I read an article this morning that resonated with me for more than one reason. “Hello, I’m a human being” was written by someone whose blog I follow because of typography — but this article in particular has nothing whatsoever to do with fonts. It reads in part:
I’m the human being who reads your nasty, snide, and downright unnecessary tweets… they are read — and felt — by me. The human being.
I’ve been relatively lucky in that I’m not often the focus of negative commentary because I’m not the public persona insofar as what I do for a living, and I don’t have time to be all that active when it comes to social media. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have sympathy for those who have experienced online personal attacks, or that I have never been the focus of online cutting comments first hand.
The hardest thing for me is to not retaliate.
For example… “person A” told me about a tweet from “person B” that was about me. So I go and read the tweet. Come to find out, the information used by “person B” to formulate the rude tweet was obtained from “person A” who told me it was there in the first place. So you have one primary instigator baiting another for self-satisfying reasons — and a secondary player not swift enough to pick up on the manipulation who continues to tweet. (This my friends, is called DRAMA. Otherwise known as the facilitator that allows someone with an average life to miraculously transform into a big ole’ hairy bodacious deal… the center of attention… IN THEIR MIND.) What I want to do, of course, is pull both A & B together and just lay it all out there. That’s what you might do if both A & B were rational, non-dramatic adults. And maybe they are… but what if they are not. If they are not, you’re only feeding the trolls.
…I abide by the concept of treating others as I would wish to be treated. Online communication is not an exception for me. Why should it be for anyone else?
~Elliot Jay Stocks