One day, I logged onto the internet and saw that a guy was attacking me in the form of nasty messages on social media. Just like that, my blood pressure soared and I was filled with anger, but something more too: hurt and fear. The experience made me realize just how much I hate social media, and it’s for these 10 reasons.
- Trolls don’t see reason. Seriously, this guy was a total troll and he was attacking me for things that made no sense. He was calling me nasty names and the rage he had in him was actually pretty unsettling. Where the heck does that come from?
- People hide behind their screens. I wonder if that person would have as much rage against me if he saw me on the street or actually started chatting to me in real life. Probably not. It’s so easy for everyone to be angry and express themselves on social media where they can’t really be seen. It’s pathetic.
- Getting trolled made me feel violated. When this person decided to piss all over social media with his hatred aimed at me, it made me mad but I also felt violated. Sure, I could delete what he’d said and it could be forgotten, but let’s be serious: things never get deleted on social media. They always exist somewhere.
- My friends could see this crap. One of the worst things about social media is that even if videos and nasty comments are deleted, it’s usually too late – they’ve already been seen by loads of people, including my friends. I had one friend ask me if this troll was an angry ex-boyfriend!
- The trolls act like they’re legit. The most infuriating thing is that this horrible troll was speaking with some sort of authority as though he knew me. He said things like that I was a desperate gold digger, simply because I was in my 30s – yes, he actually implied that the two were linked. I mean, it’s completely ridiculous, but it was mad how he assumed that he knew everything about me from the few things he could see about me online.
- It’s easy to assume things about others. I hated that people would read this person’s comments and start to make assumptions. Then I realized that I’ve done the same thing in the past. I’ve seen people become the target of nastiness and I’ve wondered what the person had done. It’s shocking how we fall into that trap. While we usually try to measure what someone’s like by scrutinizing their social media profiles, what judgments do we make by paying attention to what others say about them? And are we believing that crap?
- Trolls want to hurt complete strangers. I know that this nasty person just wanted attention, and that’s usually what trolls do want. But it felt like more than that somehow. It’s like he wanted to hurt me, and based on the fact that he doesn’t even know me, it did make me wonder WTF was going on. I was tempted to delete my social media accounts because of this person. It feels like social media’s rife with trolls, and it’s sickening.
- Blocking doesn’t feel like enough. I always used to think that blocking someone on social media was enough to gain a bit more protection and privacy online. So, when I received this guy’s mad and mean messages, my initial instinct was to delete them and block his ass. But I was also tempted to take things further, like to report him. So I did. But this is what really made me hate social media:
- It’s hard to actually report someone. I reported the guy and nothing happened. Now, if you look into how to report someone on a site like YouTube, you’ll find that it’s really hard to get an offensive video that involves you removed. Sometimes, it won’t be seen as going against the website’s community guidelines, even if they’re bullying you and calling you names! Being called names and being bullied is such dodgy social media behavior but apparently it’s not enough to get someone banned? It boggles the mind.
- I hate that we live in this kind of world. I’m starting to think that the world was better without social media in it. People could say nasty things about us behind our backs and we’d never know, and ignorance was bliss. I hate that we have to deal with online trolls who can be exceptionally cruel and pathetic. But most of all, I hate that we can’t always do much to report these people and get them to stop acting in such lousy ways.
