There was a time when angry and spiteful people had to make a bit of an effort in order to unleash their anger and spite on others. Maybe they had to wait until they were at school or work the next day, or they’d have to wait until they could blurt it all out down the pub. In cases of extreme bubbling anger they’d have to get off their arses and head to a rally, a protest march, a lynching or some other form of public gathering that allowed them to be uncontrollably angry. However, it was always ‘in person’ and ‘one-on-one’ or ‘many-on-one’ as is most bullying. There was no hiding away from those they’d decided should be the victims and no way to be prodding them from afar.
Then came the internet. Now, I’ve been on the internet since a time when it was ‘newsgroups’ and there was no ‘web’ aspect to it. I remember a time when the anger wasn’t there. Sadly though, the anger arrived as more and more ‘ordinary people’ joined the previously exclusive club of nerdy communication. Up popped the ‘trolls’ and the fighting has never stopped since, direct from the comfort and (probably most importantly) anonymity of angry armchairs.
Decades later nearly everybody is on the ‘net and nearly everybody is angry. A lot are very spiteful.
Whether it’s domestic issues playing out on-line via Facebook rather than in private, or swelling and organised hatred that influences those who will happily pop out and shoot elected officials, the anger is almost beyond containment.
The ‘net is part of everyday life and so, just like porn and people trying to sell viagra, this whole problem isn’t going to go away.
We do see it in real life as well, of course, with the increase in road rage, air rage, or anything at all rage.
Years ago, before the internet, we in the UK had Citizen’s Band (“CB”) radios to communicate with each other through. They were illegal of course, and the community was new and kind to each other. Then it was legalised, which invited the scum onto it. Gone were the actual networks of conversations and banter, and in came the people shouting abuse or being unkind and rude, or just trying to interrupt or jam conversations. Startlingly, the main owners of this rage were youngsters. Children with so much bile and rage, that almost overnight they were able to destroy whatever pleasure there might once have been from CB.
The internet is so huge that it is quite easy to avoid the rage, although it’s always there, but for those stupid enough to live their lives through Facebook, it is hard to run from and the rage mutates into actual murder in real life, just because of something that was said on Facebook.
As a communicator, I have enjoyed many decades of ‘talking’ via my keyboard using various fora dedicated to the subjects I know about or am interested in. These are mainly radio and anoraking it has to be said, subjects which are the preserve of the mentally unstable at the best of times.
Once again, I’ve seen the rage. This time it is from pensioners or near-pensioners tapping away with veins nearly popping out of their foreheads they are so full of bile and a need to let it out regardless of how it may hurt anybody who has been deemed to be worthy of receiving it head on.
So, the rage seems to be there regardless of age. The rage is inside the children, it’s inside the pensioners.
It’s inside all those inbetween. It’s inside everybody.
Why?
Why is everybody so ‘stressed’ and highly strung all the time? Were they always so?
I can only suppose it’s the same rage that sent us to start wars and kill people in far off lands, or invade countries that aren’t ours. The building of Empires is based on rage. Being conquered and subjugated can obviously build rage.
The rage of the oppressed or abused is understandable, but the rage of UK children or people living a comfortable and free life in the 2010s?
What’s that all about and where’s it come from?
England's England 