Idiots Rule.
This morning, I read the following statement from Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, taken from his longer “ramble” at the official NIN forums and linked to via his Twitter stream:
I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.
Photo by Mark Trammell
His is a common and frustrating conclusion so many of us seem to come to after submersing ourselves in online communities for any prolonged length of time.
Why are people such jerks? Really… I want to know.
I’ve been following Trent’s work (can I call him Trent? I’m going to call him Trent) since I was in high school. You could say I’m a really, really big fan. And I wholly admit that within the past year I’ve gotten a much different (shockingly, at times) impression of what kind of person he is from reading his tweets and keeping up with his activities through nin.com. Yes, Trent is a real person who is clearly not living a live-action version of his music’s lyrics. He’s in love, for example, and he gushes about his fiancee regularly. He’s been sober for eight years. He raises money for people who need it. He makes geeky references. He makes jokes. He lashes out at people who upset him. He seems like a pretty normal, stand-up guy, not a reflection of his stage persona. Not anymore anyway, if that was ever the case.
And yet, like so many of us before him, Trent feels defeated by the internet troll brigade. Because that’s what happens when you spend enough time online and develop a following. People relish in the anonymity of modern communication and behave badly. Honestly, I don’t know anyone with any web/tech notoriety who hasn’t experienced this. Women have it particularly rough IMO, but obviously anyone can be a target…. especially if they’re famous, good looking, or have something interesting to say.
But I don’t think idiots rule, and it’s disappointing to hear that someone I’ve admired and respected for a long time feels that way, because I too am very much a part of this community. Negative people just… stand out. I can get 45 positive comments on a blog post, and the 46th comment that points out how ugly or fat or stupid I am (just recently, someone publicly tweeted that my mere existence was too much for her) will ruin my day. I’m just used to it now. Which is totally backward and sucky, by the way. Nobody should have to get used to that. It’s like being beat up, all the time.
So.. why are people such jerks? Why do this to each other? Why ruin anyone’s day? Why scare away a really cool guy like Trent Reznor from BEING ONE OF US?
Really… I want to know.
