My name is Alice. I am 36 years old.
I am of the generation that grew with the use of computers, and subsequently, the internet.
During my undergrad years (god, how pretentious is that? to call out and signify that I had an undergraduate experience infers my intellectual superiority in having also a graduate experience … I digress) I was active on what was then a users’ board. You had an ID and you could hide behind it. I wrote much poetry, or should I say, bad, horrible attempts at poetry.
I am a product of the 90s. I won’t go into much more about that, because this post is really about something else.
The power of the written word.
Do you remember when we used to write letters? Real, honest to goodness, putting the pen to the paper kind of letters? And we (cough, I mean I) wrote them because $400/month long-distance bills got you (again, I mean me) grounded.
Do you remember the thought that would go into these letters? The glory of discovering the erasable pen, only to find out that it smudged when your palm lay on it?
I have a small cardboard box in my storage room here. It has moved with me from my parents’ house, to my own home with hubby, to Germany. It is full of handwritten, stamped, mailed envelopes and letters … most of them are from undergrad (again, pretentious, I know, but then again, this is my blog).
I have one letter my great-grandmother wrote me while she was still alive. I think that letter is from the mid-80s. In it, she asks if I have stopped chewing my nails. (Nope, never did quite kick that habit.) And she shares bits and pieces of life, all on one page.
I have many letters from my best friend from high school – I attended Ashland University, she attended Toledo. Cell phones were too expensive at the time, as was long distance. Even the price of a stamp was something we’d save our money for. In her letters, we talk about school, family, boyfriends, and life. Nothing truly substantial.
But I keep them.
There are many more letters in that box. And as I was pondering the meanness persistent on the internet.
When you write a blog or comment on one, or participate in an online forum or social networking site, do you really consider what you are presenting?
Do you realize that who you are, as an individual, regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs … it is you who create your online you.
Okay. I know. Sounds so ridiculously obvious, but how many of us have seen comments on blogs that might be masked as “educating” others, but really, what it comes down to is what my mama always said “Alice, it’s not what you said. It’s HOW you said it”.
I have a long history of speaking before I think. My mouth wags faster than a ducks’ behind (another momism). My foot … well, you get it.
But I would like to think that overall, I am careful about the words I choose when they are in the written form.
Words have so much strength and power. I’m not talking about leaders of countries or whatnot, I am talking about everyday citizens. You and me.
One part of my life is cloth diapering. I joined an online forum http://www.clothdiapernation.com. On this specific forum, you are (allegedly) held accountable for your written words. Therefore, there is no edit. No delete. What you write is what you wrote. No chance to change it … only to explain it away.
On that site, I have been blasted for being a troll. Whatev says I, with a major eye roll that only a product of the 90s can accomplish. I shared my experiences blah blah … and guess what the beauty of the internet is? I can find people – I mean, you can too. Just google them. So I googled one of my loudest bashers and turns out she is an elementary school teacher in central Ohio.
An elementary teacher from Central Ohio. Yeah, that had to be italicized because I just can’t get over that some of my friends might have such a hateful individual teaching their child in my own backyard.
I am also a member of another online forum – http://www.preeclampsia.org. Now THAT is a class act, if I do say so myself. They are very open and caring people who run the foundation behind the website. Everyone there has been affected by a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy in some way. Yet, there remains a dignity, a compassion, even when there is negativity. It’s more like you are speaking with someone face to face.
Because I guarantee that central Ohio teacher, were I standing in front of her, in a group of mom’s hanging out, she would not have spoken to me the way she did.
As an expat (an american living in Germany, soon to be Belarus – yup, no official date but it’s a comin’), the blogosphere (what a cool word) has been my savior, my lifeline.
But even here I have witnessed expats alienating themselves based on their views. Again, it is not about the right to have a view. It’s not what you said, but how you said it.
I ask you, do you realize how you come across?
When you comment, do you think about how you would write something were it on pen and paper? Not pencil, not erasable pen. But good old ball point pen and paper.
Little comments, like those on social networking sites, remind me of those notes we used to pass in class … “what are you doing after class? wanna go to convo?” or “leave me alone! you’re not my friend anymore!” or “can you believe my parents caught me?”
Blogs, however, are like reading someone’s personal journal. Only it’s not private but public. And it can be misleading. Or not.
And forums, well, they have every possibility to be that clique – you know, the one I never belonged to? Honest, I didn’t. I was a band geek. An outsider. Shopping at Fisher’s Big Wheel while my classmates wore Benetton.
It really saddens me when I see highly intelligent people present themselves as loons. Straight out the textbook Class A Loons.
Look, you are allowed to be you. Don’t let me change you. And don’t think that I want to. But remember that your words reflect you. And you reflect so much more than one individual. You represent what you share yourself as – I represent survivors of preeclampsia, expats, a bit of a granola crunchy mama, a postpartum depressoin survivor, a yarn snob and so much more.
So just remember to think twice before you hit send, or publish or ok or whatever you hit. Think about the impact your words have on the world. Because trust me, they do.
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