When I was around 19, my dad and I took my nephew to the circus. When we got there, there were a handful of protestors shoving graphic imagery in the face of my 3-year-old nephew and telling my family how terrible we were for supporting the circus.
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And I was livid.
I am trying to have a good day with my family and these jerks keep yelling something about mistreatment of Elephants. Can you blame me for being angry?
After the show, we’re walking out to our car when a lady kindly hands me a brochure and simply says “Some information about the circus.” I took the brochure without a second thought.
Turns out, the brochure was informative about the mistreatment of animals at the circus. It sparked my curiosity, so I went to the website. There I saw all these terrible, terrible videos and articles explaining the cruelty these animals go through.
As you can see, when someone tried to guilt me, I reacted negatively. When someone calmly tried to educate me? I listened and changed my views. Now I’m EXTREMELY anti-circus.
However, I can promise that this wouldn’t be the case if the aggressive protestors were the only people that talked to me that day.
What does that have to do with anything?
I am fairly active on the microblog Tumblr. I mostly post pictures of cute cats and funny images from television shows I like, but I also post a decent amount of social justice activism. That’s why I adore this website! It allows people of all stripes and colors to tune in, share their opinions, and spread the word of inequality so that others can be informed.
But that’s also why I hate the website.
See, there are two types of social justice bloggers on Tumblr: those who forgive and those who don’t.
Social justice blogging, according to “Know Your Meme,” is a type of blogging where they spread awareness about inequality amongst different races, women, LGTBTQ groups, the disabled, and etc. In theory, this is a great form of activism. However, their behavior states otherwise.
The Daily Dot states that these types of bloggers are similar to mobs. They make violent threats, are influenced by emotion, rather than reason, and generally take issues way too far.
So, what’s the problem with that?
The problem with these types of bloggers is they do not account for lack of knowledge prior to argue incident. These types of bloggers hold everyone to the same standard and if you break them, then you are a terrible person, whether you knew about the issue or not.
If I had the opportunity to speak to every one of these bloggers, I’d tell them this: People are allowed to make mistakes. It allows us to learn, but you can’t yell at the person for making a mistake. The art of persuasion implies that this is the exact opposite direction you want to go.
One of the most important rules of persuasion, according to Psychology Today, is to keep negativity out of it. Do not make the person feel worse about their mistakes! If anything, do NOT guilt the person for their past actions. This will have the opposite effect and you will never get your point across (i.e. my circus story).
So, if you’re trying to belittle someone for making a mistake, continue what you’re doing. If you want to actually educate people and provide them with knowledge that will allow them to make better choices in the future…Then look at how you speak to people.
You have a right to be upset, but I have to question what these bloggers are getting out of starting internet fights. Are they just ranting, or are they trying to educate the offender.
I’m all for spreading knowledge, but you have to do it in the right way.
Nothing will change if you let emotions guide the conversation. Nothing will change by yelling at others. Nothing will change until your attitudes and how you treat people does.
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