I’ve been sick this week (nothing life threatening, a flu or something) but I am noticing more and more hostility online and honestly, I am not sure I want to participate in such culture.
I grew up amid violence (Argentina’s brutal dictatorship). That translated into violence in the streets, family, school, it permeated everything. And then I moved to Europe and have seen State violence escalate (and endured it), particularly directed at people like me (i.e minorities, immigrants). All of this conspires so that I do not deal with openly hostile environments well. I get nervous, feel strong unease, anxiety. Lately, however, I have seen the hostility grow online as well. Not just on Tumblr but everywhere; however, it is particularly virulent in those spaces where politics are discussed (be these politics related to gender or not) and jeez, I don’t know how to cope, or if I want to cope at all. I do what I do out of hope, though I know I sometimes snark and tend towards the sarcastically misanthropic, but that has more to do with my somewhat dark sense of humor than with a belief that people suck. So yeah, I don’t have anything constructive to say, except that the hostilities that I see in the form of comments, tweets, contributions, posts, etc, make me wish for animated gifs of animals because really, is this the best we can do collectively?
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