[Un]reasonably outraged by social media pile-ons

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Trigger warning: suicide mentioned

A couple of months ago, there was a bad car accident in our area. A young and inexperienced driver took risks they shouldn’t have and collided with another vehicle. The driver of the other car sustained serious injuries, but thankfully no lives were lost.

It is reasonable to say, without being present at the time of the accident, poor choices were made, no doubt influenced by immaturity and excitement. We’ve all been young and dumb. Most of us have at one point, taken risks that upon reflection were probably dangerous. I’m certain we can identify situations in our youth that could have ended in a different way had luck had not played a role.

Without downplaying the consequences of this accident and the implications for the driver, passengers, and victims, I wanted to raise the issue of social media pile-ons.

There were some online posts about the accident. People asking for updates or sharing their horror at the sequence of events. But some of the comments … oh lord. Nasty comments about a driver they’d never met, offhand remarks about things people had heard happened at the scene (none of them based on facts), rumour mills and gossip mongers fuelling the already difficult circumstances.

I understand outrage. I feel it often, but there is a difference between feeling it, venting it and then absolutely caning someone online. Digital hostility and shaming are not only toxic but incredibly unhelpful. I know of the driver, but not well enough to enquire about their current state of mind. I am certain they’re suffering their own kind of hell and I worry that layers of public condemnation will cause a spiral to their mental health.

How are these comments helpful? Lessons must be learnt, absolutely. Reckless driving is almost always going to end in a negative outcome, but is some irate and abusive stranger on the internet truly going to be the voice of reason that gets through to young and invincible-minded drivers?

We see this mob mentality happen to celebrities all the time and perhaps we distance ourselves a little and even dehumanise them. In the past, I have certainly been guilty of a tweet every so often that publicly mocks someone on reality TV, (or a certain former US president with a rather orange tinge). It’s easy enough to do for a laugh. But in my middle-aged wisdom, I am learning the true cost of such pile-ons.

There’s the story of a college graduate campaigning to have YA author Sarah Dessen’s book removed from their reading list that ended up in a big social media attack.

There was Lizzo and the food delivery debacle that ended in a lawsuit.

Then there were the dire consequences of a student politician at a protest event who took his own life after a social media pack condemned his standpoint.

Recent pile-ons throughout the pandemic (pro-vax vs anti-vax) and just last month in the Australian referendum (yes vs no) were no different. Whether we agree with people’s actions or opinions, a public humiliation campaign achieves nothing but ugliness for all involved. Speaking out against subjects that are important to our communities is one thing, but personal attacks are not only on the nose, but in some cases dangerous.

Perhaps if we approached these scenarios with curiosity rather than judgement, we’d be reminded how little we actually know about people’s lives. The iceberg theory demonstrates this beautifully. If you don’t already follow Dr Emma Hepburn Clinical Psychologist I highly recommend her drawings. I love what she said in this post:

@thepsychologymum

Social media was designed with psychology in mind, but unlike most psychology this was not for your mind’s benefit. It uses intermittent reward to pull you in, so you need to try harder (and spend more time on it) to get that dopamine hit. It provides no obvious end point, constantly leaving you looking over the next wall and wanting more. Its currency is your attention, and psychology is used to help you spend more and more of your attention on social media. 

So, if we are pulled into this vortex, scrolling, reading and not really checking in with ourselves about what we’re consuming or what we’re saying, then the social side of these platforms becomes a weapon. When we agree with a crowd of people who are offended by someone’s behaviour, we feel validated by the public condemnation of another. It makes us feel like the perpetrator is being brought to some kind of justice.

According to this article, a study examining whether public shaming was motivated by doing good or a desire to feel good found that “rather than a desire to identify and correct an injustice associated with a particular post, people were motivated by feelings of schadenfreude.”

It’s a great word. Those Germans know how to do language. If you’ve not come across it before it means “pleasure derived from another person's misfortune”.

Lynch mobs, bullies, witch-hunts: call them what you will, I don’t think any of us would admit to deriving pleasure from someone else’s disaster or wholeheartedly joining an online tormentor. But I do know we are all capable of judgement. Myself included.

When I read back through those comments about the driver, I wanted to reply to each of the nasty entries but was reluctant to engage in another pile-on, potentially directed at me!  Instead I vowed to be more considerate of anything I put out into the world, especially when I don’t have all the facts.

I’ll leave you with this quote (original source unknown):

Do not judge the story by the chapter you walked in on.

What do you think?

Kx