By: Reyshimar Arguelles
It is everyone’s desire to be loved, and being on Facebook comes off as an attempt at greater relevance. Thus, it gives an almost carnal form of gratification to wake up to comments and likes from people we either know closely or treat with utter distaste.
Either way, we’re not as alone as we think in this world where personal connections can turn weird, insane, and violent.
The Internet is exactly the kind of place where decent people become indecent in mere seconds. Other than diffusing ideas and culture, the internet takes on a more sinister role as an instigator of hate. You could easily smother someone’s ego by spamming hate comments and insult people into accepting their own stupidity, all without having to brandish a butterfly knife.
It’s just so easy to ruin someone else’s day behind a veil of anonymity. With social media becoming a prevalent part of daily life, people have begun to realize the amount of firepower a tweet or Facebook post could pack.
Mao once said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Now, we could just as easily topple governments and destroy well guarded reputations using a minimum of 140 characters. Hate has a new vessel and it could very well be more dangerous than any weapon.
Online hate reserves a special place in modern culture. You simply can’t ignore the desire to humiliate someone through sick burns. And it’s not always about the quality of the vitriol you spew out that does a lot of damage. It’s the quantity of people that take issue with whatever it is you’re advocating.
And sure enough, we have a lot of issues to talk about. We couldn’t entirely avoid the nauseating insanity of politics and culture. It’s unavoidable, but we could choose to ignore hopelessness like we do a large pimple, react in a dignified manner, or just outright lambast the horrid system that has allowed these problems to metastasize.
It’s obvious that we can’t ignore or tolerate cancer. Getting rid of it is much more worthwhile. But of course, there’s only so much we could do to help stymie the spread of the rot. Then again, packaging our hate into digital diatribe comes as the most rational way of confronting issues that directly or indirectly affect us.
Make no mistake about the fact that ranting leads us nowhere. To be angry is tantamount to doing nothing, but it does lead us into doing something. We just have to know what it is that deserves our scorn because hating something that’s irrational and opposes everything that we stand for is the start of a profound transformation.
It’s healthy to hate, especially if it’s directed against the forces that continue to subvert us and take advantage of our lack of control over the way things are run. At this point, saying nothing proves to be more dangerous than taking up arms.
The moment we created a social media account was the moment we took our egos seriously for the first time. It’s also when we accept the fact that we are afforded a platform for channeling our collective against an oppressive system and the cohorts that sustain it.
It’s only through a multitude of ill feelings that help us unmask the tepid reality that our so-called leaders desperately hide from us.
This should rouse us into hating the bigotry, mediocrity, deceit, and corruption that’s eating away at the last remnants of decency in Philippine politics. Let us rage into a night that’s about to envelope us and blind us forever with false promises.
To err is human, but to hate what’s destroying humanity is noble service.
