<Insert Name Here> Complains: Even when you're right you're wrong
It seems like just about everyone has an opinion about one thing or another these days. Actually, it's probably nothing new, as the old saying goes... "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one". I think what makes things different these days is the fact that everyone feels they are entitled to share those opinions whether others want to hear them or not.
In fact, there is a whole community here on Hive dedicated to ranting and complaining. No offense @cmplxty, this post isn't directed at you in any way. In fact, it actually has nothing to do with HIVE at all.
I was sitting on the couch with @mrsbozz the other night doing something (probably watching football), when my good friend @a4xjeeper called me up.
You might remember, he recently purchased a building in the mid sized town where we grew up. After a bit of run around with the city planning and zoning board, he was finally able to start getting to work on the building to make it work for his business. Basically, he is just putting some holes in the wall so he can install large garage doors.
That way his trucks can sit inside where it is safe during the night instead of out in the parking lot. It's really a win win for everyone.
Unfortunately, his building sits very close to another building that houses a restaurant that is just open during breakfast and lunch. People often "overflow" into his parking lot which leaves less space for his business. He started putting up cones and you can probably guess what happened next.
Yep, people complained. I actually heard it first from a friend (who isn't on HIVE) that was eating at the restaurant one morning. The guys at the table next to him were complaining that the jerk (probably not the word they used) that bought the building next door won't let people park there.
Fast forward a few weeks and @a4xjeeper finally had to put up these cement barriers. You see, the parking lot for the other building connects to one of two major roads in the city. The parking lot on the other side of the barrier in a round about way connects to the other busiest road in the city. As you might imagine, people would often cut through to skip the light and of course it was always at a high rate of speed.
After a couple of the contractors working on his building and a few of my friends own employees almost got run over in their parking lot, he finally put up the barriers.
That's when the fun started...
As I mentioned, my friend called me the other night. It turns out there is a Facebook page called "xxxxxxxx Complains". For obvious reasons, I substituted the name of our hometown with xxxxx's for privacy reasons. I have little doubt there are probably hundreds of pages like this on Facebook though.
It turned into this big discussion about how "the person who put up those barriers" was breaking fire code by blocking that path. In fact, my friend contacted the police, fire department, city, and the owner of the other building before he put them up. Due diligence done.
People just want to be right though... Someone suggested they should just hook some tow chains up to them and move them out of the way.
Believe it or not, someone doubled down and actually did. Now the police are really involved. When my friend called he was talking about how hilarious it was that people were getting so worked up, but I could tell deep down it was really bugging him. There were close to 100 comments on the post with people complaining. The biggest complaint? That they use that path to cut through (something that is illegal by the way).
How inconvenient for them that they can't knowingly break the law!
He should be ashamed!
Unfortunately, some folks took it one step further and started spreading false information about his work on the building that he bought. Sadly, that's the world we live in now. His knee jerk reaction was to get a lawyer involved and file some kind of defamation of character lawsuit. Unfortunately, these days while you might win in traditional court, in the court of public opinion, you will almost always come out the loser. Even if you are right.
You are almost better just sitting on your hands and letting it blow over because more often than not something new will come along the next week to preoccupy them.
For me, this is one of the single largest drawbacks of social media. It's not that people didn't have opinions before, but they either kept them to themselves, or they shared them at the local bar where people just dismissed them because they thought you were drunk.
Now, they splash them across social media for everyone to see. A few people rally behind those opinions and more jump on board until you have this massive wave of stupidity coursing across the Internet.
I saw this quote the other day and it seemed to fit really well with this post:
“The world was still big. The country was still vast. You could just be a little person, with your own little life and your own little thoughts. You didn’t have to have an opinion, and nobody cared if you did or did not.”
-Chuck Klosterman
It's from a book called "The Nineties" that I haven't read, but an acquaintance of mine has and he shared that. I was telling @tarazkp just the other day that I have started to realize in my old age, being right isn't the most important thing anymore. Does it kill me to let things slide sometimes? You bet, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't usually give you peace. Instead, it just draws more ranting and raving from the masses.
Does your local community have a "complains" page? I've seen them for cities, schools, probably even churches believe it or not. It's a sad sad slope we are sliding down...
I truly think some people would die if they didn't have something to complain about.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
I've been the topic of national and international news before - for approximately 48 hours before. It was a bit surprising to me myself mentioned in the Daily Mail. Had reporters blowing up my email and phone. I ignored them all. Within just a few days the focus had moved on to something else. I had made the mistake of saying a certain group of people weren't monsters but in fact their good intentions had been exploited by a bad narrative.
The ultimate impact on my own life was negligible, most attention and hype are an illusion. Despite being the subject of dozens of large papers, less than ten people have ever asked me about the event in real life. Collectively we have been conditioned to react to whatever the current topic is and then move on to the next reaction. Our attention span is increasingly transitory.
Traditional social media in many ways is a badly made tool for humans. It is deforming our perceptions, and our faculty of reason.
Your last point is a very good one. What used to be 48 hours is likely a lot less now due to the volume and speed that new things get posted on social media.
It seems like everyone is so much more negative recently it's really annoying lol
Yeah, I can agree with that.
That is sad... What a great use of social media! One of the curses that it's brought out is the ability to attack and complain far more effectively than in the before times (1990's!) People have always liked to complain and they always will. Just imagine when they die and are in heaven, they would find something to complain about there too...
A lot of times it's just better to let things slide and not make a big deal out of things, otherwise you stir up the hornet's nest. Maybe it's the wisdom of aging! Not to sweat the little things anymore.
It's definitely a mob mentality whether it is right or wrong. We have seen lately that even with scientific facts people believe what they want to believe.
Totally true and what people don't realize that staying in this negative mindset that complaining triggers attracts more negativity their way. I'm with you on not having to be "right" all the time anymore (or more like I don't feel the need to correct those who are wrong), it brings a certain peace. I wish I would have come to that realization a long time ago. It's fun just to let people talk sometimes, it can be very revealing.
I'm still working on the part about not correcting everyone who is wrong. I think that is going to be a long process for me!
Facebook is about to get even worse. As Zuck bends to kiss the ring of Trump, he has pledged to stop doing factchecking on FB, claiming it is a waste of time and not effective. I guess that wouldn't make any difference in the situation you outline above, but then again, it could. A decent fact checker could highlight on these complaint posts that what they are talking about (cutting through the parking lot) is illegal in all States.
Anyway, all social media is only getting worse and worse...
There were a couple people who did that, but the majority of the comments were from selfish people more concerned about how it was going to impact their "quality of life".
YES!
This is the suck of social media. And now that the complaints and rumors are written down, other people will repeat and share and can source the original lie as “fact” because they see it over and over again. The suddenly you have people believing nonsense.
It’s a case of the loudest voices in the room getting to determine the reality of a situation. When in fact it is not reality at all.
Totally true on all counts! It's shameful quite honestly. I know I sound like an old man, but I miss the days before social media sometimes.
Sad commentary on our times. Look to our leadership. Look to the sense of entitlement. If I want it, it should be mine. Isn't that the law of the land today?
Heaven help us when an appeal to wrong seems right.
Yeah, it's pretty sad. Very different from the world I grew up in.
This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @steemflow by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited..
This post received an extra 1.28% vote for delegating HP / holding IUC tokens.
But poor friend of yours, anyway this is when social media is used badly... people then don't get informed and cause damage
For sure! He is handing it as best he can.
Thanks for the community shout out :D always appreciate it!
This is wild and sadly not unexpected. I want to think that these things always happened but they were much more nebulous and local instead of widespread on the internet. Neighbors would complain to each other all the time but actually moving the barriers is pretty wild and excessive.
Your friend has the right to do what he did but I think people want to have the space to be heard and complain. I wonder if addressing the people in a sit down conversation would help at all - a small town hall of sorts. Might not but knowing a lot of people just wanting to be heard, it might.
It may have once upon a time, but it's not so much that people want to be heard these days, they want to be right. Even when they are not. They will burn the entire place down just to try and prove that they are.