Unfortunately, that's the part of the internet I'm finding particularly insufferable right now. I made the mistake of looking at Facebook the other day, not long after the guy from Chik-Fil-A came out against gay marriage. And I had surprising feelings about this.
See, I'm a pretty liberal guy. I'm all for gay marriage. Why not? What possible difference could it make to straight people if gay people are allowed to get married? I'm not a big fan of the color orange but I certainly wouldn't try to ban other people from wearing it if that's what they wanted.
But the surprising feelings I had were not outrage at the Chik-Fil-A guy, but unutterable annoyance for everybody else on the internet who were reacting with outrage. Because Facebook (which is 90% of my internet activity, really) has become inundated with posts and videos and cleverly captioned photos and large picture files that aren't even photos but just text put on some colored backdrop in a way that makes you wonder why anybody would bother instead of just writing it as a normal post. It's just wall-to-wall indignant rage.
For the sake of ease, I will now address the Internet as a single entity using the second-person "you."
Look, I understand you're upset. The guy from Chik-Fil-A is a bigot, the worst kind of douchebag scum, one of those people who uses religion as an excuse to be terrible to other people. Guys like that have no redeeming quality, and we all know this. But what you have to realize is that he doesn't know this. He never will. All the bigots and religious zealots who preach hate are never going to see what is wrong in themselves. If they were capable of such introspection and empathy, they wouldn't be bigots. But they are, so ipso facto, they're not. All your video rants and pithy sayings aren't going to change their minds. The only people who are going to react to your posts are the people who already agree with you. Yes, it is nice to have solidarity. It is nice to have support. We should all get together and have a big group hug to remind ourselves that not everybody in the world is a hateful dickhead.
Except you're not doing that, are you, Internet? You're not rallying behind gay people to support their rights. You're trying to organize a boycott against Chik-Fil-A. You're not defending, you're attacking. Not to mention, you're attacking in quite possibly the most ineffectual way possible. When has a grass-roots boycott ever done anything to a major corporation? Hey, remember how we were all boycotting BP because they dumped a kajillion tons of toxic waste into the ocean? How's that boycott going? Or did you forget already, Internet, because that was like so last year? Boycotts are pointless. Do you think the tiny dip in profits is going to make Mr. CEO rethink? Well, for starters, if you think any loss in profits is going to come out of the CEO's pocket, you have a frighteningly naive idea of how corporations work. The CEO's paycheck will not be diminished one iota; if the company loses money, what they're going to do is lay off the lowest-rung workers to recoup the costs. So, congrats: your boycott may make some minimum-wage employees lose what crappy job they have.
All these posts are slacktivism at their worst. It's people who are willing to take five minutes to go on and on about what the Bible does or does not say about marriage, but can't be bothered to go out and do something useful like vote. Our generation has no concept of what to do to actually effect real change. But we have webcams and Google to point out the important things we need to make our point, so that's close enough.
Additionally, all you're doing is strengthening the bigots' resolve. Do you think that the religiously-motivated Chik-Fil-A is going to have a change of heart because you're mad at them? Or do you think the general backlash is going to make them feel persecuted, which is exactly the sweet spot for a Christian. Christians love nothing more than to feel marginalized for their beliefs. It makes them feel like Jesus. I am not joking, either. I used to be very devoutly Christian, and it was a badge of pride to be "mocked and scorned" for your religion. The second you attempted to argue and shame the Christians, you just cemented their mindset forever. Now they know they're on the narrow path to God (again, a big thing in the religion), since all the sinners and nonbelievers are rallying against them.
My only consolation is that you'll forget about this all soon, because you're nothing if not fickle and ADHD, Internet. But something else will come along soon, and then something after that. My only hope is that we, as a culture, have figured out a better way to deal with it by then.
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