Been perusing some articles online this morning (it’s been a slow morning…) and was just reminded of why I never read comments at the end of these articles. I live in a state of self-imposed ignorance regarding the intelligence of my fellow human beings; I like to think that everyone has critical thinking abilities (c’mon, critical thinking is the same as common sense isn’t it??) and that people will try to figure things out for themselves before posting completely idiotic statements online. But….every time I go read comments after reading almost any type of article, I am amazed at how stupid some people are.
Sorry if that’s mean. But regardless, it’s true.
If you’re interested in the specifics (also I feel like I should offer examples instead of just arbitrarily throwing my opinion out there) – was reading this piece from the Atlantic, Is There Any Rational Case for Banning Gay Marriage? I personally thought the article was well-reasoned…but don’t ask what made me keep scrolling down to view the comments. Maybe I wanted to see if anyone would actually have a logical rebuttal? Instead, comments like these (“Think about this for a moment: If your parents were gay you wouldn’t exist”; “Don’t be ridiculous. You are comparing the natural, biological pairing of a male and female, to some boy putting his wee wee up another boy’s butt”; “Homosexual pairing is a chosen biological dead end and as such merits absolutely no taxpayer subsidy or state sponsorship”) have a sort of snowball effect culminating in my desire to pull out my hair and yell profanities at random people.
(HA! Another reason I have a blog is to keep me from pulling out my hair and yelling at random people. Good stuff.)
I will also note that a lot of the comments on this article (and I didn’t even make it very far) were positive and called these bigots out on being close-minded and stupid (i.e. it’s absolutely ridiculous to say that if your parents were gay then you wouldn’t exist; that assumes that gay people are either unable to conceive even after having intercourse with a member of the opposite sex, or that because they are not attracted to the opposite sex then they would never feel themselves pressured to pretend to be…).
Anyway, had to vent a little. I’m done now. I think.
No Promises This Time 
Some of those could be trolls.
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I make myself feel better by assuming (rightly I hope!!) that the proportions of calm, fair-minded people and noisy bigots is NOT evenly represented on the internet as a whole. Like, most of the clear, fair, critical thinkers I know prefer to have conversations with people in person, and eschew the internet comment thread. But, I have also unfollowed most of my friends on facebook because they’ve said things that annoy me, soo… I could be wrong.
It’s nice to just call people trolls, though. That’s another thing that makes me feel better. BUNCH OF TROLLS GUHH
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