The bubble, Part Deux
Sparky and others have lightly chastised me, and rightly so, for being so emotionally invested in the comments over at Mrs. du Toit. I agree it’s stupid. Why should I care about the rantings of a right-wing homeschooling atheist gun enthusiast, or her drooling minions? No logical reason.
But I figured out that in addition to her pushing some major buttons for me, the other reason is the weblog format itself. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I get more emotionally invested in weblog writings than I ever do with a newspaper article, book, magazine or TV show. Part of it, I think, is the idea that there’s a single real person behind these words. It becomes more like they’re talking to *me* than just to the world at large. And if someone said directly to me the things she’s been spouting, I would feel obligated to respond. If anyone personified Grandpa Simpson’s phrase about “angrying up the blood,” it’s her.
And the tragedy is, I can’t even go back to talking about American Idol! It’s over! Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll find something.
To aid in curing your emotional investments in those that take the form of a weblog: Dr. Pepper presents Raging Cow!
http://blog.ragingcow.com/
Old news, but it fits here.
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I go now.
I’m uncomfortable with feedback that essentially says, “Don’t get so upset!” Even if Mrs. du Toit’s comments weren’t directed directly at you (and don’t forget that many comments in the resulting thread were directed directly at you), your emotional reaction is understandable. We get angry when we see injustice or stupidity or malice in the world, because we’re human beings with a sense of how things should be. Even if there is no appropriate context in which to take her on (i.e., boxing gloves, whiffle bats, etc.), the important thing is that the buttons she pushed showed you where your buttons are. That’s important information and an opportunity for you to understand yourself more deeply, to test your ideas, and to continue growing.
It’s easy for someone to say, “Don’t get upset over it — it isn’t worth it,” especially if they’ve been over that same territory before. But don’t let their impatience (i.e., not wanting to watch you discover for the first time what they’ve already rehashed) stop you from growing. It isn’t enough to just blank out and “not get upset” (something I have a hard time understanding). You can’t get past something unless you get through it.
I’ve witnessed much of the evolution of your site so far, from pop culture fascinations to personal tidbits to political exasperation to personal revelation. I think it’s important, and it’s inspirational to boot. I’d hate to see that process compromised just because someone else isn’t in the same place you are — myself included.
What he said. I don’t think you should not be bothered; I think you should get bothered a lot more (quantity, not quality), so as to figure out this whole getting bothered thing.
yeah, i agree with these guys – START TO WORRY WHEN IT doesn’t BOTHER YOU ANY MORE! anger, outrage, sadness over stuff like that means you feel there may be some hope that it can change; resignation that you can’t make a difference, or that people can’t evolve/change, would be terribly upsetting, don’t you think?
I went through a phase when I probably would have agreed with what she’s saying, to be honest. When a large percentage of my friends in high school started coming out, they got beat up, yelled at, and had things thrown at them for “acting all gay and s**t”. These were people I cared deeply about, and it was a painful thing to watch their humanity get rejected by most of the school, day after day. At the time, and with the best of intentions, I really hoped that they would start acting more “normal” soon, out of fear for their own safety.
Of course, by the end of that school year I’d figured out that that point of view wasn’t the best, since acting “normal” usually means acting straight, and they were just kids, reveling in all the options that had suddenly become available to them now that they’d come out. Seeing half of them that had wanted to kill themselves the year before turn into well-adjusted happy people set me right.
But I think she’s doing the same thing. She’s wrong–really, really wrong, and is using sketchy sources, and is lashing out at people disagreeing with her in a scary way. But based on some of her responses, I think she’s just expressing what I felt like when I was in 11th grade: “shh, keep quiet, don’t you know how dangerous it is to say all those Big Gay Things?” I could be thinking about her motives in an incredibly naive way, but the way she was talking about her brother and people in her life, it sounds like she’s not homophobic (or doesn’t think of herself in that way), but is just misguided.
It’s too bad she won’t listen to the voices of those who have been there and know better. I’m not saying don’t get upset, but I know that I feel some pity for her windmill-fencing.