Some guy wrote a book on this.
I normally don’t get involved in these internet kerfuffles, mainly because nobody gives two stuffs about the opinion on net drama from a guy who’s obsessed with a short anime girl obsessed with rabbits. Oh, and the whole open pervert thing.
But I really do feel I have something to say here, because I’ve seen this stuff play out so many loving times and I have some advice I have to give out. Apply it to your lives, I guarantee it’s advice that will help you all, because it doesn’t really matter if you’re famous or just a blogger, because we all share a fault; ego.
The short version of the “JonTron thing.” Youtube famous screaming videogame man JonTron (who I’ve been a big fan of for years) made a tweet saying Playstation Now was “handicapped.” Someone took offense to the use of the word handicapped, Jon did not care and made a joking response reusing the word for ironic effect.
Then the internet was mad.
I did not care about this non-existent drama at the time. Where I got mad was how Jon proceeded to handle the flood of outraged people. Basically, he made the single dumbest post I’ve ever seen on Twitter, and I follow fanfiction.txt. The message went as follows, with the important parts bolded.
"I don’t usually respond to this kind of criticism, but this has gotten so out of hand and always happens when I make some sort of ‘controversial’ statement on twitter. To you people who get offended at every turn: Why don’t you try focusing your civil unrest at something that dearly needs it, like the fact that today the Israeli air force struck a school with a missile killing 10 people, most of which were children. I suppose you’re all ok with that, as long as the missile didn’t call the school ‘handicapped’ first, right? My job as a comedian is to make people laugh and feel better about their lives. So no, in the midst of so many other pressing matters in the world, I will not apologize for calling a PS4 handicapped. I encourage you to look at yourselves and think about what really matters.”
Yeah. A human being with a functioning brain wrote this. I have been seriously considering unsubscribing since I read this, currently waiting for a public apology (entire reason I still follow Spoony; he owned up to his terrible behavior from a few years ago).
Protip that everyone can use; never compare people complaining about things to not caring about the death of innocent people or mass starvation or immigrant children being kidnapped or whatever sad thing is going on in the world. That’s what starfishs do when they don’t want to lose an internet argument and want to paint the other party as awful as humanly possible. It’s the modern day version of Godwin’s law. Do do it. Don’t ever do it. Seriously, don’t be a loving idiot.
Oh, and don’t be a passive aggressive negative neal. That’s kind of going to piss off a whole lot more people.
What JonTron did today was something many of us have done before; succumb to ego. We all have things we take pride in, and we tend to think we’re more correct on certain things than others. A sign of maturity if learning to be a tad more open mided to people, or when you still think you’re correct (and you might be in some cases), you act polite and move on. Being an egotistical richard is something very few people do right, mainly because they make the mistake of picking the wrong fights. This is one of those examples.
When someone politely asks you not to use a word they find offensive (the guy who started this in the first place was polite) and you don’t agree, you ignore them or make a polite or witty disagreement. The insulting route can be funny, but that has consequences, as we are currently seeing. If you have managed to piss people off, what you need to do next is ignore them. Jon did that. When it reaches insane levels of annoyance, just make a public apology or a well reasoned argument for why you feel what you said wasn’t that big of a deal.
Do not compare everyone criticizing you to an uncaring human monster. Daniel Tosh does this. It’s the main reason that Daniel Tosh will eventually disappear into the either in a few years time, like Carlos Mencia before him (that and the abortion that is Brickleberry). starfishs can be funny, only until they start spewing stuff on their audience. Then they’re starfishs.
The internet gives us the tools to block out the people who annoy us if we feel we can’t take the talk. So, use those tools, it’s a much better choice for your sanity instead of being a colossal richard and managing to piss off thousands of people in one stupid paragraph.
I’ve had personal experience with an inflated ego on the internet before, and that part of my life is something I despise to look back on. However, getting my e-mail hacked and managing to nearly start a war with Swedish greasers taught me a few things. You know, like “don’t be a condescending richard.”
We all have that voice of righteousness in us telling up to stand up for our beliefs and to stick it to the man. That voice is a loving idiot about half the time. That voice tends to make us raging jackasses that pick fights over the dumbest stuff, or give us a victim complex when we’re actually in the position of power or the instigator. I’ve lost friends and burned bridges because of the idiot living inside me, and I see too many people listening to their inner idiot far too much.
So, on the day I lost respect for one of the few internet personalities I saw as one of the good ones, I offer this advice.
The next time your inner voice tells you that someone disagreeing with you is an starfish or an idiot, take a deep breath, think over the voice’s points, and weight the validity of them. If you arrive at the conclusion that your inner voice is being a loving douchenozzle, punch it in the nose with a brain fist and get on with your life. A few seconds out of your day can save you far more headaches than you can ever possibly imagine.
And now you know, and knowing is half the battle!
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