I'm not a boomer. It's a close call, but a boomer I am not. However I strongly dislike the term. It's not used as a group-name, it's used as an insult. As in, 'Look at that boomer, he's too old to understand.'
Am I? Or is there a somewhat bigger problem? Before you start taking aim and fire away, please understand that this post is not about enforcing my view on the rest of the world, it's actually the opposite. I ask those who ARE enforcing THEIR view to please consider that opinions may differ. So... ready to be insulted? Here we go...
The Evil Doers
There are several groups poisoning the Internet (and other forms of free speech)... Here are just four...
1. The attention grabbers The people that want to stand out, to be special. We all want to be special, but it's better to stand out by your own merit than by making false claims or beating up others.
2. The bullies. Those who enforce their point of view by abusing other people. Preferably online where it is easy to hide. The points are often irrelevant, they're just an excuse to bully.
3. The followers. Those without a brain. No questions are being asked, the attention span is limited to sixty seconds of Tik Tok, 140 characters of Twitter, and Juice Channels on YouTube. You know, without you the next group wouldn't exist... Please have some reservations, and ask questions to both pros and cons.
4. Those with an agenda. Either driven by serious concerns, dark political motives, greed, or sometimes simply shallow thirst for false emotions. Always ask yourself the question WHY someone says something, or you'll be yet another follower.
Do you belong to any of those four? Do you belong to more than one group?
Always ask yourself two things:
A. Is it true? (A little research often shows many claims are false.)
B. Why does somebody say something? (Attention? Money? Some dark agenda?)
C. Are you intolerant yourself (by not allowing other points of view)?
Boomers and Zoomers
Age matters not. Experience does. The world we grow up in does
Previous generations grew up in a different world, which doesn't invalidate their experience. Some of it may no longer apply, yet other parts may matter more than ever before.
Do we have to put everyone and everything in a box and label it?
To anyone who 'identifies' with his / her generation: does your generation identify you, or do you identify your generation (Click to enlarge.)
The Alphabet mafia
Let's start there.
I am all PRO liberty / do what you want / identify the way you want. I don't give a flying f**k how you want to call yourself. Do what you like. Be happy.
But... you cannot enforce the world to adhere to your point of view, because (face it) you might be part of a (self-proclaimed) minority.
It seems the (progressive) LGBT community has been taken over by hate mongers who are desperate to put everyone down who does not adhere to their worldview. They wave the flag of revolution for the violence, not for ideology.
For example the abbreviation. LGBT. LGBTQ. LGBTQ+. No matter how you spell it, someone is going to complain you left a letter out. Even worse, they're going to complain you've done so deliberately, to insult one or more parties.
Get serious people. Do you think Joe Average keeps track of all the variations? Just visit Wikipedia and marvel at all the variations...
LGB
LGBT
LGBTQ
LGBTQ+LGBTQI
LGBTQI+
LGBTQIA
LGBTQIA+
LGBT2Q+
LGBTTIQQ2SA
By now you need a degree in letter-soup to figure out what is what and who is who. So please stop attacking people who use the wrong abbreviation.
Be honest, when you look at it, from a distance, it's almost funny. Almost.
Representative
I support people who identify differently and have whatever sexual orientation. To me, people are people. So, taking that one step further, an often-used argument is that LGBTQ+ (see? what's the right abbreviation now?) are underrepresented in the media.
Is that so? Look around you at the majority of books and movies and television series produced in the last ten years... if anything, it seems that, from a statistical point of view, 'straight' relations are underrepresented.
And again, I don't really care. It doesn't bother me either way. What does bother me though is people screaming and yelling that story xyz requires a gay couple or two. Why? To match the 5 to 10% percentage of the population which is gay? (My own estimate, I found some data but this is a tough and touchy subject. Here's a page on Wikipedia.)
If non-binary is a thing (it is) AND when it isn't abused by fashionada (which unfortunately they do all too often) AND we look at real-world percentages (I'm not a scientist, so I'll stick to Wikipedia for now) AND we assume half of those non-binary people are even bothered by other's opinion, then we're talking about maybe 0.05 x 0.1 x 0.5 = 0.25% of the world's population, and that is including the fakers.
Does that 0.25% matter? Or maybe the 0.125% or whatever? Yes! They are human beings as well! It's just that they matter just as much as the other ones, not more.
We've reached a stage where being a CIS-gender, especially a straight male, is something to be ashamed of, and where it is getting hard to find any statistically more prevalent relation (mind how i avoided the word 'normal') in the media.
Neo-pronouns
Honestly, I'm old. I frankly don't see the purpose of a thousand different ways to address a person, and my brain can't handle all the different variations... zhe, they, he, we, she, zhim, zhers, zhimself, ze, zir... serious?
If you want to call yourself any of that, then fine, do so! But don't get angry when other people don't 'get it'. What may be perfectly logical to you might not be as clear or well defined for someone else, so don't beat them up for not understanding.
In fact, you're probably not going to address me as 'Your Majesty' even though I identify as such... So take it easy. Accept that not everyone has the same opinion and that for some people he / she / it is enough. I know this world is a harsh place, but there's just as much validity in claiming there are hundreds of pronouns, as there is in claiming there are only three.
The big fact here is, will you beat up somebody because he / she has a different opinion? Because if you do so, you're even worse than they are.
So sorry, I am outright going to refuse to use zhe / zhir / zhim and whatnot. I'm not going to attack you if you want to use the term, and I expect you to not attack me for not wanting to use the term. (Click to enlarge.)
Diversity and tolerance go both ways!
How can you promote diversity, if you cannot accept other people's opinions? That's the main takeaway. Some are only tolerant of those that have exactly their point of view.
Neuro-divergent versus the 'I wanna be special' crowd
We all have our problems. Nobody's one hundred percent normal. But it seems that certain people are using a 'divergence', a disorder, as a facade to hide behind.
Which is completely unfair to those that DO suffer. Don't use a disorder to make yourself stand out. I know we all want to be special, but claiming a disorder to do so is so wrong.
Even worse, you'll negatively affect those that have a real disorder, because both your false and their real claims will be marginalized. Again, because some people want to stand out -- and chose to do so by extrovert amounts of self-pity -- those that really deserve the attention are ignored. The fakers should feel more than just ashamed!
Diversity and tolerance go both ways
How can you promote diversity, if you cannot accept other people's opinions? That's the main takeaway. Some are only tolerant of those that have exactly their point of view.
Misogynistic hatemongers
After being accused of being 'misogynistic' (online, obviously) I actually had to look up the word (Webster).
Unfortunately for the accuser, I'm not one of them. If anything I'm the opposite, which will probably be labeled as 'sexist' (there's no way to do this right).
In case of this accusation, I asked for proof. None came. I asked for examples. None came. I asked for dialogue. None came.
You know, I absolutely agree there are misogynistic people out there, and probably quite a few. And yes, some of those people are in high positions and don't treat women fairly. That should not happen and has to be addressed.
Unfortunately, the term has become an 'easy accusation', a kind of cheap slander that has lost its real meaning. In fact, by being abused all the time by the real hatemongers among us, the term is reaching a similar state as the word 'feminism'. Instead of promoting their case, the hatemongers are effectively creating a counter-movement that reduces the value of their words.
Misogynism needs to be addressed, and discrimination is unacceptable. But again I fear too many claimants are simply looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, using the term as an excuse to nullify any discussion.
How many cases of misogynism are non-cases? Many assume any accusation to be true before investigating the fact. Turn it around, and assume the accusation isn't true before proven. Innocent until proven guilty.
Cancel Culture
We don't like something, so let's Twitter about it and attack it.
I don't know. Yelling and screaming about everything has resulted in a kind of cancel culture. Do something wrong, say something wrong, even (especially) when taken out of context, and suddenly you're a demon to be tarred and pitchforked.
Is anyone still interested in facts? Facts are stubborn things, after all... These days, Twitter has become the sewer of the internet, it seems, and nobody asks the core questions anymore... Is it true? And what's in it for the person who says it?
Depp versus Heard
Okay, I sneaked this one in. I have NO opinion on their case or the validity of the accusations, I leave that to Judge and Jury.
However, I do have an opinion on some of the responses.
' Amber Heard verdict is a setback for women and domestic violence survivors'
' All of these attacks on women’s autonomy are connected. This is a hard moment. There is no way around it. It does feel like women are losing rights that previously felt pretty well-established. '
Read that carefully. Ignore who's to blame for a moment, just take that statement and analyze it. It suggests that Depp SHOULD be judged guilty BECAUSE otherwise women will be violated.
But that makes no sense... he should be judged guilty IF HE IS guilty, NOT because he's a man. That part should make no difference, and from that point of view, the outcome of the trial should not make a difference. It should in no way affect the rights of women.
Now ASSUME Depp isn't guilty AND the outcome of the trial WOULD affect the rights of women, then does that mean Depp needs to be judged guilty even if he isn't? That would basically throw away every kind of justice imaginable. Is that what we want?
That's like 'positive' discrimination: there is no such thing.
' I have a small dick, so I need to be the next CEO of Tesla because there are not enough CEOs who admit they have a micropenis. '
Sigh.
My plead
Here's my plead to all:
Treat people fairly.
Don't discriminate.
Stick to facts.
Judge yourself before judging others.
Always ask yourself if what is said is true, and why it is said.
And please, oh please, be tolerant.
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