Internet and the culture of offence

I have never been a very religious person. My religion stopped at, praying to the trinity of carnatic music that the notes I sing be delivered to the liking of my music teacher and making deals with one of the innumerable Hindu gods that if I ended up being top of my class I may consider going to the temple once a year. But every Ramzan and Christmas I would, without fail, go to the homes of my parents’ friends and celebrate festivals with a gusto that the Hindu gods may have been surprised about. I could almost hear them talking to each other, “You know that girl who makes deals with me all the time? She never wakes up before eight on Diwali but come Christmas, she is up and about before the midnight mass ends and rushes over to that aunty’s house to set up Christmas decorations, if you can believe it!” Since nobody in my neighborhood had fancy degrees or cosmopolitan upbringing, everybody went along with the assumption that common sense is the foundation for all interpersonal interactions. We weren’t afraid of stepping on someone’s toes and we definitely didn’t mind the gaffes that came with getting up close and personal with neighbors from different cultures and religions. If we were curious we asked, if we didn’t know we ventured a guess and when the guess went horribly wrong we apologized and that was the end of it! All it required in case something really offensive was said, was sharing an elaborate homemade dish and everything would be forgiven. But the internet is not a homey place like that. What bothers me about interactions over the internet is that

People don’t know each other and their quirks like they know their neighbors and friends, so they always assume the worst when someone says something

The level of understanding of a language varies widely and sometimes humor and sarcasm get lost somewhere between packets of data

Even with languages having developed as much as they have, there are not enough words to express intent and emotion over the internet

There is an assumption that you are talking to an audience that is either well read or rustic which form the base for the content and form of communication which isn’t obviously the case because once it is on the internet everybody reads it

There is no Gandalf in the internet community who everybody listens to and who can moderate these discussions (if only the internet were a forum of a few thousand people with select topics of discussion, we would have been able to post a sticky thread with rules and kick people out if they didn’t follow them)

Even before an offensive post has reached you through forwarded messages, the offence would have reached you first through friends and acquaintances who themselves would have been offended because they heard the post was offensive

Looking for credible sources and facts is no longer something civilized people do apparently! The amount of outrage and number of people offended by a certain remark has become directly proportional to how offensive the remark/post is

Imagine all these factors multiplied by the number of posts you read in a day. Together this results in a space that is chaotic, overwhelming and plain exhausting! It makes people depend on the responses of their neighbors and friends, and agree with whatever they say is offensive instead of using facts to make their decision. Here is a thought – Instead of agreeing with others on what’s offensive or being offended at all, this is what you can do:

So the next time you read something on the internet which you think maybe offensive to your sensibilities, pick an option from the chart above and get on with your life. Onwards and upwards, ladies and gentlemen!