number of videos from Leftists cheering Charlie Kirk’s death.
That’s where FAFO comes into play. Once you cross that line into Fuck Around territory, the Find Out comes at you pretty fast. With the number of anti-Kirk videos out there, the pro-Kirk side decided to be the agents of Karma and expose the hateful assholes. Of course, the Left has been doing this for years, so I’m surprised yet not that surprised they didn’t figure on the Right playing by the rules the Left set. Now, there are videos from anti-Kirk folks where they tearfully talking about how they lost their jobs for merely expressing an opinion, and the Leftists in the media (but I repeat myself) are amplifying their sad stories in a sympathetic tone.
I wonder what a certain Colorado baker might have to say about these Leftists losing their livelihoods for expressing an opinion. Something tells me it might rhyme with “bake the cake, bigot.”
Yet, on a much larger level, what good will come from fighting back and forth in the modern social and online culture? An eye for an eye may feel good in the short term, but it only escalates matters back and forth until optometry is not a growth industry because everybody winds up partially blind. And, yes, I recognize I’ve had a role in that. I am not blameless in any way, especially when it comes to the quality of my jokes.
Having said that, I have found a way to get out of the death spiral by understanding a key concept: disagreeing doesn’t mean you have to be disagreeable. You can disagree with friends and family without letting it ruin those relationships, no matter what the Left says. There are people in my circle of friends who hate Donald Trump and MAGA with their whole hearts while I’m a sometimes-Trumper, but we’ve found a way not to let that negatively affect our friendships because we’ve learned to see each other as people, not as party affiliations.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Do I think Leftists want people outside of their ideological hivemind dead? Some do, but I hold onto the idea there are some who don’t, and these people still have some ability to reason. Do I think Rightists want the same as the extreme Left? Some do, but I know there are enough out there who don’t. And to everyone else caught in the crossfire, I know there are plenty of people who feel the same way as I do: political violence and retaliation is not the answer.
I just hope there’s enough of us left standing after the eyes get poked out to rebuild our country.
