The Internet, and more specifically, social media, is a confusing web of lies and half-truths, sparsely sprinkled with fact and accuracy. One needs a special kind of skill set to sift through the garbage and sort the useful from the hogwash.
The recent passing of Margaret "The Iron Lady" Thatcher is a case in point. For much of 8 April, the day the former UK prime minister died, the hashtag #nowthatchersdead clogged up Twitter newsfeeds, as people made light of the situation, imagining a world without the tough-as-nails leader.
One of my favourite memes doing the rounds claims that punctuation saves lives, as illustrated in "Let's eat grandma" versus "Let's eat, grandma". As Twitter hashtags do not support punctuation, the missing apostrophe in "Now Thatcher's dead" sent Cher fans into a spin, misreading the phrase as: "Now that Cher's dead".
While this can be chalked up to an honest, understandable mistake, there have been times when news of celebrities' deaths have been cruelly hatched up by some who obviously take pleasure in watching the brutal aftermath - if you watch enough Criminal Minds, you'll know that the arsonist often returns to the scene of the crime amid the chaos of screaming fire engines, frantic onlookers and general destruction.
Gossip-mongering
Not too long ago, somebody thought it would be funny to start a rumour that Sylvester Stallone had died in a skiing accident. Jon Bon Jovi and Morgan Freeman have also been the subjects of hoaxes.
For the media-literate, alarm bells would have sounded when they realised the Global Associated News tabs above the Stallone story were not hyperlinked. Common sense dictates that one would do more research before spreading the news (this particular article has been shared on Facebook over 3 300 times, and has been posted to Twitter 314 times, not counting the retweets and Facebook shares). The media-literate would scroll to the bottom of the page and, lo and behold, would see the clear-as-day message: "Fake... This story is 100% fake! This is an entertainment Web site, and this is a totally fake article based on zero truth and is a complete work of fiction for entertainment purposes."
Entertainment purposes? The news of someone's death is entertaining?
The "Home" link above the fake-story warning takes users to Fake a Wish, a site that lets, nay encourages, people to start rumours about celebrities. Eddie Murphy, Woody Harrelson, Adam Sandler, Will Smith and countless others have apparently fallen to their deaths, died in car crashes, or have met their untimely fates while snowboarding.
Zombie nation
While it may be human nature to crack jokes soon after someone's passing, is it really necessary to cook up a rumour, and sit back and laugh while the supposedly dead have to try and convince distraught fans that they are not resurrected zombies, and that they never died in the first place?
Don't get me wrong. Satire sites like The Onion are definitely a welcome break from reality. Some might also appreciate The Gist, a new site from the guys at Someecards, which aims to present the (real) news in a humorous manner.
Mark Twain said: "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
And the Internet is making this a lot easier; perhaps not in the physical sense, but definitely in the emotional sense. Not only does it allow bored troublemakers to spread hoaxes, but it seems it has become the norm to trivialise serious events.
The Internet seems to have completely stripped away our moral filters.
In the UK, citizens rallied to get the song, "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead" to the top of the singles charts shortly after Margaret Thatcher's death. Closer to home, Reeva Steenkamp's body had not even turned cold before the callous jokes started doing the rounds. I never knew Reeva, but was offended by the jokes, and said as much on Facebook. A debate with a friend ensued and got particularly heated when she defended the jokes, saying it was how humans cope with tragedy.
That may be, but the Internet seems to have completely stripped away our moral filters. It allows us to hide behind an anonymous screen, spewing vitriol that I'm pretty sure we'd never say if we were forced to disclose our identities or were at risk of a fist to the face.
Or perhaps it's made us more brazen. Even if we do disclose our identities, we only exist virtually to the offended, safe in the knowledge that (unless we've touched a hacker's nerve) we're somewhat untouchable in cyber space.
Whatever the case, we've lost the plot. The Internet is fertile breeding ground for trolls and bullies. At the risk of sounding like a hug-loving hippie, and under no illusions that the situation will change any time soon, I ask: can't we all just get along? All the hatred and unnecessary poison is utterly exhausting.
Sticks and stones may well break my bones, but words will haunt me forever.
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