Outrage Culture

There is a very, very thin line between being legitimately annoyed at outrage culture and justifying ignorance with it, so allow me to make one thing immediately clear: the outrage which irks me at this point is not typically to do with people in a poor place being legitimately angry with the government. There is a time and a reason for voices to be heard, and subjects such as mental health, the refugee crisis, and all of that kind of stuff needs to be made as loud as possible if it is to be changed.

The kind of outrage culture I’m on about is in the everyday. They redesigned a website you commonly used? This is an outrage! Something isn’t working exactly properly? This is an outrage! Somebody messed up? They cannot be forgiven for this is an outrage!

I believe I’ve already stated that anger and hatred is seeping into our culture like a plague. Add anonymity and mob mentality into that mix and you’ve got a dangerous bag of self-justified people, mostly good at heart but for the moment, blinded by their own rage. Put aside your anger towards David Cameron for a moment – difficult, I know, but try it – and imagine being in his boots right now. Imagine that everywhere you turn, people are insulting you and baying for your blood. You look online and find threats of violence against you and your family. You post a tweet containing one sentence which gets picked apart and spat on by an army of people who can hide behind a wall of anonymity you don’t have the privilege of. If we are to understand that which seeks to do us harm, we have to put ourselves in their perspective, and sometimes it’s not a pretty place. It doesn’t justify what they’re doing, but sometimes it makes things make a little more sense.

I’m not just talking about famous people, either. People are visceral to one another, passive-aggressively if you’re lucky, messaging you with threats if you’re not. Because you’ve said something which has caused an outrage. How couldn’t you have known this? How could you be so fucking stupid? You’ll never be able to take back what you said; it’s an outrage!

Calm down. If you disagree with somebody, tell them why in a calm and measured way. Do not let your heart outspeak your mind, and remember that all people can be hurt by you as much as you are hurt by them.

Anger, Change and Evolution

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and – all joking aside – that’s something I often try to avoid doing. My mind has this wonderful habit of spinning one idea off of another until I’m bouncing them off the walls faster than they can form… which would be great, if these ideas were to do with writing stories. More often than not, however, they’re related to one of two things: the current state of society, and the current state of myself. But that’s a story for another time, and the fact that I don’t try to distract myself from thinking like this anymore is, I hope, somewhat progressive.

The main things that keep popping up to me are how people react to change, and how angry everyone is at everything. No seriously, everything. It’s unhealthy. Find someone on the street and they’ll happily rant to you about how fucking ridiculous the government is. Speak to a gamer and they might tell you about how the state of their chosen gaming franchise is going downhill as if it’s the end of the world. A bus arrives five minutes late due to unavoidable traffic and the driver is treated like he’s just murdered the customer’s puppy.

And I refuse to be a hypocrite here. I’m certainly no meditating, nature appreciating poet. Hell, if I take a few moments longer to do something than is necessary, I’ll swear; earlier I told my shoes to fuck off for not getting off my feet quickly enough, decorated my bed with a few choice obscenities for making me swerve to avoid it in my unnecessary hurry. And I can’t help but look back and wonder if it’s really worth frowning so many times in a day. I’m sure many people reading this will be the same, although probably not quite as worked up about the taking off of shoes… I’m getting pretty bad.

In regards to change, people lose their minds when something is no longer the way it used to be, whether it’s for the better or not. I’ve seen it countless times on the internet at least, where a website will simply change its layout and people go freaking nuts. You’d think the changing of an alignment was on par with the culling of a species the way the reactions can sound. The thing I’ve come to realise over the last few years is that change is good, and that a failure to let go of version A when version B rolls around is a serious problem. For example: we all love Bulbasaur (and if you don’t then leave this blog and never return). But when it comes to beating the game, you’re going to have to train that adorable little critter into the mighty and unstoppable Venusaur. And although it may seem ridiculous to use Pokemon as an analogy, it fits in with my next point.

Evolution. (No, not still talking about Pokemon.) The evolution of the self is a startlingly important process and if you shy away from it, you’re essentially dooming yourself to walk around in circles for the rest of your life. It’s why my secondary school friends think I’m absolutely nuts and my university friends think I’m… somewhat less nuts. I hope.

My favourite part of fiction is usually a good bit of character development, because that’s the part the echoes our own universe no matter what the genre or topic. Whether it’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Doctor Who, the development of the character always mirrors the changes I see in people as years pass, and whilst many go on about “You’ve changed” or “Remember the good old times” or “The world has moved on*”, I’ve found that when you let go of times passed and focus on the present, you’ll typically find it’s for the better.

So to be angry at change is as ridiculous as being angry at Venusaur for no longer being Bulbasaur. And whilst I accept that some changes are worth getting angry about (looking at you, George Osbourne) I maintain that it is never, under any circumstances worth getting angry about change for the sake of change. Unless you have no spare change for the parking ticket and that’s what you’re angry about. That’s always a bummer.

*yes, that was a reference to The Dark Tower. I’m still in the middle of it and enjoying it wholeheartedly.