The internet: ’tis a silly place.
Yesterday we were supposed to be celebrating the new rules passed by the FCC that ensured the internet would remain open and neutral, but instead everyone was too busy discussing “The Dress.”
If you’re not familiar with “The Dress” (pictured above), the controversy began due to a Tumblr post in which the image of said dress was posted to the site, accompanied by a barrage of commenters debating whether or not it was gold and white or black and blue.
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The debate has been settled, with the company who manufactures the dress revealing that it is, in fact, black and blue, with the image that shows it as being gold and white being an optical illusion caused by the lighting in the shot. The argument is still raging on, though, making it yet another stupid debate being had by people on the internet. It’s certainly not the first, and it won’t be the last.
Here are some other ridiculous arguments people insist on continuing to engage in on the web.
Religion
The topic of religion is often cause for a serious debate, though this serious debate never takes place on the internet. The only people who continue to choose to run around in circles regarding the existence of a divine being are the oddball religious fanatics and the militant atheists, both as tiresome as each other and fueled by nothing more than condescension and the misplaced belief that they are somehow fighting the good fight.
Though both sides realize that they are unlikely to change the views of those they’re debating with by posting a comment on the internet, it never prevents them from trying. The irritating atheist will bring “flying spaghetti monsters” into the equation, patronizing their opponent for having a different belief system to them, while the lunatic Bible-beater will spout the infamous “if people came from monkeys, who are there still monkeys?” line that is so frequently implemented in an attempt to debunk evolution.
No matter your point of view, attempting to convert anonymous strangers to your own system of belief in the comments of a YouTube video about cats falling over is not the forum for you to attempt to do so.
Video Game Consoles
You purchased a PS4 and you’ve been looking forward to The Order: 1886, so you decide to check out some footage of the game on YouTube. Clicking on a trailer, you scroll down to the comments to see what other people think of it, when you accidentally realize that you have opened a portal to another dimension in which people are alarmingly loyal to faceless corporations and wear their purchasing of a video game console like a badge of honor, attempting to incite a civil war based upon performance parity, resolution and framerate.
You cannot say “I prefer the games on the PS4/Xbox One/Wii U” without expecting some form of negative backlash, unfortunately. Professing your admiration for the Halo series will inevitably conjure up images of you entangled in an intimate embrace with your Xbox, while claiming that you like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl will more than likely see you subjected to a homophobic slur, before you’re politely reminded that it’s “a kid’s console” by an 11-year-old who is hyped up on sugar and killstreaks.
Freedom of Speech
“This is America,” the commenter arguing with you will say, seemingly unaware that you could actually be living somewhere else in the world other than the United States. “I have a right to Freedom of Speech.” He’ll write it exactly like that, with the capital “F” and “S,” too.
Many people on the internet are alarmed when you appear to challenge their freedom of speech by informing them that what they are saying is not correct, or that it is hurtful/ignorant. Freedom of speech is often misconstrued as meaning that you can say absolutely anything without anyone calling you out on it, because if they do, then they’re censoring you. Want to verbally abuse someone on Twitter but then they block you? They’re impeding upon your freedom of speech. Want to take to a forum and post little more than racial slurs, only to find yourself facing the banhammer? They’re censoring you and your right to be a dick!
In reality, freedom of speech is a two-way street: you can be as abhorrent as humanly possible on the internet, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot retaliate by choosing to stop listening to you, or to prevent your abusive comments from hurting others.
Clickbait
Unless the title of an article doesn’t consist of 200 characters and is so dull that no one in their right minds would click on it, there will be one very vocal commeter who will write it off as “clickbait.”
Yes, the internet is littered with clickbait due to the method being a proven way to get people to visit a post, but often allegations of clickbait are thrown at posts that feature titles which accurately sum up the bulk of their text, but do so in a way that will also be enticing to readers. This is not clickbait. This is an author of a post wanting you to view their work.
Oh, unless the header image/thumbnail of the post contains boobs. Then yes, it’s definitely clickbait (unless said post is about boobs, in which case, it’s still probably clickbait).
