First we have to admit that people are the problem

Paul Moore: (as he emerges from an office in which one of his staff, Martin, has been informed he has lost his job, after many years with the TV station) Now, if there’s anything I can do for you… 

Martin: Well, I certainly hope you’ll die soon. 

This snappy dialogue is from the 1987 film “Broadcast News”. It’s a minor classic which savagely critiqued the media and taught women everywhere the best way to apply perfume (spray it up and walk into it to make sure you aren't wearing too much). There are lots of movies and TV shows that savagely critique the media and yet the fourth estate at best seem impervious to criticism; at worst they use these savage critiques as how-to manuals. But that’s another OP. 

This dialogue sprang to mind because of the recent fall from grace of Chrissy Teigen (not directed at her BTW - despite recent events I still quite like her). If the name is drawing a blank, it is probably because you don’t spend much time on social media. She started as a Sports Illustrated model, before marrying singer John Legend so her celebrity isn't only based on being good at Twitter. But she was a natural for the socials - extroverted and funny (she once called Kevin Sorbo "boy Xena"), candid and open (especially about how the rich and famous live - did you know there's a special airport terminal at LAX just for celebs?), and willing to share almost everything about her life. She is also politically aware and progressive, which made her a target for attack by RWNJ. She was even blocked by Trump. All in all, she is likeable, and had enough nous to realise she had to do something else to justify her celebrity, and started writing cookbooks. Unfortunately, she sometimes engaged mouth before brain. 

Another professional celebrity named Courtney Stodden, who is best-known for marrying a 59 year old man when she was 16 (it’s all happening in celebrity land) claimed in an interview that about 10 years ago, Chrissy Teigen said some particularly cruel things to her via the socials. And she had the receipts (as the young people say). Telling a 16 year old (even if she did not present as an average 16 year old) to kill herself was a low point for Ms Teigen. Despite profuse apologies, her reputation has taken a hammering. Other online self-appointed protectors of public morals have labelled her a bully.

In response to the bullying, people are piling on. She is being “cancelled” (i.e. she’s lost a few contracts). I can’t help but think there’s a lot of schadenfreude going on, watching a wealthy, attractive woman who seemed to have it all, falter. Her detractors are also forgetting that a pile-on is also a form of bullying. 

So with the Queen of Twitter coming a cropper, it follows that Hanrahan-esque commentary pops up to say we’ll all be rooned by social media. Will it? I say no because...

I’m old, right, so I remember when the internet started to inveigle itself into our lives. At first, it was novel, fun and used mainly (by me) to find out what happened in future episodes of Buffy. From the beginning to now it has been the wild west out there and we all had to learn how to use it as we went, mainly through trial and error. I can see how the socials have brought people undone but I also observed that gradually some consensus was reached on etiquette for the digital age: all caps equals shouting; be careful when writing emails because what sounds casual in your mind could read as curt and rude; typos can be corrected by *correct word in text messages; careful with reply vs reply all; don’t drunk text/tweet/post. Shit stirrers of the digital age were renamed trolls. 

We’ve also learnt that the internet never forgets and the socials are no different – knowing better next time means there had to be a stuff-up once. When Twitter started, the point of firing off short messages was lost on most - it seemed like shouting into a void*. I'm not sure anyone thought it would last and it was treated as a fad. Users were just firing off any old thing that came to their head. Sometimes it was funny, other times mundane or misjudged. To this day, things get tweeted that should remain untweeted. Everyone has thoughts they think better of in milliseconds. But Twitter gives you the opportunity to record those bad thoughts for posterity. Imagine you’re famous and people took screenshots of your worst thoughts. 

Again, wishing death on a teenager is punching down but we say things like “I’m going to kill the next person who leaves a used teabag in the sink – the bin is just over there” (or is that just me?). When trying to cancel Foxtel last year, my mother told a Foxtel employee that she wished someone would assassinate Rupert Murdoch. We reference dying and killing a lot in our everyday speech. In 1987, in Broadcast News, hoping someone dies soon was (and remains) something we all wish we had the presence of mind to say when someone screws us over. It is the ultimate expression of disdain. It is also hyperbole. And, fellow humans, we should ask ourselves why dark and disturbing is our go-to for everyday expressions of speech. 

But anyway, like TV before it, and rock music, and probably the invention of the printing press and educating women, the internet has become the big bad (a phrase borrowed from Buffy which will never be cancelled in my mind – I don’t care what Joss Whedon** did). There is a lot of bemoaning the terrible effect it has had on social discourse and interactions: Look at the vitriol and abuse; the cyberbullying; the misinformation; where is the civility of my youth?; we have no attention span anymore (actually that one is true). 

Around the same time as the Chrissy Teigen brouhaha, there was a lesser-known but related situation. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a well-known Nigerian writer, got a bit of attention for writing an essay entitled "It Is Obscene". Its most copied and pasted excerpt is this: 

In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship. I find it obscene. 

The rest of the essay details two situations in which a couple of her writing students behaved badly: one student ingratiated herself to Adichie, only to bad mouth her on the socials; another, who received some early encouragement from her, turned on Adichie and raised a Twitter army against her, while using Adichie’s early encouragement in some promotional material. Their ire was raised by a comment Adichie had made about transgender women***. 

Again, Adichie points the finger at social media as the culprit (instead of blaming the parents, which is what I always like to do). She seems affronted to learn that people are two-faced, opportunistic and susceptible to peer pressure. Performative virtue? In the olden days, it was called “going to church on Sunday”; the word for it was sanctimonious. No one likes being used or duped certainly but nowadays at least, the evidence is in digital form forever. Once upon a time, people just went behind other people’s backs, to use another saying that goes way back before the internet. 

But the excerpt from her essay is really just a “young people today!” diatribe, up there with this often-cited quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”. Socrates said this over 2000 years ago. The more things change… 

Apparently, the internet has spawned shouty virtue signalling by the woke and with their main weapon of "cancel culture" it is stifling public debate. But much like second-year medical students diagnosing themselves with every disease they study (a known phenomenon), wokey virtue signalling is really just people who have half learnt about sociology and cultural studies. They get a bit carried away with their newfound half-knowledge (the other half of the knowledge would be about context and intent) and feel quite pleased with themselves. But self-righteousness and self-congratulations aren’t new either. Oh, and I just thought of another old saying: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

If there is real harm from this dogmatic application it is not that it is self-righteous or superficial or makes people feel too scared to speak (in fact, all of us taking a moment to consider our opinions is probably a good thing). The real damage is done by the misuse and overuse of terms to such an extent that it renders them meaningless. It gives the reactionaries, motivated to protect the status quo only by self-interest, a free kick to discredit progressive ideas. In turn, these urgent and just social issues are disregarded a little longer, so the haves can make a bit more money and maintain their (unearned) place on the social ladder. 

Those who think social media is turning people bad seem to have forgotten humanity’s history. People used to throw rotten vegetables at people in stocks in the town square. Before that, they used to stone people to death. Parents used to take the kids to watch executions for a family day out. During the French Revolution, the Tricoteuse (think Madame de Farge) became infamous for sitting and knitting by the guillotine. Lynch mobs are not new. Witch hunts are not new. Mass hysteria is not new. We know this because we have long had words and phrases that describe this behaviour. 

Now we just send people to a figurative naughty corner of cyberspace to think about what they said. Sometimes people lose jobs. Looked at in historical terms, “cancel culture” isn’t making humanity regress; it’s fucking progress. 

The internet is not causing bad behaviour in humans, it is exposing bad behaviour. There is no way to deny now that people can be venal, stupid, irrational, obdurate, mean, gullible, greedy and humourless. We have always been like that. The adverse effect on hearts and minds caused by TV, or rock music or the internet presumes that at some stage humanity reached some sort of apogee of refined behaviour and thought. No, we never did. We’re still trying (some of us anyway). 

Anyway, I think I know how we can improve things on the socials. Firstly, it should be mandatory that anyone who criticises someone else’s appearance online has to post a recent and verified photo of themselves. 

Secondly, we need to accept my friend Lavinia is right when she says people are awful. That way, we can stop being surprised or disappointed when people are doing their worst. Instead, we can be prepared the next time someone comes up with an all-new, bells and whistles invention with the potential to alter society. 

Thirdly, we need people to understand that comedy is difficult, and not everyone can pull it off. When I read about the latest Twitter storm, and have a squizz at it myself, sometimes I am genuinely appalled (or disappointed – see Chrissy Teigen). Other times, it seems clear to me that whatever was said was meant as a joke, albeit a poorly executed one, or it was irony/sarcasm that was lost in writing. Even comedians do trial runs of new material to see what works and what doesn’t, and they’re professionals. We amateurs need to proceed with caution when attempting jokes online. 

Lastly, we should find a graphic designer who specialises in fonts and get them to develop that sarcasm font everyone talks about. So, if you use it (and it should be freely available on all socials) people will know you are making a joke, even if they don't get it (there are people who not only don’t get jokes, they don’t even like jokes – true story, I’ve met them). The sarcasm font could be called It’s a joke Joyce (because Graham Kennedy should be world-famous). 

And whoever designs it should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

* Turns out Twitter is very useful for quickly sharing information. It also gives everyone a chance to voice their opinions (though some people get cranky that no one wants to hear their opinions).

** Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy has been “cancelled” due to allegations he's a bit of a prick who bullied a couple of actresses on the show while having affairs with other actresses, all while publicly championing female empowerment. Then there were allegations about his behaviour when he directed the Avengers... 

*** The comment was “transgender women are transgender women”. The context is the completely batshit crazy “debate” going on between two extreme factions - TERFS (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) and militant trans activists. In between are people who are transgender, who did not choose this fight, just trying "to thine own self be true" (that's Shakespeare btw).