Don’t Debate Ignorance Online For Free

One aspect of my personality that I’ll always admit to and be proud of is my willingness to debate ignorant people. While this isn’t always good for my mental health, it’s something I’m passionate about. This has been happening for many years now.

I’ve spent countless hours online arguing and debating ignorant people about racism, bigotry, politics, and religion. The part of me that is a fan of justice and standing for those who are marginalized and victimized refuses to sit idly by while the mouthy, arrogant, ignorant people in our country try to spread racism, bigotry, and hate.

The occurrences of seeing so many blatantly stupid posts made by the dumbest people in our society used to be few and far between. However, since the rise of Donald Trump seven or eight years ago, it’s become far more common to run across racist, bigoted, sexist, or homophobic posts.

I can’t stand seeing stuff like that. I instantly see red. My Italian and Irish blood can boil in just seconds after reading something so disgusting and hateful. Then my fingers spring into action.

I realized recently how much less time I’ve wasted this year in 2022 trying to deal with those racist and bigoted social media pukes. And though I am proud of myself for always standing up for what’s right, I also am the first to admit how much of a waste of time it is to debate the willfully ignorant.

I’ve never “flipped” someone from a conservative Christian point of view to a more-accepting outlook. Not even once. I’ve had many people block me when I stand up to their crap and tell them that they’re being ignorant and that their racism and bigotry are wrong.

I’ve had a few homophobic people say some nasty shit to me. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a pissed-off Italian father of a gay daughter spring into action. I swear, I’ve seen my keyboard glowing from the heat of my fingers typing out harsh words toward horribly homophobic bigots.

Again, nothing changes. Hours are wasted. Most of these people cannot be reasoned with or debated intelligently. But I started noticing how much further I could get here in 2022 as a writer than as a social media user.

My friend Michelle just brought up an excellent point in the comments of my recent article, 6 Mental Health Benefits of Medium Writing. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, please click the linked title. I think you’d enjoy it. Here’s what Michelle had to say about arguing with people on social media:

Her words were spot on. They hit really close to home. Though I’ve cut back on my social media debates with the willfully ignorant in 2022 due to spending way more time here on Medium than on Facebook, I still could appreciate the wisdom in what she said.

Why should we debate dummies who spew hate and ignorance on social media for free? This wastes so much time we could be writing on Medium or other platforms while getting paid for expressing our views.

We earn nothing by debating others on social media. The time we lose while trying to prove we’re right takes away from the time we could be spending earning income through our writing. My time is worth far more than zero, the amount I was earning doing that for all of those years.

When I write and publish an article for Medium, I have a feeling of accomplishment. I also get a little excited about it. Any article we write here has a legitimate chance of being seen by many, many people. We are getting paid to express our views through our writing, and it’s an awesome opportunity.

My best-earning article during this first year of my Writer’s Journey has earned over $1000 now. Perhaps you’ve read it. If not, feel free to check it out below:

Trigger Warning: There are some truly disgusting pictures of actual people’s ignorance in this one. There are also quite a few swear words in this writing piece, as I was pretty fired up when I wrote it. Hopefully, those don’t bother you enough to skip over it. It’s worth the read.

I’ll admit that I haven’t entirely given up on debating people online. However, I no longer will banter back and forth with them and waste my valuable time. Becoming a paid, professional writer this year has taught me to know my worth. I’m not here to educate anyone for free, anymore.

If I see something truly racist or bigoted, I’ll just post the link to my writing piece in their comments section. I’ve dropped the one above more than a few times. A number of others have served me well, too.

They usually won’t comment back. Often, I’ll see that they blocked me. That’s fine. I don’t mind the trash taking itself out to the curb. I did my part by offering them one of my writing pieces to read and mull over.

Assuming they can read. With the way many of these people misspell words and use poor grammar, it’s a crapshoot oftentimes. But at least I give them a chance to consider another’s point of view.

It’s probably about as effective as when I used to debate them for free and waste hours of my time. But this method is way quicker for me and my writing pieces earn me income. I know my worth, and I refuse to work for free. &:^)