I want to share some research with you from this article: Do good, feel good: Random acts of kindness improve wellbeing, physical health The report in the journal Psychological Bulletin reviews 201 independent studies on prosocial behavior and its affect on well-being. After examining data on over 198,000 participants, Hui’s study reveals there is a modest link…
It’s enough to make you just give it all up and walk away.
That, to me, is cancel culture. I know there’s a lot of talk about cancel culture and whether it even exists or not, but frankly, to me, the real canceling that goes on online is when the good, thoughtful and caring, people just walk away instead of being here and having their voices matter. Because they’re tired. They’re tired of the constant outrage, the constant anger directed at them for not doing, and believing, everything random people expect them to. The vitriol directed at them in direct messages, comments, and tweets for simply trying to have a conversation, from all sides. For not supporting conspiracy groups, for not using the correct words, for not advocating for exactly the same things, in exactly then same way. Because if you don’t “agree” with them and show your support, in clear, and often financial, ways, you are the enemy.
Seriously, it gets old. It’s toxic. It’s exhausting. It makes you question why you even bother with this at all. I, for one, don’t need this in my life on a regular basis. No one does. So, instead of having real conversations about real issues, and doing real education, we’re walking away and letting the worst kinds of people win the internet.
I’m tired, but I’m not ready to do that. If 19 years of working to educate people, and let anyone know that they are not alone as a survivor, or as a person dealing with mental health issues, isn’t enough for you, and you can’t understand that all of the things I do online to make this happen I do in my spare time, for free, then you can go somewhere else.
Take all of your fake outrage and fake “facts” with you too.
Which brings us to Daisy. She did not get her justice from the court system, quite the opposite. But, she did something else that many assume is a sign of “being healed”, she found her voice. She told her story, she had a movie made where she could speak her truth to the whole world. Surely, that is healed, right?
As we now know, that probably wasn’t the case. I assume that many people who watched that documentary went on to become fans of Daisy, admiring her for having the courage to tell her story, happy for her that she was able to overcome, but that had nothing to do with the reality of what surviving actually is.
The coincidence that I spoke of came this morning, when I popped over to Twitter during a quick coffee break, and saw Rachel Denhollander, another survivor who’s made an appearance in a documentary, Athlete A, on her involvement with the Larry Nasser case, talking about this article:
Daisy Coleman’s Death Lays Bare the Myth of ‘Surviving
When I wrote about watching Athlete A last week, I mentioned the fact that the win-at-all-costs mentality of USA gymnastics blinded the organization to the fact that girls were being abused right under their noses, and played a role in their lack of response to allegations. They had one guiding quest, winning gold medals, and…
You may have seen someone talking about this on social media, or in an article online, or somewhere else. I’ve seen it in numerous places. The idea is that, right now, with a pandemic, racial justice issues, and everything else that we are dealing with, suddenly talking about anxiety and depression, or being lonely and…
If you pay attention to the news at all, I’m sure you’ve seen something about Larry Nasser over the past couple of years. You may even be fairly familiar with the story. If so, the Netflix documentary Athlete A might not offer a lot of things you don’t know to some extent or other. But, you may want to watch it anyway, even though watching it and hearing the stories will be difficult. I did a couple of nights ago, and had a couple of thoughts about it, in no real order of importance.
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