I can only thank heaven that I missed the viral click frenzy about the crying child in the Portland, Maine diner. I'd never heard of the restaurant before but was amazed to read that their "pancakes" are 14 inches across and an inch high. If their "pancakes" are bigger than layer cakes, for crying out loud, no wonder they're not fast food. If I'd ordered them unsuspecting and was left waiting for fast food (it is a "diner", after all) I'd feel like fussing a bit. And I'm pretty amazed at how the alleged adults, especially the owner of the diner handled it. Though I wasn't there and can't really know from the testimony of the most interested parties what really happened in the restaurant, you can judge how the alleged adults on both sides handled it afterwards. In any case, "social" media made things worse.
You can understand the owner being upset over having her diner slammed on the diners own webpage but if you invite unmoderated comments from anyone you're asking for that. Unmoderated comments are the home of insanity, lies and character assassination. A business owner hosting unmoderated comments about their business is begging for grouble. The experiment of unmoderated comment threads proves that the bad drives out the good, the bratty comments of adults up to and into the senior years will always dominate unless they are deleted or not published. But the owner's choice to be a bigger brat in her response wasn't professional, it wasn't even adult.
The mass media, even before the internet, has done a lot to lower the level of adult thinking and acting into that of the worst of two-year-old bratiness. Your typical TV comic or comic actor, these days, is far more likely to be either portraying or acting like an especially difficult 2-year-old with the privileges of an adult. The promotion of verbal aggression as some kind of positive and funny thing, the sign of a strong, will take no guff pose, the sign of a wise guy or gal has become universal. It has turned a large part of America into Asshole Nation.
I remember when I was still watching movies someone had a video of ET. It must have been at someones' house because there is no way I'd have paid to see the thing, but I couldn't stand it because the kids in that movie were such brats, the kind who grew up to be the kinds of assholes who man internet comment threads. I don't like that kind of stuff in kids of 9 to 14, who should have grown out of being the kinds of little brats that the worst of 2 or 3 year olds can be. When they reach adulthood they're not brats anymore, they're the kinds of assholes who can't deal with a difficult 2 year old and who hate them for acting like 2 year olds because they're essentially 2 year olds themselves. And they are the ones who have control of the discourse online, on comment threads, on self-books and on Twitter. That such people have children, themselves, I am afraid, is a fault of nature, though I hope not many of them. When brats bring up brats, sometimes, in rare instances, the kids grow up, perhaps embarrassed by what an asshole their parents are. But I wouldn't count on that as a general trend. The promotion of aggression in the media has made life a heap of a lot worse than it needs to be, it gives such jerks permission to be even bigger jerks and to be competitive jerks trying to be the bigger asshole.
Blogs, social media, unmoderated comment threads, it was the naive hope I joined in around the turn of the millennium that they would become a new and free medium to replace the corrupt corporate media that had given us the worst president in our history and the corrupted government we have now. But that was the same idiocy that believed that an encyclopedia that could be edited by "everyone" would produce reliable knowledge. I had to read the results to believe how bad it could be.
P.S. I singled out ET but it was even earlier that I had someone gull me into going to see "My Life As A Dog" which I hated for the same reason, those kids were brats on their way to being adult assholes of the kind who make movies promoting that kind of behavior.
More and more the people on the internet sound like the children on the playground Scout had to put up with (and got in fights with, too; not to her credit).
ReplyDeleteAnd nowhere is the voice of Atticus, the reasonable adult, the mature perspective (for all his limitations). heard.
Adults have better things to do than occupy the internet. And yes, that indicts me, too. But wow; reality is a harsh teacher. Fair, but harsh.