It’s very easy to mistake someone for anyone or accuse them of something. On a small personal scale, this isn’t a big deal. A simple excuse me, a look in the offended persons eyes, and a sorry will clear up 99.99% of the issues., as long as it is sincere. Nothing really lingers past that moment of time, and both parties can go about their lives with a simple anecdote.
It gets very tricky when that mistake is on a larger scale. When you can’t apologize, you open the door for things to get confusing emotionally. When you don’t know the other person, you inflict random pain on someone for usually a short-term gain. There is rarely, if ever, an apology and its a lot harder for both sides to move on. There is a scar there, and since we have something on a larger scale, there is more chance for something mutated, changed, and outright wrong.
Some internet blogs are the worst of this. Nothing matters past the story and the juiciest of the potential story. Many sacrifice truth to get views, targeting public figures and using embarrassing picture to frame a narrative that makes people’s blood going. These stories, shared on social media and the effect is further amplified. The story now changed, and discussed by people who do further damage to someone or somethings reputation, some who don’t even know where the original source was. A picture and a damning headline can go a long way on social media.
“Yellow” blogging like yellow journalism, is the attempt to gain people’s attention by using the most shallow and definitely superficial parts of our humanity to dig into those around us. And hopefully, it will meet the same end.
In the meantime, it is up to us to demand more from our sources of information. People are looking for speed… perhaps we can get more if we slowed down.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 