I'm actually getting very worried about how offended everybody is getting about everything. I was on Facebook there which I rarely do anymore and it it just reminded me why I don't use it anymore. For some reason a lot of the articles and news sites, ( even the ones like sportsbible and unilad - pages set up for stupid articles and banter ) seem to be of the opinion that we should all be up in arms about every terrible joke or offensive statement make these days.
This is one from today on a site called Unilad.
Talking to the camera, the 24-year-old spoke with Morales and Hung about their opinions on Miss Vietnam H’Hen Nie, asking what they think of her. Both Australian Hung and Colombian Morales said she was so ‘cute’ and ‘fashion’, before Summers agreed, saying she was ‘hilarious’.
She then says:
And she pretends to know so much English and then you ask her a question, after having a whole conversation with her, and she goes…
At which point she smiles and nods, before laughing. She then ends by saying ‘she’s adorable,’ before laughing again.
I've read the article and still don't know what the story is meant to be. The girl is foreign and doesn't speak English. Fine that is just a true statement. It's ok to say this.......
Every single article is written with the tagline of "I can't believe what ........ said" or ".......... up in arms after racist teddy bear created". Or whatever the bad thing was today. Now obviously racism or discrimination is bad. That's fair enough but context doesn't seem to be used anymore.
Even comedians are being targeted now for making offensive jokes regardless that the whole point is to provoke a reaction with their material. It is designed to make people uncomfortable and wonder should they laugh or not. Sometimes it's ok to not be ok. These people don't seem to understand that not everybody cares about these statements or cares that what they say isn't accepted by the wider audience anymore. We are being told what we can or cannot say by the people in charge of the content.
Funnily enough though as soon as you scroll through the comments it is the exact opposite. The masses enjoy being controversial. They enjoy saying what they actually want to rather than what they are told is ok. Personally I don't write in the comments there. It's not worth the hassle and sometimes consequences. Never write anything down that can be used against you. But in person, different story. Thank god there were no video phones when we were growing up. All i can say is that we would have millions of views and be hung in the court of public opinion. The scandals would be all over the news. And yet nobody ever died from a few wild statements.
The thing is that myself and my friends are still very outspoken in what we say. Political correctness doesn't come into it and hopefully never will. The only thing we are now is smarter and know how to read the room. What you can say in the pub amongst friends is not what you can say at work in front of colleagues. It's all about context. Different groups and different settings. Nothing that we say is to harm or hurt another person but some people don't get that we use this language as friends and nobody is offended when somebody insults us among friends. It's part of our communication and group dynamic.
Now I understand that not everybody will have the same opinion as myself on this and the thing is...... that's fine.
We are all different people with different backgrounds and thought processes. Regardless of what you are being told we are not all the same. We shouldn't all be the same and i hope the day never comes where everybody turns into mass produced clones of each other.
The only thing you need to know is that it's ok for us to have different opinions and just respect the fact that there is not one rule for everybody so listen to the other side and don't just try to force everybody to think like you do.