Clay is not having the best week

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The social media mob doesn’t come for context, analysis or justice, they demand a Disneyfication of our universe, a place where everyone is good or evil, where every single act defines our character in all facets from this day forward until the day we die. You’re either good or you’re evil on the Internet. The fact that no one in America is actually either today doesn’t matter. That just gets in the way of OUTRAGE.

Of course social media mobs believe they represent the best in truth, justice, and the American way, but what they really represent is a further dumbing down of our society, a twenty second hot boiled opinion that must be the exact same as everyone else’s.

You want to change the world? Just a hunch that’s going to take a bit more than clicking a like button or sending a mean Tweet. But that’s just the thing, people don’t want to change the world, they just want to be a part of something larger, if it’s a mob, so be it.

Social media mobs are the modern day guillotine, drag up the next victim and execute them for the cheering crowd. It feels so good to see those heads get lopped off. Except, the mob eventually dissipates and leaves everyone feeling empty. Nothing’s really changed, the mob has just left the town, moving to the next outrage du jour. Next time you feel compelled to join an Internet mob look around, if everyone has the same opinion as you, it’s a pretty good sign your position is probably far too simplistic for the issue at hand.

Internet mobs like to believe that they’re the mature adults in the social media universe, but their behavior tells us otherwise — they’re the children in an adult’s world, stuck forevermore trying to decide who are the heroes and who are the villains when neither description ever fits real life.

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