We occasionally get pushback from the Internet, whether it’s in the form of people seeking to engage or those seeking nothing more than to harass people they don’t agree with. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much par for the course on the Internet these days. But, last week, Anita Sarkeesian backed Sam and Alisha’s Kickstarter project, Invisibility Blues, and then came the flood of negative reactions. While the negative reactions don’t surprise me, they do baffle me because many were direct reactions to Sarkeesian’s tweet about the Kickstarter, which means these people are following her. Again, not a surprise, but I just can’t stop wondering why they are following someone around the Internet if they so strongly disagree with them.
I mean this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one. We all have moments where we see something on the internet and think we need to take action because someone is wrong on the internet. I know I’ve had my moments when I get sucked into some ridiculous or harmful argument on Facebook. But, it usually doesn’t last long, and I’ll say what I have to say and then let it go. I don’t tend to think of Facebook or Twitter as the best places to have productive conversations anyway. But, clearly some people get so annoyed that someone is wrong on the Internet that they can’t let it go, they follow them around endlessly to keep fighting and pointing out their errors (real or perceived).
I don’t get the point of endlessly following someone around unless you really are looking for productive conversation. But, that wasn’t the case from what I saw. Many of them Tweeted about aspects of the Kickstarter campaign that were false, but they couldn’t even be bothered to click the link right there in the tweet to see if what they were saying was true. They don’t want productive conversation, even the barest amount of research is too much, so why then go to the trouble of even reading the tweets or posts of those you disagree with?
I know trolls will be trolls and all that, but it still baffles me. It just seems like and incredible waste of time and energy to me. I know we have followers that don’t necessarily agree with us, and sometimes they engage productively, and sometimes they don’t. Productive conversations are interesting. Non-productive ones are meh. Harassers are infuriating and discouraging. I’m sure we even have followers who don’t agree with us but also never engage at all. That’s great, too because at least maybe they are reading and trying to consider other perspectives. Trying to figure out other’s perspectives is why I tend to read way too many comments. I’m a researcher, so when a controversial issue comes up, I like to hear a wide variety of perspectives on it before I make up my own mind. I’m always searching for angles I may have missed or failed to consider important.
But, some of these individuals only seem interested in smearing others. I guess some people think this type of petty harassment is fun or a kind of a game in itself. To me it’s not, and I would rather play the games that I love than chase people around on the Internet just because they disagree with me. One plus to all this, however, is even if they aren’t engaging, even if they aren’t doing any research whatsoever, they still see the messages. Who knows? Maybe someday they will actually click on the link, do some research, engage in discussion. Maybe by following and sharing they will inadvertently help educate one or more of their own followers.
