Let’s be real about this subject.
The subject of being just plain and outright mean.
Over the years, since the inception of social media, when it first began, everyone was excited at the prospect of having the ability to communicate with people from other parts of the world.
I mean, who wouldn’t be?
The opportunity to make friends abroad, maybe even make plans to visit those countries, the possibilities of a new reality of connections are endless.
Any normal person with common sense would think within the capacity to be well traveled and make new friends.
However, there are certain individuals who live in the dark places of their minds, harboring resentments or disdain over life, over other people’s success stories, and wondering why they aren’t successful.
Well, first off, success doesn’t happen with anyone sitting around, lurking about in front of their computer or smart phone and comparing their lives to a bunch of images and short videos. Success isn’t winning the lottery either. That’s just pure luck, nothing to do with success unless you actually use that money for something and not just buying multiple cars because you can. Sorry to say, but that’s not a real investment.
While we spend our days getting our news, streaming our favorite shows, and communicating with our friends through the means of different social apps, we have what we have called trolls.
These are the people we claim, “they have no life” or “they’re just a bunch of haters”, “living in a basement”, with no aspirations of being nothing more than a pest to society.
Mind you, as much as we like to believe they all live in a basement, actually some trolls live a pretty good life, making decent money and having some personal successes, but for some reason that’s just not enough. To see another person succeeding “above” what they are doing, perhaps in the same career path, “that’s just unacceptable”.
In my early years of recovery, I remember my ex always telling me not to compare my insides to someone’s outsides. At first, I never really knew what that meant. If I saw a beautiful girl with minimal makeup, dressed down, for me she looked perfect. She didn’t have to make any extra effort to just be naturally beautiful… she just was.
And if I did just happened to tie my hair back, wear loose fitting comfortable clothes, people would ask me if I was okay, was everything all right, or that I didn’t look happy.
It was almost as if I was a young girl again in school, trying to manage my hair and a girl with not so great hair would ask me, “what happened to your hair?”.
I let that ride me for years and when I found relaxers, well, I was going to ensure I was never going to have a bad hair day in my life.
My hair dictated how I presented myself, the straighter it was, the more I would be accepted by “society’s standards”.
When my aunt was alive, she would say, “your hair makes the outfit, and if you’re dressed up pretty and your hair doesn't look right, your outfit doesn’t look right.” For the most part, she was right.
Ever try something on and it just happened to be the day you didn’t put much effort into your hair? The dress may not look right at that moment, but if you play around with your hair, you may be able to get a vision of how you want your hair to look with the dress.
Anyway, I digress. The point is, there are things or experiences that may stay with you and some people may just never recover from that, no matter how successful they are. So, every time they get on social media, perusing around, they may see something, that will trigger that emotion, because they haven’t dealt with it and take it out on the poster, instead of dealing it that emotion themselves.
Two months ago, I experienced a very unpleasant interaction with someone I actually knew. This was a person I supported through events and items she sold.
I met her through my friend Steve, who passed away some time ago.
Steve was just this awesome person who seemed to be the connector of introducing people, in the hopes they can work together and collab on ideas. He worked with me for a while when I added a music section in my magazine to widen my readership to people who were interested in not only underground local music bands, but also exploring and learning more about alternative lifestyles.
In support of the local bands, I ventured out to Brooklyn where he introduced her to me along with other people within the group. We all connected via social media, and I supported her as much as I could, although that was never reciprocated.
I noticed for some people it was more about a popularity contest, especially on Facebook. If you wore minimal clothes and just stood there for pictures, that was way more important than anyone working on projects or putting themselves through school.
Because I don’t venture on Facebook all that often anymore, she put up a repost on her Instagram of a lady discussing the younger generation, in turn, I included a sarcastic comment using quotations about the younger generation turning to Botox. For some reason, my sarcasm was lost in my comment when she accused of me being jealous and ignorant and in addition….wait for this one, putting down people who choose to go that route.
Putting people down? A person who owns a publication where the point is for women to find and embrace their sexuality and for someone who clearly doesn’t know me too well, just accused me of putting down people. I’m like okay that was strange. I thought maybe someone else, other than her used that account, so I went on Fakebook to see if the same post was on her page, being the Instagram account was under the business name.
Sure enough, same post on her page.
In all of my life, why would I begrudge anyone who uses Botox, shit at some point I’m gonna use it too.
I did reply to her that I was being sarcastic but that only led to more of her trying to chastise me and quite honestly, I didn’t bother reading paragraphs of sheer ignorance on her part, coupled with her anger for whatever she was angry about. In response, I wished her well, blocked her on Instagram and removed her from my fakebook.
Shocked at how she behaved, of course, but surprised, no.
I’ve noticed since the pandemic, people I have known for years have changed into personalities I don’t even recognize anymore.
It has really come to a point for me, I would rather remove negative people in my life, even knowing them ten years plus, who would rather chastise or belittle my choices to make themselves feel better about their lives. This isn’t a friendship to me anymore.
That is just sheer abuse.
The same goes for any stranger on the internet who doesn’t agree with your line of thinking or how you choose to live, but yet, keep replying, trying to make you understand their outrageous sort of nonsense or why you’re the one being nonsensical.
Keep in mind, considering the Rubie Franke situation, which is a video I am putting together for YouTube, what she said about starving her children or not having a comfortable bed to sleep on, this is NOT normal and beyond nonsensical.
How can one define what is nonsensical and what makes sense.
The answer is easy, critical thinking skills.
Two perfect examples of nonsensical, were two separate interactions with two women who felt the need to chastise me because I didn’t agree with their nonsensical concepts on Instagram.
Most times, when people reply negatively over something they don’t agree with, it can be due to negative experiences, or conditioned behavior, such as religion or a cult mentality that everyone should just follow the herd and think the same.
In addition, most don’t believe there’s anything wrong with them. Their narcissistic point of view should be the only view everyone should agree upon.
Examples can go like this:
“I don’t like the way I was spoken to as a child and when I see it happening as an adult, it’s wrong, it doesn’t make me feel good. There’s a better way of saying things, without being so mean.”
Granted that person could be right. There are ways of expressing a point of view without being an asshole. But what are the circumstances where someone has to be aggressive?
Exhibit A – a weight loss coach did a reaction stitch on Dr. Younan Nowzaradan, better known as “Dr. Now” from my 600-pound life. This is a television show directed towards people who are living with extreme obesity.
What do your critical thinking skills tell you when someone is on the extremities of being overweight to a point your heart will give out on you because it can’t anymore, and the possibility of death is much closer than being moderately obese.
I commented on the post, which read, “Dr. Younan Nowzaradan does not play, this is your life at stake.” – I think it garnered over 1,100 likes. But for one person, my comment was not acceptable, because the doctor was being mean.
Of course, now, her comment opened the door to people trying to explain to her, he’s not being mean, he’s giving this woman perspective. This is a woman who can’t go anywhere without some sort of assistance.
I didn’t say anything for a few weeks until finally I had to respond to something she said to someone else. As a result, she felt better about herself, responding to me in a direct message, attacking me and telling me how she didn’t want to follow me.
Funny thing was, I never asked her to follow me.
It was clear to me, this woman had more issues a life coach can help her fix and on top of that, if she went to a life coach for assistance, hopefully that coach will realize she may need to see a licensed professional and not a life coach.
And, no, I’m not being funny or sarcastic. I’m being very serious when I see someone continually arguing a moot point, wanting you to understand their nonsensical but anyone with critical thinking skills coupled with logical reasoning, which seemed to be the majority in this post, we were all just wrong.
In addition, she isn’t any type of doctor, nor in some type of related field having to do with weight loss (according to her profile), arguing with people and trying to make them understand, how this doctor, who’s an expert in this field, is wrong.
Makes me wonder, when she goes to the doctor and he diagnoses her with irritable bowel syndrome, having shown all the symptoms, will she also dispute that too or will he be wrong in how he conveys the information to her?
Well girl, if your feelings are hurt, this isn’t about this post, something deeper is going on and it’s up to you to figure it out. Maybe find a doctor that will give you a lollipop for being such a good patient.
In addition, writing me private messages to attack me, after sharing my experiences of first getting clean and sober and making me the person I am today, didn’t work either.
In another unrelated post, a similar thing happened, where a woman was accusing a poster of not giving credit for a DIY idea. Now that one confused the hell out of me. People have DIY ideas all the time and for a person to complain about it was really a joke to me.
Now if the girl copied something verbatim, for example, she used the same exact ingredients and put her own product name on it, then yes, there could be a potential copyright/trademark problem of some sort. But this wasn’t even the case. In a joking manner, I told her I learned how to fry an egg and who I should give credit to.
That just created a firestorm. Lady was calling me all sorts of names, from ‘fool’ to being an idiot. I guess she felt empowered by doing this. Sadly, for her, none of what she said fazed me- not one bit. Her name calling only showed me her insecurities about herself and name calling people is the way for her to make her feel good about herself instead of just relying on her own self esteem.
Why are people mean?
They are mean because they are hurt and they want others to experience the same feelings they felt or are feeling when they see posts or read comments, which can trigger such responses. In their minds, attacking others, makes them believe they will feel better in “setting the record straight”.
Quite honestly, it does not. No one needs a degree to figure that out. It’s just logical and human common sense.
Does this make me feel sorry for individuals who feel the need or feel they have the right to attack others because they don’t agree with what we are saying? No.
This is not the 1930’s where psychiatry is about torturous medical procedures. The are different forms of therapy available to help people who have individual mental health issues.
Needless to say, I can’t force anyone to go to therapy. That decision should be made solely by the individual unless that individual isn’t liable to make choices of their own accord. Personally, I would rather not live in a jail in my head, than be free to able to make healthy choices for my own personal wellbeing.
Granted, there are people who believe they don’t need therapy and that’s fine.
What’s not fine is when someone in their narcissistic element or the element of, “I was affected by this during my childhood, so the world needs to fix itself, so I won’t be triggered”, is an unrealistic expectation, to put those indirect feelings on to someone else.
When you put yourself in a place where you think the world has to fix itself to appease your nonsense, it will always end the same with the majority letting you know you need help.
My own personal experience of dealing with a narcissist disaster, became upset over a show I was watching because he didn’t agree with the concept of auctioning off someone’s personal effects. His rational was, “well I lost my things”.
When I informed him, he lost his things due to his irresponsibility to pay for his rent and not because the unit was abandoned, he became upset and belligerent. Just as a child would when they don’t get their way.
When people do not want to take full responsibility for their actions and want to place blame on someone or a post filled with comments of agreement to the post, they will never learn how to live effectively.
Everything that occurs in their life, will be the fault of someone else or circumstances “beyond their control” is the reason why there’s constant failure in their life.
That’s not to say there isn’t shit that will happen, but when every part of your life is the fault of someone else, they broke up with you because of someone else, you lost your job because of someone else, you can’t get ahead because of someone else….
Remember what they say, when you point the finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you.
Until then, Take care of you!
