In the Red

It started as a lovely day.

I woke up on a weekend that felt like it would never end (thank you, Easter), did a little Duolingo and read over some of my emails. Nothing seemed too important, so I headed over to look over some of that media that they call social. There were messages on Instagram and Facebook (again, nothing too special), and then I went over to feel the heat from Reddit.

Ah, Reddit. Much like Peliplat and Twitter (sorry, it is never going to be X to me), I do not understand why I keep you around. Or maybe I should say kept?

Let me explain.

I saw an article detailing a legal case where a judge gave a very lenient sentence to a man who killed a young girl. The father of the victim had a very nonjudicial response to the verdict and threw a chair at the judge. Many of the comments were full of expletives explaining quite patiently why the judge should be removed from the bench, possibly with some amateur surgery involved in her case.

And how did I respond?

I commented that the father in question should have thrown the whole table instead of just one simple chair.

I never cursed or made a decision on the surgery she should undergo.

And I got banned for life.

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Okay, it is not for life, at least not on my laptop. I have recently left a few comments on my page and my streak continues...I think (I am quite indifferent about these things). I looked back and saw that I am interested in society, artists, film, graffiti, mythology, and so on and so on. I am wondering, however, why I bothered with it, and why I thought that it would matter so much if I was not able to add my two cents to that back alley of the Internet.

And a part of me feels quite happy about this.

Again, it feels very strange to think about this as a positive, but it is very good to know that there is one less page out there for me to waste my time with when I have other pages worth the waste of time.

Seriously, this is a release from a certain drudgery I never thought would control me. I am of that particular cabal called Generation X. If someone said something that you did not like or did not want to hear, you either got into a fight with them in person, or you ignored it and got on with your day. You did not have the means or often the inclination to make it impossible for them to share whatever particular opinion offended you.

I am thinking more and more about this as I look at my students and how they feel the slightest trepidation over entering the working world. During a discussion of how to behave during a job interview, a student pointed out that they were terrified of saying the wrong thing, not because that might keep them from being hired, but because of the blowback and bigger repercussions that comes with the wrong image, line or audio making it online to the wrong ears.

So, no fear about getting a job, but fear about being cancelled?

Utter nonsense.

I would like to thank the arbitrators at Reddit for their deep and profound stupidity in setting up a page for discussion that refuses to discuss what I did wrong. I know that the page is available on my laptop and not my phone - a very odd conundrum - but I am done. And I know that the violent extremists and bigots who still populate your page need more attention than I do.

I guess we all win.

Merci, you losers.

KD

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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