The Sociology of Internet Haters

From the moment I copied the definition for “tabula rasa” into my notebook for my Psych class, I knew it was what I believed about the way humankind is born. According to Wikipedia, tabula rasa is “the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception.” Or, in other words, nurture influences us far greater than nature. Our experiences make us who we are.

I can definitely make the claim that this is true for me. There are many factors that influence who I am today: my dad walking out on my family when I was ten years old, my sister making bad decisions that has led to years of excommunication, and my best friend of five years declaring I simply wasn’t good enough one day. My brain tells me that I would never have become the person I am today if it weren’t for those situations. The level of trauma they induced, the amount of tampering they did with my feeling of self worth, the flooding memories that accompany even the ringing of an alarm clock - those things prove that occurrences in my life shaped who I am.

Who I am is strong. I am a young woman who values perseverance above all other things. Ambition, creativity, and passion are three characteristics that I would say define me. But there’s no way the intensity of those traits would exist or that I’d be as proud of them as I am if it were not for the negative events that have happened to me or that I have witnessed.

I am aware that not everyone is like me. There are those who would disagree that nurture has the biggest impact on us, and to them, I say: how is living a delusional life treating you? Honestly, I can’t think of one person who hasn’t been affected by their experiences. Which is why it troubles me so much to write about what I’m about to share with you.
When I started writing this, I was extremely infuriated. It was five in the morning. My blood was boiling and there was no comprehension in my mind regarding the logic of this specific human being’s statements. And yes, they’re human. They’re not just “Internet trolls.” Yeah, they’re total assholes. But they’re people just like us, and they are how they are for a reason. By now, 6 pm the next day, I am more contemplative about how this even happened and why something I can’t change angers me so much. I don’t believe that things happen for a reason, and maybe that’s why I’m a bit more on the pessimist side most of the time - and what bothers me is that clearly, haters don’t think that way either.

Since 2007, I have been making “fandom friends.” These people live anywhere from four hours away to across the country – and sometimes, not even within the USA. It’s become clearer to me now that they are just average people like the rest of us. However, back when I first started making close friends with people who lived as far as they do, I didn’t think that anyone who lived close could compare. Not a single soul. There would never be anyone who understood me and my passion for Harry Potter like these fantastic “foreigners” did.

Little did I know, there were people just like that in my own city. In July 2010, I was introduced to a very close friend of mine, Erika. I had to think for a while about when we actually met, because it seems like it’s been so much longer than it has. When I talk to her, I feel as if she has known me since birth – since toddlerhood, at least. The first time we hung out was with a mutual friend at her house about fifteen minutes away. We had a Lord of the Rings marathon and sat in her basement from 10am until almostmidnight, watching all three extended editions of the films, making jokes, and generally having a great time.

At the time, I had literally forgotten it was possible to be that happy. Erika taught me that not everything that happens to us must be taken seriously – and sometimes, it works out in our favor to not care too much. That way, we don’t worry. From that movie marathon on, whenever I hung out with Erika, I felt carefree, like nothing else mattered. Maybe it’s because she’s a Hufflepuff – she has this light in her eyes that doesn’t really go out, ever. This is why it was so shocking to learn, several months later, that she was a suicide survivor. I could not imagine Erika having any relation with depression; she was just a big ball of light that never stopped giggling or pointing out things that appealed to my sense of humor like no one else could.

Only a month later, Erika was headed to college downtown and I was a senior in high school thirty minutes away. We only managed to see each other a couple times while on break, and times were stressful. I got wrapped up in drama and I gave my heart away too easily. It hurt. I can still feel it hurting. Sometimes I couldn’t even find a reason to get out of bed. I skipped school because I felt too worthless to carry on. I confided in her when I needed someone, and she would share with me personal stories that made my jaw drop. How anyone could think of her as anything but an angel was far beyond my comprehension. She’s just too sweet to ever have been hurting the way I was hurting. But still, it gave me strength to persevere – if she could move past dark times, maybe, just maybe I could as well.

Yesterday, one of my favorite YouTubers, Tyler Oakley, reblogged a post from another Tumblr user. The topic was how much this guy hated Pride parades. Apparently he’s gay as well, because he stated something along the lines of “I am the only good gay.” I would return to his page and retrieve the exact quotation, but simply thinking about the amount of hatred on his blog makes me sick. It fills my veins with venom. Not only does this statement breed misrepresentation toward the entire gay community, but this guy was completely unopened to discussion. He would not accept any of the rebuttals he got, which made me wonder – why post it in the first place? Is the point of a blog not to share your ideas? Why, then, would you block others’ out in the process if you simultaneously want your voice heard?

Erika, being her funny, opinionated self, went to go write in this jerk’s ask box. Granted, I wouldn’t have done this, but I admire her courage, or as some would say, ~lady balls~. She didn’t explode and definitely didn’t waste her time on a three page rant about how wrong this guy was for hating pride parades. She simply wrote a parody of Cee Lo Green and said “I see you postin’ dumb shit / Bout the gay pride parades / And I’m like / Fuck youuuu.”

Within minutes I believe, she got a response in the form of a graphic that told her to go kill herself, calling her “a giant faggot to some intellegent gays” – exact spelling. Minutes later, another graphic was produced reading “Suicide – you’re doing it wrong.” Of course, this was meant to enrage not only Erika, but her close friends and the rest of the Internet in possession of a functioning brain that feels rational emotions. Whether the likes and reblogs were mostly people who agreed or disagreed with this sentiment, it still made me sick to my stomach. How could anyone, anyone, think that they had the right to tell someone so sweet, so dear, someone who had helped light the truth for me over and over again, to kill herself? After all she’d been through? Just because she is a suicide surviver doesn’t mean that it’s all peachy now. She carries those scars like the rest of us carry our past, and it’s simply not humane to humiliate and degrade what once hurt us beyond reason, or what still may continue to haunt us.

You never know how someone may be affected by what you said.

As John Green stated, “What a treacherous thing to believe a person is more than a person.” Sure, Erika is strong, and that’s what I admire about her – but she’s not a Superwoman. She’s not a goddess. She is just a girl, who feels and reacts and loves and hurts just like the rest of us. And the same goes for everyone else who is a victim of cyber bullying. Whether they’re strong and mighty is irrelevant.

My close friends – and even those not so close – can attest to the fact that I am rather fierce, fiery, and sometimes mean when I get angry and riled up. But even someone like me, who has a complete lack of regard for others’ feelings at times, would never order someone to end their own life. It’s sick. It’s wrong. It’s not something that would even pop into my mind. And it gets me to wondering…

What has happened to this tortured soul, this random blogger, this member of the gay community, thishuman, to make them so hostile? How detached, how disenchanted do you have to be before you begin making demands on the Internet for a total stranger to end their life? It happens every day. How can you be so pompous, so arrogant, that you take pride in being a total asshole? Does it make you feel important? Do you think you have a badass “dark sense of humor”? Is there power in dehumanizing someone just because they exist on a blog and not in front of your face? Would you say that to someone in real life?Because if you would, man, let me tell you something. You’re the one who will end up forever alone.

Throughout this blog entry, I have written and backspaced on the following question: “What if she did?” What if Erika wasn’t here for me, for her family, for her friends, for the Internet to appreciate and laugh with, but most importantly, for herself? All the time I see her sticking up for suicide survivors and people struggling with depression – myself being one of them. There is no one alive today and no one who ever lived who deserved to be told to end their lives. No matter how rich, poor, evil, horrible, or cruel of a person they are or were – everyone alive deserves a shot at life. Life is for the alive, and I’ll be damned if during that time I’m going to sit here and watch my very best friend be ridiculed by someone who’s never even laid eyes on her shining face.

What was this person thinking? Did he grow up in an abusive childhood? Did he have bullies in elementary school? Did he get sharp objects thrown at him one too many times in a past relationship? Really, who broke his heart? I’d like to know. I’ve been harassed online too – from hateful anonymous messages to spam on my Dailybooth pictures telling me I resembled a man. From Myspace and Youtube comments telling me I was ugly and a slut to Facebook messages telling me my chin was too big. It’s degrading, no matter how much we like to claim otherwise, but it’s even worse when it’s directed at friends we truly care about and hate, hate, to see upset.

In retrospect, I realize that some people may look at this post and think “What the hell? Internet hate is not that serious. Who cares if some random jerk said that? Shrug it the hell off.” And yeah, maybe that’s the argument that pops into your head first. But sometimes, I find it fascinating to crawl inside the demented head of Internet villains and just wonder what they were thinking. Because cyber bullying is not something to shrug off, it’s a serious issue, I’m going to keep wondering. And keep making people aware that yes, it is happening to innocent people, to children, to adults, and to my best friend and I.

In August, I’ll be headed to college four hours away and Erika will still be here. Thinking about how much I’ll miss her hurts too much, so I normally don’t do it. But when my mind strays to thoughts of the future, I know that she’ll always have a place with me. For her courage, her never-ending, fantastic sense of humor, and her strength, I thank her for showing me that you can make life what you want to make it. As much as it feels like it, I was not born with this girl in my contact list or my address book. Because I was introduced to Erika, I know that nature is important, but nurture wins out in the end.

Something that utterly confuses me

is people that are scared of love. They refuse to let themselves care about another person so strongly. They think that if they make themselves vulnerable to another human being, then they’ll get hurt. It just makes me wonder what “risk” means to them. If we consult Webster, “love” is “to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for.” Obviously, love cannot be summed up as a simple definition in a book of countless words, but if it had to be, this would be the closest thing to it.

What buries itself inside your mind that makes you afraid to be passionate about something? If you can love books, music, fashion, and sports, why can’t you love people? What makes it so difficult or different about them? Is it because they can have a reaction? Because “music can’t let you down”, or “books will always be there”? Personally I’d rather rely on a real living being. Even though so often my refuge lies in smelly old pages or my iTunes or whatnot, my immediate stress relievers are my friends.

Maybe this is where I’ve gone wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t rely so much on people who a) live far away, b) have realistic human tempers, and c) have hurt me in the past. But I know I can’t control where the people who care about me live, I accept that people get a little feisty with their words sometimes, and on occasion, my heart tells me to forgive even though it may be an irrational decision.

Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. There’s always going to be the question of “should I?”. Because when you love someone, you give them your whole heart. That’s what love is, it’s not a whimsical feeling that strolls by hand in hand with a compliment every now and then. To quote Paramore, “Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul that love never lasts.” It’s ridiculous to believe in everlasting love or love at first sight or ~ever ever after~, as Carrie Underwood would have you believe. Seriously, it’s not realistic at all. Of course your mom might have a story of how your neighbor’s grandmother married her high school sweetheart. But it doesn’t happen for everyone, and that’s what’s so fantastic about love.

Love prepares you for the worst. Some may scoff at this and say that it only is licensed to bring you joy and happiness or else it’s not real, but that’s not the case. If you don’t want to be afraid of love, then you need to treat it like an overly opinionated yet relentlessly passionate friend. It’s always going to be there for you, not always visible, but if you don’t believe in it then it’ll never jump out at you.

It’s like Santa Clause. Every Christmas my mom reminds me that when she was a kid, her parents wouldn’t buy her anything if she said she didn’t believe in Santa Clause. It’s something so simple, but if you don’t allow yourself to have faith in anything else but material items like books, music, sports, religion, or fashion, then you’re going to end up even more depressed than I am. And then I would pity you more than I pity myself. So don’t do that, guys.

Like Sara Quin called herself, I am an “emotional slut”. I fall very easily for all kinds of people and it doesn’t take very much for me to form an attachment to them. In no way, shape, or form would I ever suggest that everyone be accustomed to this. However, I take pride in knowing that even though I’ve been hurt in the past, I’m still open to love. If my mother, friends, and endless novels have taught me anything, it’s that love cradles you. Oh, and the Beatles. Thanks guys.

It’s just really astounding that so many of my friends admit to being terrified of something so many people chase. It makes them appear to be the bad guys because they’ll begin relationships with people and then suddenly bring them to a halt because of their fears. It makes me scratch my head, because so many of these people are involved in the Harry Potter Alliance or are just generally intense about geekdom or putting your whole heart into something… but they can’t put that much effort into caring for a person.

Stop being scared of love. Don’t be a Voldemort, be a Lily Potter.

Television.

It's getting worse and worse. Why does my mom think it's even appropriate to yell at me to come watch Dancing With the Stars with her while I'm doing homework? Whaaat? I told her I got wait listed at Mount Holyoke and she was like "okay, come watch this with me." It's just kind of disappointing because she used to be so different. I remember an almost word for word quote of hers years ago, "Television rots your soul." She always stuck up for me when I argued with my friends and tried to convince them that books were better than TV. Even as a kid my mom influenced me to believe that, and now she's totally backwards and it's just weird. Because she's unemployed and doing less and watching more television, it sort of makes me lazy in turn. I have stacks of books that need read but I glue myself to the computer instead, which can't be much healthier than TV. But the fact that I'm not watching people with Cheez Nip colored skin sort of comforts me. I think now I'll just shut my door, stick my face in a book, and read about Atticus Finch. I really don't need the real world anyway.

Incoherent and Pointless

But I figured I'd share this anyway.

I feel like one of the scariest things I've dealt with over the course of my existence (which obviously isn't that long of a time, so bear with me) is realizing everything you do is pointless. Whether it be an epiphany or just a short term idea that gets you down in the doldrums, feeling like your actions amount to nothing is one of the most depressing things ever. It could just be because I've been ruthlessly accepting classmates' friend requests on Facebook that I deleted a while ago, but more and more often I'm seeing people complain about how every move they make seems to go nowhere.

I'm surely empathetic with these people, but it just makes me so sad. Why can't they see that a change will come? Granted, it won't get here very quickly if they don't put some effort into making their dreams come true, but it'll come in the end. Things will change. Maybe the most we can do as human beings is just to fill ourselves with an overwhelming sense of hope.

There's no surefire way of going about not only creating hope, but keeping it for yourself as well. At least not one that I can think of. But there's steps that everyone can take to make it that way. This is coming from someone whose entire purpose in making this blog is to give herself hope, so listen to me. For the better part of my life I've avoided social situations and anything that could have potentially made me happy because of a few bad experiences. I've always been one of those people who will go out of her way to make herself miserable without even realizing it. That's when it's most difficult to recognize and stop - when you don't even notice you're doing it.

Even though all of these people on Facebook have people commenting and saying "I like you!", "You're gorgeous!", or "Of course your life is worth something!" they're just saying it because they were attracted to the reel of pity. Sometimes it's hard to decide whether the person is just fishing for compliments or if they just need someone to talk to, because oftentimes it's the same thing and then others the line is ridiculously fine.

I think the first step we can take in giving ourselves hope is to open ourselves up to people and not only complain about what we need to complain about, but let them vent back to you. Without that basic foundation of trust, you'll continually reach out to people who won't listen to you twice if you don't give them a shred of respect.

I'm really just rambling here. Maybe hope is what we make of it and our actions are only meaningful if we twist our minds into thinking they are. I guess that's what I'll have to start doing. Brain transplant, maybe?

it's all in your mind

forgiveness. it's something i've never been able to accomplish very well. and while i can't tell myself that adding someone back on facebook or responding to their texts every once in a while is forgiveness, it's starting to hold a different meaning for me. i'm starting to accept the fact that it sometimes takes months to be able to say "it's okay." sometimes the things people do are so horrid and hurtful that we may never understand why they chose to do something so crappy. in the end, though, if we keep our anger inside it will only destroy us. as a teen, i've begun to realize i don't want that to be my future. at the same time, however, it's tremendously difficult to just make up your mind on something so trivial. you really have to walk the walk and not just say, "i forgive you." because if you do that and you still kind of hate the person, it's even worse than it was before. i'd rather get the cold shoulder for ten years than have to deal with someone who i hated.

it's extremely difficult to be ignored, but it's harder to not even understand why. sometimes, though, you need to keep in mind that it might not be your fault. and while this may seem like a cop out, it's proven to be true more often than not in my life. my dad leaving wasn't my fault. my sister walking out wasn't either. the boy i like ignoring me isn't my fault. sometimes people have mental blocks that keep them from doing things that they really want to do. maybe my dad and my sister want to ask for forgiveness, but don't because they're worried it may be futile (and it is). maybe the boy who's ignoring me wants to ask me out and he's too scared of commitment to do so. everyone has boundaries whether they choose to see them or not, and you do too.

so the next time someone says something mean to you, ignores you for a ridiculous period of time, or you just keep thinking of someone who you don't think is thinking of you back, just keep in mind that they're going through struggles too. even if you can't see them, even if they live very far away, even if you see them every day, even if they're your family. struggles can be internal, and those are the worst kind. as far as forgiveness goes, i'm still learning. but i feel like this could be the first great step toward it.

Our Truth Is Not Better

For some reason, even though I only have two acquaintances who are vegan, I hear one argument cropping up a lot - online and in the real world. Stereotypically, people who are vegan are thought of as thinking they're superior to every vegetarian and meat eater out there. This isn't entirely true, and I'm living proof of it. But I'm not just that, I'm also living confusion as to why anyone DOES think that way.

Why would eating meat make you a lesser person? Why would the fact that I abstain from consuming flesh make me a goddess? It wouldn't, and it doesn't. I am not more evolved than anyone just because I don't consume meat or dairy. Before I became vegan, I thought that this kind of person never got off their high horse. But trust me, after the first year or so of being a vegetarian or vegan, it starts to hit you that you're not really a superhero after all.

There's nothing wrong with having pride in yourself for being a vegan. I have lots of it. But there's no reason to place people below you on the chain of cool or right/wrong. You can eat my friends, you can vote against my right to marry, and you can chop my trees down, but I'm not going to think I'm a stronger human being than you are. I have weaknesses and faults as well as you do, and I have made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. It is inevitable.

Even if you don't eat meat, even if you recycle, even if you're a model student - you're still a human being. To say that any one member of our species is better than another is blasphemy. I'm not going to stand for something like that just because I'm a vegan. I think that's ridiculous, and I hope more of my fellow vegans will be able to see that.

I'm not taking your last name if you can't take my independence seriously.

In Poetry class, my fellow students always manage to pry into my teacher's life in the lulls between assignments - because yes, my school has those, be jealous. He handles it with good humor and they never really ask anything too rude, but sometimes I can't help but feel as if he should be doing some of the questioning.

Today, the topic was his wife - as it oftentimes is since she's the mother of the allegedly cutest three-year-old on the planet. My teacher mentioned that his wife kept her last name when she married him, and for some reason this set my class alight with indignation. "That's messed up." "...Why?" "I'm sorry, that just goes against tradition." "But a woman is her husband's once she's married."

My teacher looked equally as enraged as I did at the last comment, which was unnecessarily provocative and weirdly specific and just uncalled for. In the past I may have sat there and simply shaken my head at this boy's prejudice, but today I said something. "That's irrelevant and offensive and not even true, so keep your big mouth shut." My class was shocked since I almost never open my mouth unless I'm called upon.

Eventually this guy left the classroom because he became infuriated that someone with a vagina tried to prove him wrong. I walked out thirty minutes later, unscathed, but overall disappointed in humanity. The same girl that said a woman changing her last name when she got married was tradition also claimed that "the 1800s would have been my thing! I would have loved to do anything my husband asked me to." Oh, right, like to back off while he pulls a Henry VIII and slaps you around. You like turkey sandwiches? Good thing I coincidentally just started making ten of them just a few minutes ago!

I had no idea people in my school, not to mention the elective of Poetry class, thought such ridiculous things like this. I don't even understand them. But I know one thing: I don't care who you are, I'm not taking your last name and your skewed prejudices if you can't accept my independence. It's not gonna happen.