While we live in an actual world we must also realize that a virtual or even spiritual world exists out there and communicating in online communities can be a bit difficult or for some people quite easy. I have been using the internet since the early 90s to send and receive emails or do research. My first experience with emails came through an email provider by the name of “love mail” which I loved very much until they closed their site.
Through “love mail” I learn to send the ever so popular emails and I also learned to “chat”, which is not my sort of thing as I was often told am too quiet. During the past two decades of me swimming around the virtual world, I never learned to surf, I leave that art to Hawaiians and Californians, I am a swimmer so I prefer to say swim. Anyway, during the past twenty years of using the internet quite a few online communities have come into being, with the most popular social network being Facebook, the most popular email provider Yahoo and so on and so forth.
During those years, I never took the time to really stay for any extended period to really socialize, so I never really made any friends until I joined an online writing community called Hubpages. Then I discovered a whole different side to this thing. The hypocrisy online is very poignant.
What hypocrisy am I talking about?
The pretense! The claim that you are nice and decent when your behaviour says otherwise. That’s the hypocrisy I am talking about!
A few years ago while swimming on the net I realized that people earned online and my quest ever since was to use my talent as a fiction writer to do so. I know that was a little fantasy but it was my dream. A little over one year ago I found Hubpages, after trying oDesk (which I hate), many surveys which promised thousands of dollars but either lie or don’t accept people outside the US. I also discovered scams, which, thank God I never spend my hard earned money to try.
There are some lessons that I have learned while here on this online community known as Hubpages that were shocking to say the least:
· Commenters don’t always tell the truth
· People use smiley faces even when they aren’t really smiling
· People pretend with you to get you to either follow or read your work
· People are as cruel or more so than the people you actually know
· Most of the friendships are fake
· I could go on but I don’t want to offend anyone or point out anyone…………………
Now, I am no judge but I do believe that if you and I are friends we should be able to work out our differences no matter how far apart we are or the fact that we may never see each other. So here are a few questions I have been asking lately:
1 Isn’t it hypocrisy to call each other friend when you can’t or won’t forgive?
2 Isn’t it hypocrisy to call each other friends when you cannot or will not give the benefit of the doubt?
3 Isn’t it hypocrisy when you cannot or will not say you are sorry for your harsh words or bad attitude?
4 Isn’t it hypocrisy when you cannot or will not tell your friends the truth?
People might say the truth hurts and others cannot handle it. I say crap! There must be a way to tell someone the truth without insulting them or making them feel “less than”, and if you happen to hurt their feelings accidentally then make it right.
Forgive me if I am wrong but it seems to me that we are nice to each other only so long as we get what we want. I am not saying that everyone on this online community is like that as I am certain that there are true and genuine friends there.
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Let us talk about online communities
This hypocrisy has permeated other online communities, not just Hubpages. Maybe Hubpages is the least of the problem. Right throughout the internet is the same. Cruelty and bad vibes all around and these were the same people nice to you before. What is it? Some invisible virus? Is it some internet madness? Or is the internet demonic? I don’t know, I am just seeking answers, just like you.
Facebook is a social network that is the most popular and biggest on the internet. We make friends with hundreds of people we will never meet or don’t really care about. Communicating on Facebook the most fake I have ever encountered. People say thing that are lies, cruel and downright rude to each other. Are these uncalled for?
I say it is hypocrisy to befriend you only to raise my numbers. I say it is hypocrisy to befriend someone to get them click “like”.
What about the other virtual communities we are attached to. I didn’t know Twitter was really a social network, all along I thought it was a link feed. I thought that because that’s what I saw. But people are also very cruel there too.
I keep asking “what’s wrong with people on the internet?” “Is there something that happens to our brain cells when we use the computer for extended periods?”
Please let me know when I start acting weird, cruel and inconsiderate of other people’s feelings.
Don’t get me wrong, I am no miss nice girl. I can be as cruel as they come, but I see no reason to take out my problems on people I don’t even know. But maybe that’s it, because you don’t really know someone they become prime targets because you don’t get to look them in the eye.
That’s cowardice. Take your problems out on someone you can face.
This article isn’t about the cruelty that I have experience online but rather an observation of the cruelty being meted out to innocent people, regardless of race, color, nationality, political affiliations and religion.
Recently I have been exposed to the most cruel form of racism on Facebook. It wasn’t directed at me but I was offended non-the-less. The cruelty of people are so shocking.
Just a few days ago someone told me “F*CK U, PITCH” and the word pitch is what they wrote. This was all because of a game known as poker played on Facebook. It was obvious the person could not play and had no patience for the game. I won all their chips so I do feel better, so who is the “pitch” now….lol
Please, don’t be a hypocrite. Be true to thyself. I beg of you be courteous with each other, because, I know for a fact that the world is round and whatever you give will come right back around to you!
Be blessed!