I’ve been seeing several mentions of this “Inner Mean Girl” cleanse thing, and I took a 45 second glance at the website, as is my style, before deciding I was totally over it. I think it starts today, and I’m already over it.
I don’t want anything to do with what looks like it will amount to another way to judge each other. “I’ve decided to be a nice person and I need professional help to do that. Everyone is so mean.” Except, except – there are really so very few people who are truly mean.
I wrote awhile ago about how I don’t think I’m really nice or mean. I think I’m average nice. I think most people are average nice.
And I think that’s just fine.
I think, though, that especially with blogs, the line between nice and terrible is way too darkly drawn. Comments that disagree with a blog writer, however mild, are deleted.
Tweets that are completely innocuous at best, eye-rollingly lame at worst, are declared to be “threats” and “harassment” that require a big kerfluffle and to do.
Justifiably calling someone an asshole – right out front, in public, under your own name – gets you the label of “troll.”
I don’t know how much of this has to do with this sudden spate of people declaring their cleanse and honestly, I don’t know nor care too much about the details of the cleanse itself. You should understand this in reading the rest of this post. I don’t claim to “get” what this cleanse is about. I’m sure that, if you’re participating, you have very valid reasons. I think a lot of my feelings on this matter also have to do with a lot of recent discussions I’ve been having with other average nice people.
I think the fact that the Internet has become a bunch of weenies has combined with the fact that women love ways to shame each other to create whatever the hell this current Internet weather front turns out to be.
Anyway.
Internet, you’ve become a bunch of goddamn weenies.
Disagreeing is not the same thing as spewing hate.
A debate is not always a fight.
“I don’t like you” does not have to mean drama.
Calling someone an asshole does not make you the Internet devil. Some people ARE assholes, or at least, occasionally act like assholes.
This whole “don’t say anything unless you are agreeing or you’re giving some kind of emoticon hug” thing is ridiculous. These days, you simply cannot disagree with a blog writer or commenter in comments sections without sides being taken, defenses being leapt to, and things devolving into an absolute mess out of some misguided sense of “how dare you.”
Should comments devolve into some kind of name calling, mud flinging mess? No, of course not. But these things don’t usually start with random name calling or a hateful, anonymous comment anymore. THAT would be true trolling. No, these things usually start with someone saying something that is perceived as not being 100% nice.
So a commenter takes offense on behalf of the blogger and things get rolling from there. Or worse, something that has been happening far too often and over much too little, the blogger him/herself jumps into the comments or onto Twitter or anywhere s/he – let’s be honest, she – can, to shriek about persecution and trolling and hate and rallying up the troops and playing the victim about every little damn episode of someone not meeting their standards of nice.
Shaming, shaming weenies
I think that most of us are average nice. Because average is average and aside from some outliers, most of us are going to fall right in that range.
I don’t think I’m special or unique in any significant way. I think realizing that has made my life a lot more pleasing, a lot happier and a lot more realistic, if that makes sense.
So, as an average person, who is average nice, I know that a good number of people are going to be very similar to me.
I think mean things sometimes. I compare myself to other people, too – sometimes favorably and sometimes unfavorably. I make judgments and a lot of times, don’t even realize I’m doing it.
Sometimes I see something and have a reaction, or I think something and it’s not too polite, and the fact that I am adult capable of exercising my own judgment keeps me from saying it. Sometimes, it doesn’t, and I say something that maybe you wouldn’t have said, but definitely something that I’d say.
That doesn’t make me a mean girl. I’m just average nice.
I don’t think that’s a big deal. I think when someone does something that causes me to think, “Hey, that person is an asshole!” or have some kind of similar reaction, it’s up to me whether or not I feel strongly enough to actually voice that reaction. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. The same goes for just about everyone else. Ever.
But these days, these days with this weird new definition of what’s nice and what’s mean, the self-appointed Nice/Mean/Drama/Disturbance in the Force Police have come flying onto the scene as well, and that’s where the shaming comes in.
Every single goddamn day, there is someone tweeting or posting or commenting about “Can’t we all get along?” or “Ugh, drama. Everyone needs to calm down.,” or “Let’s all agree to make an effort to be kind to one another.”
This only happens on the Internet. The Internet, where people are completely and totally free to say whatever they want, has more people popping up to dictate who can say what to who and how than anywhere else.
Where else do you see an uninvolved adult either step between two other grown adults to stop their conversation, or stand next to other people and make loud comments right next to them about how terrible it is that they’re having the conversation?
And worse, not only does this only happen on the Internet – it’s usually over nothing. Take the recent #realwriters “debate” on Twitter. Over and over, people were jumping in to say how TERRIBLE it was to say bloggers aren’t “real” writers and whoever said that is a MORON and oh my GOD can’t we all just get ALONG, and you go to read the search results of the hashtag AND EVERYONE IS AGREEING WITH EVERYONE ELSE.
If the Nice/Mean/Drama/Disturbance in the Force Police invent a mudslinging debate where there was only one side, you can imagine what happens when someone calls someone else an asshole. Or people on opposite sides of an issue discuss it. Oh, it’s like the world is caving in.
And these pleas for niceness, for harmony, for kindness – they’re just another kind of shaming.
They are.
An adult telling other adults that their conversation/debate/argument/whatever shouldn’t be happening? It’s shaming.
“I’m above this. Why aren’t you above this? Nice women are above this.”
So what’s wrong with nice, anyway?
There is nothing wrong with nice. There’s nothing wrong with being a nice person, with doing nice things, with saying nice things, with striving to be nice in all areas of your life.
The problem is with what nice has come to mean, here on the Internet.
Nice isn’t “I like your hair in your avatar” or “Follow so and so, she’s such a great person.”
Nice, on the Internet, is not saying a word when you disagree.
Nice, on the Internet, is looking away when someone says something awful about a something you feel strongly about.
Nice, on the Internet, is not leaving a blog comment at all if the one you were about to leave isn’t in lock-step with the post itself.
Nice, on the Internet, means making sure that other people know how nice you are – by shaming them for saying anything that falls into the NEW definition of debate, fighting or drama.
Women are supposed to be nice.
We’re supposed to get along. We’re supposed to agree. We’re supposed to present some kind of united front. Fighting is what keeps women from forming deep friendships with other women.
I disagree. Shaming is what keeps women from forming deep friendships with other women. Shaming each other into stomping out deeply delt disagreements, shaming each other into keeping our fingers still when someone REALLY NEEDS to be told to what a sack of cocks they are, shaming each other for piping up to back someone else on whatever has been determined to be the “wrong” side of a debate.
I’m nice enough, thanks.
I’m not the type of person who seeks out every drama to jump into, tweet about and blog about, under some misguided notion of “telling it like it is.” I’m not mean for the sake of being mean.
I’m average nice. Sometimes I say things that aren’t 100% nice. I certainly think things that aren’t 100% nice. Sometimes I keep these things to myself, and sometimes I speak up. That’s my choice. I think that, going by the traditional, non-Internet version of the definition of the word “nice,” I’m a nice enough lady.
I know how to be nice. You know how to be nice. WE ALL know how to be nice. Sometimes, even knowing how to be nice, we choose not to be.
The reasons we choose not to be nice in any given situation are different for every person. Maybe someone is maligning a cause that you feel strongly about. Maybe someone has said something offensive about one of your friends. Maybe a debate has broken out amongst some other people, and you really have something to contribute.
In the non-Internet world, while not necessarily falling under the heading of “nice,” those things would be referred to as standing up for what you believe in, defending a friend, and engaging in heated discussion, respectively.
On the Internet, that all falls under the heading of mean, or drama, or, more simply – wrong.
The Nice/Mean/Drama/Disturbance in the Force police have twisted, turned, and mangled the definition of nice and are out to shame any woman who doesn’t fall in line. I’m embarrassed for them. I’m embarrassed for us. I’m embarrassed by women banding together to tell other women how and when to communicate, and who specifically is allowed to say what specific things to which specific others.
I don’t need nor want to be told when it’s okay to object, when it’s okay to bitch back, and when my dissenting opinions are welcome or unwelcome. I don’t need nor want to be told when I should let this slide or side step that in order not to have someone pass judgment from on high about how above everything that’s going on they are.
Sometimes, I think someone is being an asshole, or is wrong, or is doing something that I strongly disagree with. A percentage of those “sometimes,” I will feel strongly enough about it – or really, just be in the mood – and say something. I don’t feel like that makes me a Mean Girl, or not a nice person.
If you, personally, feel like you need to conform to the Internet’s new definition of nice in order to be okay with yourself and happy with who you are, I totally respect that. But you need to respect that fact that the Internet doesn’t revolve around you.
That people don’t always agree.
That no one is obligated to stifle so that your tweet stream is expletive free.
I’ll respect your right to not speak up, not defend your friends, never disagree, never say a cross word to anyone, never compare yourself to anyone else, never hate what someone else stands for, never find anyone or yourself lacking in ANY way.
As long as you respect my right to tell someone to eat a bowl of dicks when I truly feel it’s deserved.
You trust my judgment about when it’s ok for me to say something. I’ll trust your judgment about what’s okay for you to decide not to be involved in.
It is not the Internet’s place to decide what’s nice and what’s not. It’s not the Internet’s place to decide who can say what to who and how and when for the sake of keeping up some false front of togetherness.
I’m nice. You’re nice.
We’re all pretty nice.
