Wreakers of actual havoc, fear no troll’s disdain. Trolls have more important concerns, personally meaningful concerns to express on social media.
Isn’t it amazing how easily we become mired in petty concerns while we are surrounded by some very harsh realities. There are, to put it mildly, bad guys out there, people who for no apparent reason, are driven by “motiveless malignity,” if I may borrow Thomas Carlyle’s description of Iago. Who are these "bad guys"? People randomly shooting people; people stabbing strangers; people trying to wreak havoc on people they don’t know. Yet, in the midst of such real dangers, we find people steeped in inconsequential matters, arguing over someone’s photo, for example.
Yes, arguing over a photo. Seriously arguing. You know how it’s virtually impossible for you to turn on a computer without encountering the strangest stories about whatever occupies people’s minds? Well, I turned on mine and encountered a story about an actress holding Thor’s hammer—the movie prop, not the actual hammer Mjolnir of the real god Thor. Seems that the photo elicited a number of negative comments from the fictional Thor’s fan base. *
A movie prop. A MOVIE PROP! It’s time for a reality check.
Is this removal from reality the wave of the future? Is this “controversy” over a movie prop the culmination of a failed educational system in a super-affluent society protected from events with dire consequences? Or is it just a continuation of the human way that manifested itself long before there were online trolls? Tragedies and dangers that don’t affect people personally might always have been fictions, whereas fictions might always have been realities for some segment of a population. Meaning comes from personal involvement; for those who involve themselves in a pretend world, the fictional world becomes meaningful.
Apparently, that which is not personal is not meaningful.
* https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/08/haters-brie-larson-holding-thor-hammer
Isn’t it amazing how easily we become mired in petty concerns while we are surrounded by some very harsh realities. There are, to put it mildly, bad guys out there, people who for no apparent reason, are driven by “motiveless malignity,” if I may borrow Thomas Carlyle’s description of Iago. Who are these "bad guys"? People randomly shooting people; people stabbing strangers; people trying to wreak havoc on people they don’t know. Yet, in the midst of such real dangers, we find people steeped in inconsequential matters, arguing over someone’s photo, for example.
Yes, arguing over a photo. Seriously arguing. You know how it’s virtually impossible for you to turn on a computer without encountering the strangest stories about whatever occupies people’s minds? Well, I turned on mine and encountered a story about an actress holding Thor’s hammer—the movie prop, not the actual hammer Mjolnir of the real god Thor. Seems that the photo elicited a number of negative comments from the fictional Thor’s fan base. *
A movie prop. A MOVIE PROP! It’s time for a reality check.
Is this removal from reality the wave of the future? Is this “controversy” over a movie prop the culmination of a failed educational system in a super-affluent society protected from events with dire consequences? Or is it just a continuation of the human way that manifested itself long before there were online trolls? Tragedies and dangers that don’t affect people personally might always have been fictions, whereas fictions might always have been realities for some segment of a population. Meaning comes from personal involvement; for those who involve themselves in a pretend world, the fictional world becomes meaningful.
Apparently, that which is not personal is not meaningful.
* https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/08/haters-brie-larson-holding-thor-hammer
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