a-report-on-damage-done-by-one-individual-under-several-names/
The above link is fascinating reading. Apparently a woman who we knew as Requires Hate left a bloody path on the interwebs in calling people out as racist, privileged and bad writers. She was/is a nasty piece of business. She swung through the romance community briefly and did a bit of damage (not as much as she did elsewhere, thankfully).
I was aware of her because she sent people to this blog at one point after Carolyn had commented on a First Page on Dear Author. Ms. Hate took umbrage at Carolyn's comment and called her out on her blog with a link to our blog. It increased traffic and I saw it in the stats but it made no difference since nobody who came found anything to get enraged about.
It fascinated me to read the blog post because the kind of random hatred Ms. Hate spewed isn't all that unusual anymore.
This Story Is A Lie
This story is making the rounds about a KFC in England banning alcohol wipes for their customers because it offends Islamists. Now, the truth is that one customer asked for wipes and one store employee said they don't carry them (in fact, the store does carry them as all KFC stores do) and it became this viral lie that sweeping the interwebs.
The comments I read basically had so much venomous commentary that I felt sick. So much hate for people of a different culture that most of the commenters would kill all people who are Islamic, no matter what. The absolute rage of the people was terrifying.
I'm not on Twitter but I am on Facebook and my feed is getting smaller and smaller as I block more people. The amount of hate is beginning to wear me down. The hate for anyone who is 'other', whether the president of the United States or someone who dares to not be Christian.
Requires Hate is a perfect example of what the internet is becoming. And for those of us who don't require hate to get through our lives, it's becoming a scarier landscape every day.
My online world becomes bigger or smaller depending on what's going on with hateful interactions within it. It's self-defense, really.
ReplyDeleteThe world at large keeps heading to hell, so I try to keep as much of the madness at bay by being a tad more selective what I let in. Even so, there's always something to get enraged about--EC, women's rights, etc.
I look around me at my neighbors, my family, the people and friends I interact with daily in RL, and find it so hard to believe what I see on the internet. The people in my RL are NORMAL! The internet seems a fantasy world, a badly written alternate world consumed with hate.
ReplyDeleteI can only be glad I am the age I am. I would hate to think I'd have to live all of my life in a world of trolls. I pity the younger generation.
Sometimes Carolyn, I think my Facebook feed is going to be nothing but you, Mollie and Carlos and even he's annoying me with all the Geraldine posts.
ReplyDeleteThere's just so much unhappiness i the world and its translating into this xenophobia and racism and sexism. For every step forward we take, we seem to follow it up with a leap back.