I have a diverse group of friends that have strong political views of one direction or the other. Depending on the side they are on, they will point to the other side as starting this vitriolic world in which we seem to be living. The interesting thing is neither side can look in the mirror and see the own hate they are spewing every single day. I have heard some point to some of the tweets (okay many of the tweets) by President Trump as the reason we are seeing hate expand each and every day. I would make the case that President Trump, Roseanne Barr, Kathy Griffin, and Samantha Bee are all symptoms of the world in which we are living. Of course, just like Ambien, the Internet did not create racism or hate tweets. People did. The fact is we are all symptoms of the problem, and hopefully together we will all be part of the solution.
I joined Twitter back in early 2008. It was still early for all social networking but I saw hatred each and every day. At the time I was @ComcastCares helping Customers in need. During those years at Comcast I had the opportunity to see the best and the worst that the internet had to offer. The best came about when I was considered to be part of the "tribe" of early adopters. I was one of them and they were their for me. The perfect example of that came when I was on Twitter for about 3 months. Back in the early days @ComcastCares was just me and many days I worked from very early in the morning (often 6:00AM) to late at night (often around 1:00AM). This was not just 5 days a week, but thanks to the connected world we live in, it was usually 7 days a week. On July 26, 2008 I was not going to be available. I never explained the reason why, but some members of the tribe googled me and found out it was the anniversary of my daughter's death. That was not the reason I took the day off. It was the birthday party for our other daughter so we were having family and friends over. At the end of the day, I looked at my typical search and I saw the most amazing thing. There were people responding to tweets about Comcast saying "let's let @ComcastCares have his day. Can I help?" The fascinating part is these people did not even work for Comcast. They were doing it for me.
Unfortunately, more often than not, I saw the worst that the internet has to offer. Over the years I was called all kinds of things. For the longest time when you googled my name you would find an interesting post titled "Frank Eliason has a small p----." You can use your imagination to know what the real post said. Thankfully it has since been removed but the wayback machine provided access to obtain the image.
Why would someone ever say something like that? It turns out the same reason we see so much vitriol today. It is very basic. This gentleman wrote a post saying features he thought should have been part of his DVR. Well the funny thing is they were, so when I saw the post I wrote a comment with how you could access the feature. Well the next day he did another post saying I was right but you could not do a few other things that were not in the original post. Funny thing is you could, so I commented on that post with how you could do those things as well. The next day I received the post about having a small p----. Lucky me.
I did respond, but before I get into that, we should explore why someone would make such a post. We have a natural desire to be seen by others as being smart. When I responded to his first post, even though it was a nice response, it was viewed as making him not seem smart. Based on my response, he then did another post to prove he is smart. When I came back and provided him the correct information, he was now really offended. This is how you get a post like this. This desire to be seen by others as smart is key to what we see going on in the world around us each and every day. We have broken off into tribes that have similar views to our own and will validate everything within our mind. In our effort to be smart within our tribe we have then took our tribe offline, focusing our energy on news sources that help us appear smart to our tribe. This has been a vicious cycle making our society more and more extreme. This is not just a United States issue. We see the same thing happening throughout the globe. We even see it within non-political activities. Today many religions are breaking apart due to this tribal world. In the Roman Catholic faith there are multiple pockets within the faith. Similar to other faiths the fight seems to be people that would consider themselves traditionalist against others they feel are striving to change the faith. The funny thing is the yelling sometimes gets so loud that they cannot hear what the other side is saying. As an example Pope Francis, who they often attack, sometime viciously, strives to talk about love and mercy which is a cornerstone of the faith. What does the other side hear? They hear him telling them they are wrong in their faith. We can look all over the world and find similar. We can go into virtually any topic and find the same. As an example when some hear anything related to gun control, what they hear is you are taking my guns away from me. This is all a challenge regardless of topic because it does not allow for healthy dialogue or debate. Just finger pointing.
Now back to the post about my small p----. The blogger may have seen me as making him not appear as smart as he thought. Of course this was not what I was thinking about at the time. From his original post to his last post, I felt he had valid feedback. It should never have been difficult to figure these things out on his own. He also did not see me as a human being. Instead he saw me as attacking him hence his response. Often when we are faced with any attack like this we would then dig in even further. You can see this happen in your Facebook feed almost every day. The key is striving to understand where someone is coming from and hopefully stopping the attack. Here is my response to him:
We have to break out of our tribes and find ways to have better dialogue. This does not start with the President or a celebrity. It starts with each of us. One step at a time. Eventually the behavior that has become standard in recent years will be considered to be unacceptable. The key to doing the right thing is instead of assuming negative intent, start with the perspective that most people have a positive intent, even if their words do not reflect that. This is what we used to do when we would have similar debates in the offline world. Ultimately most people want to create a better world for themselves and their children. The only way we can do this is by working together!
I say all this with love in my heart for all of you regardless of the tribes you are in! I personally strive to be in my own tribe and everyone else's tribe as well. I find I grow so much more as a human being by constantly listening to others. It is a great way to start.
