When there's a tragedy there's also "those people"

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

am I over-reacting? what do you think?

Yes. This is The Escapist's equivalent of people getting angry for posting on Facebook statuses; "Did I ask you to comment? No, so GTFO!!!"

Instead of this thread you can ignore the people that post like that and not give them their rise. I posted something along those lines in the thread, people seemed more concerned for looking sympathetic than they were for what actually happened to the kids. They danced around the issue with their circle jerk of morals, as you so beautifully put it (no sarcasm here, that gave me funnies), when they could and should have been turning around and saying "hold up, this really needs to never happen again, what can we do guys?" and then actually doing it.

Point being, these people are 2edgy4you but it is about time we did stop commenting on how tragic it is and then forgetting about it a few days later with no improvement or progression.

 

[Abomination]

It's a backlash that is similar to the whole 'fake nerd girl' debacle. Attention parasites.

In the same way that the fake nerd girl thing is a majority of "nerds" being disgruntled with a select few females combining their gender with "tacked on" gaming peripherals in pictures as (an often tasteless) sexual-attention smart-bombs directed squarely at their demographic. Nerd culture has become a massive driving force, and the average ?nerd? is now far tamer than the 1990s stereotype. There?s a whole new demographic for attention parasites to latch on to.

The "I don't care." crowd is probably the reaction towards the constant bombardment of (often tasteless) attention being thrown at the shootings. The self-gratifying facebook tributes, the scrambling for "likes" or "shares" or "upvotes" to their posts in their feeds and the sensationalist media pulling every trick they can for higher ratings. Suddenly there?s a major event that just tugs at everyone?s heartstrings for the attention parasites to dig their latches into and suck dry.

The attention parasites. Trailing in the wake of a terrible tragedy that, one would hope given the United States constant self-proclaimed status as the beacon of democracy and freedom in the modern world, should be the last place on Earth such events occur.

I guess I should quantify with my own stance before accusations of being a malcontent or incapable of empathy emerge. Children being killed is the most horrible thing, society as a whole can agree on this and I doubt any nation no matter their culture or religion would disagree. The ultimate tragedy is the amount of wealth and resources the United States has, yet the political quagmire there prevents legislation being passed or systems put in place to protect that which the nation with the highest military spending in the world values most - its own children.

All because people are just so STARVED for attention there. So starved they'll seek to increase this small electronic counter by sucking at the teat of a tragic event or by creating the event in the first place, inspired by the terrible cycle of media sensationalism and over-exposure the previous events had.

Keeping up with the Joneses is reaching a most terrible precipice.

 

[Strazdas]

As if people need firearms to commit mass murder.
You know firearms have been used for self defense.

on the same day there was attack in China. Im sure it has gotten quickly forgotten because "hey white kids dieing are more important right?". the difference is, the chinese guy didnt have acess to a gun, so he used a knife. result? 0 dead, 22 kids wounded.

free access to firearms make mass murder easy. it should not be made easy.

Mass murder can and has been committed in America with explosives and non-guns.

You want to talk about one knifing where no one died I can point to a lot of them where have died, and instance of people using a gun to stop an attack.

But like I said this is assuming they couldn't just get guns from the black market.

the point is about making mass murder hard, not about "one guy managed to do it so its impossible to prevent"

 

[Vault101]

frankly... half of your posts seems to be around your own moral superiority.....

you call it moral supirority..I call it calling out dickish behaviour

 

[Nazulu]

I wouldn't say over-reacting, but most should just be ignored since it's a small troll attempt or them trying and get some attention. If they do go over board, then it should be reportable. Still best not to respond I reckon, because we all know that it will always be around so unless you can actually teach that person something, it's a waste of time.

 

[Strazdas]

frankly... half of your posts seems to be around your own moral superiority.....

you call it moral supirority..I call it calling out dickish behaviour

maybe you misunderstood me, but you just called your own posts "dickish behaviuor"....

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

People who advertise their apathy aren't really apathetic.

Those people are either trying to troll and make you angry, or they are finding humor is what they are saying and they're laughing regardless of what you may think. Either way, they succeeded.

So yes. You're overreacting.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I guess but it would still make me seem like a real ass...especially if in an inapropriate context

So what? If you say "how sad!" and vote for liberal/labor you're still supporting a war that kills children, so those are just empty words. I'd prefer someone who says "big deal, happens all the time" but doesn't support a regime that propagates murder, than someone who carries on about how sad it is while not taking any steps to prevent it. I guess what I'm saying is that it's your actions, not your words that make you an ass. Saying "I don't care" to something that can't be changed doesn't make you an ass. Saying "I don't care" to something that can be changed, does. And saying "HOW AWFUL" and doing absolutely nothing about it makes you the biggest ass of all in my eyes.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah those people annoyed me. I mean there are people who are genuie sad at the tragedy and they have to be so unsympathetic about it. Geez show some compassion or sympathic your heartless git. If you got nothing nice to say at all then say nothing! I ain't weeping by the recent event but I know full well that it is a sad event to had happen and people are sad about it.

Heck I bet the OP would of rage alot when this username "Eico" was around (type her name in the username search to see her past comments).

 

[Starik20X6]

...Did you by any chance happen to watch the rest of the movie?

Because there were consequences of looking the other way when someone's getting robbed (and you can do something about it).

Yeah that's where my analogy fell apart. It was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about treating people the way they treat you.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

If it's a tragedy that can be prevented, but isn't though various reasons like LACK OF GUN CONTROL then it doesnt hit me as hard.

You know people have killed lots of other people in America without guns.

The Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and if you want to limit it to just schools one guy killed around 50 people with explosives decades ago.


Edit: and if there was a ban on guns there'd be a black market on guns too so who knows if this particular tragedy would've been avoided.

Oh wow thankyou, I didnt know objects other than guns could ever harm people. /sarcasm

 

[Arakasi]

I just think both sides should spend a little less time trying to second guess the motives of everyone who posts something that they disagree with.

Most valid post I've seen to date.
I see that a lot on these forums, people make numerous poor attempts to understand people's motivations for posting various views and they rarely ever get it right. It's quite frustrating to be on the recieving end of it, knowing someone has misinterpreted your intentions so entirely.

As for the intentions behind some of the posts mentioned in the OP, more often than not I would see it as a question. A question of "Why do you people feel so strongly about this, when I feel nothing?"
Of course, it is entirely possible that the motivations are something similar to what Vault101 mentioned, but as a person with a similar mindset to those posters, that would have been my intention.

It is almost always better not to assume malice when stupidity (or poor wording) could easily be substituted.

 

[Loonyyy]

Those who go, that they simply don't care, are simply trolling. End of it. They're deliberately showing off how callous they are, knowing it's inflammatory. They really don't care at all about things, except, please please please notice their not caring about things, will you? They're pathetic. Zhukov summed it up:

It's no fun being cynical and detached if nobody notices how cynical and detached you are.

So if they don't notice you have to get out there and damn well tell 'em!

"See that nasty business? I don't care at all! Not one bit! Because I'm cynical and worldly and hardened!"

In comparison, those who'd compare the problem of one tragedy to death rates, or larger tragedies, tend to be people who have an overinflated opinion of their own intellect. "I bet you didn't know millions die all the time." Blah blah blah. They're Brittas (For the Community reference). "Likes to use French politics to make themselves feel special, but doesn't actually want to do anything.... itis." Oh really? Something bad's happening? Why not do something about it rather than telling us we're caring wrong?

Normally, I don't like Critical Miss, but this perfectly illustrates how inane that is:

Spoiler

Yeah, sure, tons of people, including kids, die, every day. That doesn't make a bunch of them being wiped out at once any less tragic. If you're only going to care about the biggest tragedy, you'd better not get excited or saddened by everything, since the Holocaust trumps pretty much any event that'll happen in your life.

I don't really get annoyed by these people, so much as scroll past their ankle biting non-contributions to the discussion. Engaging them is feeding them, and, to be fair I'm sort of doing that now.

To address the false equivalence people keep trying to use: People being sappy "Oh, my prayers are with them". "Oh the horror", are equally annoying, and the trend of groups on Facebook exploiting this "Like if you're against animal abuse"< DIE, is obscene, but that doesn't make the opposite any better.

 

[kommando367]

I agree with the OP on this one. I mean, if you don't care, why the fuck did post in the thread in the first place.