Like the rest of the world, I was shocked and greatly saddened to hear of the death of Michael Jackson on Thursday. He was a great artist, the likes of whom will probably never be seen again, and I'm sure his legacy will live on for many generations to come. He is also a great loss to his family, to whom so little media attention is currently being paid. More than that though, he seemed like a decent, polite and kind human being who was grossly misunderstood, and I can only feel desperately sorry that his life had to end in such an unnecessary way.
But what is an even greater sadness to me at the moment is the attitudes of many people whom I considered to be friends. I thought I knew most of them pretty well, but it turns out that I didn't really know some of them at all. The insidious comments regarding allegations against him that were never proved, the poor-taste jokes that border on racism, the low-brow chortling coming from quarters who really have no idea what they're talking about has been so offensive to me that I'm seriously considering whether I want to continue to be a part of social networking sites anymore. I wonder if people who have made such abhorrent, netspeak-peppered, moronic remarks would have done so if they'd been sitting in a pub or cafe or restaurant, or been taking part in any real social interaction, with actual human beings who would have likely been unable to keep the disdain from registering on their faces. But that's the problem with social networking - it's so easy to make a comment or post an opinion that you might never ordinarily air if you were interacting with real people instead of some alternate, cyber-reality mate who is usually crass, illiterate and, well, pretty stupid by all accounts.
The trouble is that, in cyber space, people seem to lose all sense of morality and social conscience that they have to exercise out in the real world. It's a pretty sick place out there, and you don't really have to look too far on the internet to find people who will encourage that ugly darkness that exists somewhere in all of us; that bigoted, racist, xenophobic, ill-informed ranting that spews forth from a thought process that would otherwise would be suppressed as unacceptable in any decent human being. All social networking sites do is bring out the very worst in people by encouraging the belief that it is actually okay to be an idiot, the kind of person who would be villified and treated like a leper in these politically correct times if they were to say such things in public.
Maybe I'm just cynical, and maybe there has been some good that's come out of these sites, but I'm hard pressed right now to see where it is. I think the only real cure for my cynicism is to sever all ties that I've been suckered into creating with such sites and instead get back out there into the sunshine where, blinking like a mole emerging from a hole in the ground, I can look around at the people who were there all the time; decent, moral, kind, generous people, who would never allow the darker, uglier side of them to reveal itself when there is the chance that they might be faced with the consequences.
Of course, that side would still be there, but I think that some things are best left under cover. And not encouraged by 'like' buttons.
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