Sharing Opinions With Random Strangers On The Internet

WHY do we do it? I do it. You probably do it. And it’s all just a big circle jerk anyway. Generally this is how we measure how much we like someone on the Internet. It’s by how much they agree with our opinions. So really… it’s all about us, anyway. The Internet is a giant circle jerk, a mutual admiration society where we reassure ourselves that everyone who doesn’t agree with our opinion is a troll or an asshole. Sometimes both.

Look at any blog and the comments section is filled with bobble-headed yes-men (or women) with the OCCASIONAL diverging opinion (which seems to annoy everybody else who just wants to hear endless reinforcement of their view and doesn’t appreciate someone stirring the shit.)

We take opinions of others too personally. I would love to get to the point where the only people whose opinion I cared about on any level were people who were actually legitimately important to me. Not RANDOM people who may have interacted with me for five minutes and somehow think they know me… or people who have never interacted with me at all… yet still somehow think they have an opinion.

This taking things too personally is sometimes understandable, depending on the subject. Other times it’s patently insane… like when people assume that just because they have a different opinion that they are being attacked when someone else shares an alternate view and hasn’t said anything personal at all.

I think we do this in real life, too. I just think in real life we generally avoid people we don’t like as much as possible. On the Internet it feels like there is nowhere to go… except off the Internet. Also, in real life, usually when we run into someone we don’t like, we aren’t often surrounded by a posse of our friends. On the Internet it seems opinions travel in packs. So if someone comes and shares an opinion you don’t like, there is a group of people who can devolve into psychotic glee by bashing the deviant who has the gall to think something original.

There are some truly bizarre interpersonal dynamics on the Internet, and frankly, I’m not sure they are all that healthy. I’m usually happier when I’m not on the Internet a lot.

I think human beings haven’t really evolved for this kind of disconnected global interaction. We’re meant to be in small tribes where everybody knows everybody and at least if someone has a fucking opinion… it’s halfway informed.

I find myself often irrationally irritated by opinions that disagree with mine. I have no idea why this is. It’s just this sort of seething discontent. And it’s not all the time on every subject. Just sometimes and on some subjects. And I’m really not aware of many human beings who this type of thing doesn’t apply to. Like I don’t think there is this whole big percentage of the population who can sit back smug in the knowledge that they don’t feel this exact same way when it comes to other people’s opinions.

It makes me think we’re all really just a bunch of self-serving assholes because the people we like the most are the people who think most like us, and the people we like the least are the people who think least like us. (Like somehow we deserve a medal for being that awesome.) And you can’t pat yourself on the back if you have this big cornucopia of people from all walks of life in your friend circle… cause if you really LIKE all this wild variety in your life as some sort of personal statement about “who you are”… well… it still goes back to what you “like”. And it’s still a worldview of diversity that you expect other people to agree with or… you don’t like them.

I’m not sure what my point is except that it’s patently weird to me how we ALL think the whole fucking internet or even a single person on it somehow “really cares” about our opinions about every random thing we come across. But they don’t. But we all keep sharing opinions about everything with total strangers who don’t even KNOW us. And we still get irritated with others who don’t share our opinions or don’t “get” our opinions. We still think they are stupid or wrong or something else lame.

Where does this need to share every bowel movement with the whole world even come from? I’m trying to imagine my mom as a kid… way back before the interwebz feeling unbelievably compelled to share with 506 total strangers in her vicinity what she ate for breakfast or why she thinks a certain book or movie is awesome. I’m not talking sharing opinions with actual friends and people who ‘get you’. I mean random people.

Back in real life, we still think someone who just starts spouting off with their every little opinion to some dude they don’t know at the bus stop is possibly a little crazy. Of course, as soon as we witness that, we run to tell the whole Internet about it, not realizing our behavior is the exact same thing but in pixels.

Are we so disconnected now as a society that we hunger for ANY connection with ANY human no matter how shallow or vapid that connection? No matter how little the other person knows or understands us? Even if we’re just tossing it out into a void like throwing spaghetti on a wall to see what sticks with someone? Are we really so narcissistic that we take PERSONALLY any opinion from any random human that disagrees with our own or doesn’t like something about us or what we have to offer the world?

I think yes. We are. And I include myself in this as well. Not like I’m pontificating from on high. Yet… the ultimate irony is… here I am… on the Internet… shouting out my random opinions to total strangers. Somehow it’s no longer good enough to share thoughts with one or two close friends or in a private journal. We are all mini-celebrities and we all must ANNOUNCE to the whole world, our every activity and thought.

We call blogging and Twitter and Facebook social media. We call it “connecting” but we aren’t connecting. We’re masturbating, and those who agree with us are our wank material.

From where does this neurosis come and how the FUCK can I get rid of it? I think it would be an interesting experiment to see if I could go a month without sharing any random opinions on the Internet… AND without reacting irrationally to the random opinions of people I don’t know on the Internet. A month may be too ambitious though. I should try a day first and see how that goes.