Over the last few months I have had a number of opportunities to contemplate the way people respond to events and how they express their opinions. I have come to the conclusion that people do not understand the difference between expressing an opinion about something and turning that opinion into a personal attack on others.

The widespread use of the internet and its all-pervasive presence in our lives means that the effects of what we say are no longer limited to a small number of people.  Rather, our words are broadcast across cyberspace to potential audiences the size of which would not have seemed possible not so long ago.

In July I had occasion to comment on this in another post on this blog.  At that time I mentioned the negative aspect of social media, in that people can be cruel and unthinking in their posts.

In the lead up to and aftermath of the recent Australian election people again showed their lack of ability to differentiate between having an opinion and making personal attacks.  Supporters of both major political parties took to social media to make cruel and hateful comments in relation to the supporters of their opponents. At that time I felt that people had lost sight of the concept that just because you don’t like something that doesn’t mean you should make personal attacks on those who do.

If you don’t like something, you don’t have to like it; you are entitled to your opinion and you are entitled to say you don’t like it.  But making disparaging comments about the people who do like it is small-minded and cruel.

The current example of this behaviour, and my motivation for writing this post, is what I consider was an ill-considered tweet by a minor Australian media personality. Said media personality had attended a preview of the One Direction movie “One Direction: This is Us“, which he did not enjoy. Fair enough, he didn’t like the movie.  There are a lot of movies made that people don’t like, or even hate with a passion, that other people love with a similar passion.  That’s what makes the world an interesting place to live in.  I would defend to the death people’s rights to say that they don’t like something.  If you’ve read my movie posts you’ll know that I’ve seen a lot of movies that I didn’t like. However, I do not then attack those who do like them, because that would be immature and pointless. Nor would I expect those who disagree with my opinions to attack me because of them.

There’s a whole demographic for example that loves the sort of comedies that I find ridiculous because I hate the genre, but I appreciate that it appeals to a lot of people. Just as there is a whole demographic of young girls and women who love One Direction with a passion. While I am not a fan I could possibly recognise a couple of their songs and I do know their names, though I probably couldn’t match the names to the faces.  But I do recognise that the phenomena of fans being passionate about their pop idols is not a new one and that there are always the detractors who hate the performer or hate the music.

Generally, if these detractors have any maturity, they do not then attack the intelligence of the fans. However in the case in point, the media personality commented that “if you like One Direction you’re a medically certifiable idiot”.

There are number of things wrong with this. Firstly the demographic of One Direction fans is, as previously stated, predominantly tweens, teenagers and young women. Secondly, the media personality is a thirty-something male. Thirdly, disliking something does not mean that you should make personal attacks on the fans.

Not content with insulting the fans on twitter, the media personality and his collaborator in reviewing the movie further attacked them in their review of the movie “I’m not claiming that liking them makes you a bad person. I’m just saying it makes me feel sorry for you and confused by your frighteningly two dimensional sense of taste and self worth.” Further they said “Some people like raw protein slurry they found in a bin. With piss in it. Those people are One Direction fans, and they need to change their diet. Unless they want liver failure.”  Such statements are unnecessary in their denigration of the fans.  Perhaps they forgot they were talking about a very large group of girls and young women. Or perhaps they didn’t care that these girls would be hurt and insulted by the comments.

Just because they are young, this does not mean that the fans are idiots.  They love things with the passion of the young, embrace their current pop culture favourites and celebrate their enjoyment of the contributions these favourites are making to the moment.  There are very articulate young people who express their feelings about the detractors of the very things they hold dear. A fine example of this can be found in a post I read today. The writer is a teenager who was moved to write her post in response to the sort of denigration of fans that is being evidenced more and more through social media.  Take time to read what she has to say.  It’s well-expressed and passionate. I wish I had had half of this passion when I was that age.

Let me reiterate, I am not a One Direction fan. But I am a fan of the concept that people have the right to like what they like without being targeted by vitriolic and insulting, dehumanising attacks because of what they like. I will defend to the death people’s right to have an opinion but I feel the world has reached a sorry state where it is thought acceptable/clever/witty to make personal attacks on young people or groups of young people because of what they like and to make these comments on a social media platform where so many can see it is irresponsible and hurtful.

As a parent, I find this sort of behaviour offensive. Those who do this should remember that they were young once, had passion about things and would have hated to be denigrated because of this. It is neither witty nor clever.  It is immature and thoughtless. People used to live by the principle that ‘If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything.” This principle should still hold true.  You can critique a movie without critiquing the fans just as you can dislike a political party’s policies without attacking its supporters’ personality or intellect.

End of rant!