Shame on You

Hello People. I'm sure you've heard all of the outrage lately over "social shaming". It started entertainingly enough, with people posting pictures of their remorseful dogs wearing signs that said "I tore up the trash" or "I peed on the carpet". But, today, this practice has spiraled out of control. There are websites, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds dedicated to "shaming" people. I'm not saying that some people don't deserve to have their bad behavior revealed. They do. But some of these sites are just vicious for the sake of being vicious. One site takes random selfies off other sites and post them just to ridicule the people in them. One site allows people to post pictures of women they consider "sluts". High school kids have a place to post pictures and comments, anonymously of course, of fellow students. These pictures and comments, as you can imagine, are cruel and meant to disgrace the target. This is the downside and ugly underbelly of technology.  Allowing people to anonymously slander or humiliate innocent people has led to an unprecedented wave of hate. Social shaming does have consequences but not always the ones you would think. People have lost their jobs, marriages have ended, kids have been forced to change schools, been thrown out of college, and in some cases, the worst case scenario plays out, and the victim takes their own life. Why? Because some angry idiot decides it would be "funny" to post disgusting things about someone who they don't like or, in many cases, don't even know. This is the world we live in. Anything you do, say or wear could be captured on a cellphone and uploaded to the internet for the whole world to judge. One person posts it, someone else shares or retweets it and the next thing you know, thousands of people have weighed in. I'm not talking about "Corporate Shaming" here, where you post about bad service or broke products. I'm talking about these personal attacks on individuals who've done nothing more than crossed your path. One site, The People of Walmart, was created for just this purpose. They don't even blur the faces of the people they're shaming. It's unbelievable mean. But it isn't just random shaming. Last week I came across a Facebook assault on a friend of mine. I won't get into names or details but what I saw amazed me. The victim of the attack is a hard working business owner who is selflessly involved in our community. The "attackers" were all involved with one person, who had a falling out with the victim. Their posts attacked him personally, his family and his business for no other reason than spite. It was ridiculous and upsetting. First, these "attackers" don't realize that by trying to destroy one member of our community, you diminish us all. They probably also live in their Mom's basement or on a friends couch. I cannot stop these people. I am not the Jackass Whisperer. What I can do, what we all can do, is call these people out for the haters that they are. Not by social shaming them in return. By personally calling them out. We all know people who do this this. You need to tell them that it is not acceptable. If you don't know the source, don't share the hate by commenting. Commenting on hateful posts does no good. It gives the attackers what they want. It gives them a larger audience for the hate. Delete them. Block them. Report their posts to the site administrator. It only takes a minute. If we, the people, don't do something to stem the tide of this cyber lunacy it will continue to grow and spread. We have, for too long, accepted the fact that we've lost right to privacy. Here's a news flash. We didn't lose our right to privacy, we gave it away. I, personally, would not wear a tube top to Walmart but, damn it, people have a right to do it without being humiliated on the internet. It's time st stand up people! It's time to put an end to social shaming.
Sway