It’s not new or ground-breaking to say that the internet and social media, in particular, is out of control.
In honesty, I don’t think it ever had any control. Maybe that is part of its appeal.
My own relationship with social media has always been complicated. In 2017, I was trending on UK Twitter for two days. It was all because I had been kicked out of a changing room in Topshop and forced to go into the male changing area.
What followed was a national discussion around trans people in public spaces – using me as the focal point.
I woke up to thousands of tweets telling me to die, calling me a man, highlighting pictures that showed an imprint through a dress and people telling me they would find where I lived and hurt me.
I don’t really like to bring it up much anymore; the results and effects it had on me are, to this day, something I would prefer to work out privately, rather than publicly.
I say all of this so if the question about whether I am qualified to write a piece about kindness, social media, and the way we interact with each other online were to be raised, I definitely have the (unfortunate) experience to be able to comment.
As someone who has faced intense trolling online, I was interested to see the world respond to the traumatic loss of Caroline Flack, with reflections about how we use the online sphere and reminders that those on the receiving end of abuse are real people.
I woke up to thousands of tweets telling me to die
Many of these conversations were reduced to, like a lot of things on the internet, a hashtag. Before long, companies, celebrities and politicians alike were making calls for everyone to #BeKind.
On the surface, this felt like a positive step; I hope a world with more kindness is one that many of us are naturally aiming for.
Genuine kindness can lift clouds, bring warmth, change politics and create a huge impact. So how can anyone calling for it and better awareness online be anything but a welcome break from the usual temperament we see on social media?
The answer came when I saw the bold article by Bristol Live, in which they named and reported the online profiles of men who had targeted and harassed Greta Thunberg on her recent visit to Bristol.
I was taken aback; it is so rare that we see the faces behind online abuse named and shamed; often it is only those on the receiving who are named. Instead, the accounts responsible are often swept aside as ‘bots’ and not real people with real intentions.
With my own experience of abuse, I often wonder if the person directing it at me has forgotten that I am a human, and how I may feel reading it.
I looked at the faces of the men, imagining if they were the same ones who had relentlessly harassed me online, too.
While studying them I saw that one of the men had a ‘Be Kind’ banner plastered over his Facebook photo.
I often wonder if the person abusing me has forgotten that I am a real person
The irony didn’t bring a chuckle, rather a sting.
It was a brutal reminder that we frequently use the same words to mean different things; that kindness is conditional and only applied when it suits. That often applications of kindness are dependent on who the person views is deserving of it.
It told me that actually, my instinct that a mass call for kindness was a bit more complicated than a hashtag may be correct.
I’ll be clear: this piece is not about the man who was blasted for abusing a teenage climate change activist while telling the world to be kinder via his profile picture.
Yet he reminded me of the contradiction so ever present in our online world: That calls for kindness are so rarely rooted in action. That kindness without interrogation, is meaningless.
I remember having to log off my Twitter after seeing a popular TV host make a particular impassioned plea for more kindness online and that trolls should be held accountable for their actions.
I had to sign out because I’ve banned myself from quick retaliations online, but it was hard not to feel the burn of this irony.
This presenter has routinely used their Twitter to mock the trans and non-binary community, while also creating ‘debates’ around individual trans people.
Again, this is not about them, but about those people who have been calling for kindness while behaving and engaging in completely opposite behaviour. It makes me question what these people thinks the word kindness means.
Kindness isn’t achievable without action
Just like members of a Tory Government asking for kindness yet implementing austerity policies. Or prominent radio hosts suggesting everyone be a little nicer after they spent days tearing apart Meghan Markle for wanting to leave a life of being bullied behind.
‘Kindness’ is so often hailed as the solution to all our problems – that if everyone is kinder, our world will be a nicer place. To some extent, that is true, but only if it is rooted in considered action and through a lens that does not ignore the structures kindness falls within.
The issue is that, aside from being conditional, kindness isn’t achievable without action. It is more than a feeling, it is also material support.
Although everyone and their gran are asking people to be kinder may feel nice, it means nothing if we are not working in solidarity with those an unkind world effects the most.
If society truly cared about being kinder – and the effects that has on mental health – then we would also connect these conversations to cuts to our mental health services (which actually help the people who have experienced bullying and torment).
Without taking action on this, talking about being nicer feels empty.
Kindness starts as a conversation online and stops before we talk about the importance it can play in changing attitudes and policies about deportation, borders or immigration.
And that shows, just to drive home the point, that whether you are receiving of kindness is often dependent on the type of person you are. That kindness is not an apolitical thought, rather completely affected by the way different people experience the world.
The past few weeks of discussion have felt intense for many reasons. I have lost people too early, I have felt the wrath of online trolling from hidden bots and very public figures, and I have waited too long for mental health services when I really needed them – for this reason kindness is something I often long to feel more of.
Yet I hope that we realise that saying we want society to be kinder doesn’t take away our own accountability. It is not as easy as just saying people should be kind and reverting to your old ways.
Being kind isn’t always simple, and it won’t always feel comfortable – but that means you’re taking action, and that’s what’s important
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing platform@metro.co.uk
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/05/unless-backing-bekind-platitudes-action-words-empty-12353267/?ITO=squid
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