I try to avoid broad blanket statements because you’re bound to offend someone. I try not to offend people in general. This is one of the reasons I don’t engage in arguments online (despite my love of lurking through them) and why I don’t post on YouTube or TikTok. I suppose eventually someone will be upset about something I say in one of these blogs, and this may be the blog that does it. I never thought the day would come that I would think/say this, but I think people are too easily offended these days.
I don’t want to feel like the offense police, nor do I think it is my place to tell someone what they should/shouldn’t be offended by any more than someone should tell me… That being said, some things make me think… do you not have better things to do with your time?
I’ll give an example. A TikToker I follow made a video about how she doesn’t have friends under a certain age (I watched her reaction video, not the video that caused the “controversy”). I think she said she doesn’t have any 26-year-old friends. She is 38, and she said she is in a different place in life. Fair. Apparently, a bunch of 26-year-olds flooded her comments upset about this. It made me think of a time years ago when I used to engage in social media posts. I was a part of a Gaymer (gay gamer) Facebook group, and I might still be a part of the group. I assume people were talking about dating and age, as I posted a comment stating I wouldn’t date a guy under the age of 21.
I got SO much backlash for that. I explained my stance, as I was newly 21 and most of my social life was spent at bars (even now, 13 years later…), so I’d want a guy who can go to the bars with my friends and I. Even now, I couldn’t see myself seriously dating a guy who is under 30. I never say never, but I do see how someone in their 20s is in a different place in life, more than likely. The comments I got were as if I were personally rejecting these guys. I wanted to be like, “well, damn, are you saying you wanted to date me? Why are you so mad?!?”
The other day, I also saw people offended about this whole Lea Michele can’t read thing. In case you don’t know, there is this conspiracy/joke going around (that has for years) that Lea Michele can’t read. Any time she is in the news, it resurfaces. I was going through Facebook comments on a post about it and saw a bunch of parents who were upset. They were upset because they have children with learning disabilities (dyslexia, etc) and apparently saying Lea Michele can’t read equates to making fun of their children. Again, I don’t want to be the offense police, but this feels like a stretch. I could maybe see if someone was making fun of people with learning disabilities, but, for the most part, I don’t see anyone actually making a stance on whether her being able to read or not is good or bad (though I suppose in general, our society views illiteracy in a negative way), people are just making the statement that she can’t read.
It reminds me of a meme I saw. It basically said you can post online that you love apples, and someone will be in your comments saying you hate oranges. I’ve even seen people argue about math… and I’m like, how do you argue math… it’s math… either it’s right or it’s wrong (in this case, they were saying 5 x 0 is not 0, but 5, which made NO sense… and they argued for MANY comments about how they were right, despite everyone telling them they were wrong.) The internet is a very wild place. Sometimes, I think it is just trolls, but sometimes there are people who genuinely are upset or offended, and I just want them to spend less time on the internet.
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