Feeling completely overwhelmed by the world

Post Reply New Topic

All the racism, homophobia and sexism on the internet makes it feels so real, like the sexist attacks on female ghost busters or that pride parade mod for GTA V being enthused about because people get to "mow down the mentally ill with my gattling gun". SJW's saying ALL white people are born racist ALL men are born racists and sexists, all this conflict is overwhelming it makes me feel like the world is becoming a horrible place, infact thinking about it i feel myself shutting down, i just don't know how to cope with this, my mother says to ignore it and stop looking, but its everywhere i look i can't seem to look in a direction on the internet that this isn't present. as a result im sort losing the ability to speak at the moment and becoming tired and i just don't want to function anymore.


how on earth do i stop this? i can't get it to stop bothering me its really...painful mentally.

Consider the source: it's the Internet. It's populated by idiots who hide behind a computer screen.

The best thing to do is to have perspective.

The Internet is the Internet. Real life is real life.

I've met VERY few people in real life who hold the views which you mentioned. You'll hear other people say this, too.

Stuff like this is much more common on the internet then off of it.



The perceived isolation of using the internet causes people to not really think of the usernames they see as actual people, they may know that it's the case but it's not really internalized. It's much easier to anonymously insult a username on your screen then it is to insult someone to their face, so more people do it. There are also a lot of trolls on the internet who say hateful things just because they like the attention, not because they actually believe those things. That's just the way the internet is, and fortunately stuff like that is much less common outside of the internet.

This may also restore some much needed faith in humanity:

Please consider that we are also going through a very tumultuous time in our culture. Previously, there was a very strong cultural teaching that white, middle class, cishet, somewhat conservative Christian men should be given deference by everyone else. There is a long history behind that, but it's not really important at the moment. What is important was that it was held in place by control over information and social influences. That social infrastructure has largely fallen apart since the spread of the Internet to the point where anyone with a smartphone has access to other views and opinions. It also means that all those groups who were too spread out to band together and help each other can now do so. There is an entire generation that was brought up with the assumption that connectivity and information are part of life. They are reaching or at adulthood now and our larger culture is shifting. The old guard is not happy about this, and is attempting to fight back despite not evolving the tools to do so. So they lash out, sometimes violently or with hateful rhetoric.

The Internet allows small voices to be amplified, and small groups to appear much larger than they actually are in real life. While right now it makes things appear bad, that attribute has done far more good than evil in aggregate and over time. Wrong Planet is an excellent example. Things will calm down a bit, I'm guessing shortly after the U.S. elections and over the next year as certain court cases make their way to the Supreme Court.