Cyber-morons and Cyber-bitches

One of the things I enjoy while reading the news is going over the comments as it allows me to observe human nature without having to socialize. There, in perfect anonymity, people feel free to express their thoughts and, I must say, sometimes it’s horrifying to see how people think. Not the political news, there’s way too much bias in those and many comments are left by trolls of every imaginable color. Just ordinary news, human interest stories, where you can be certain most comments come from real people. People I’d rather not meet in real life…

Late last night I was reading a crappy story about Leonardo Da Vinci having ADHD and sure enough there were plenty of people bemoaning the lack of discipline these days. Because obviously ADHD equals kids and we know how kids are today… Apparently, it all boils down to the lack of corporal punishment these days… It’s because canning has been outlawed in school and parents don’t spank their kids like they used to, in the good old days. Virtually every story involving children generates this sort of comments, hoards of presumably older people clamoring for stricter discipline, as in beating children, canes, belts, rulers - doesn’t matter what you used, just make the damn kids feel some pain. As hard to imagine as it may be, these anonymous users probably have kids of their own or grandchildren… terrifying thought!
Next I read a story about the death of a US man who spent almost 36 years in solitary confinement. I didn’t know anything about the guy, but the mention of that insane amount of time spent in solitary was enough to pique my interest. Much of the time the man was under a strict ‘no human contact’ order which is quite unusual even for the crazy US penitentiary system. Once again, there was little compassion shown in comments. Most went along the lines - ‘great example, we should have this sort of punishment here, too!’, ‘that’s something we should learn from the Americans’. No mention of any particular crime that would warrant such punishment, just people drooling at the thought convicts in their own country would be locked in solitary, for the rest of their lives. None of these commentators expressed even the slightest concern such punishment is far worse than death. Nope, throw them in a cell and forget about them. It’s not about justice, that’s pure sadism.
By the way, at present there are some 80,000 people held in some form of solitary confinement in the US.

Even a small article about a compromise being reached in a decades-old legal battle between the Verve singer and the Rolling Stones offered the perfect outlet for some mean comments about ‘grandma Jagger’. Virtually every piece of news regarding the Stones has a whole bunch of mean-spirited comments on the age and looks of the band members. Pure unadulterated envy, that’s all there is too this type of comments. A bunch of 70 years old, rich and famous, still getting young chicks, still drawing crowds to their shows, of course people hate them!
There’s so much cruelty in people, so much hate, makes you wonder what sorts of frustrations people hide in the deepest recesses of their minds. I cannot believe truly happy people would go around wishing a terrible fate upon others.
And the stupidity… I didn’t even get to the sort of dumb comments people post, but I must mention this one as it is priceless.
So, there was the story about Da Vinci and ADHD and there was one comment that said it cannot be true: “He’s been a consistently great actor in too many great films to have ADHD”.
I rest my case.