This past week in question is one that can only really be summed up by tragedies.
In addition to today's shooting in Connecticut, today's stabbing in China, news also shook the world of the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, an apparent result of two Australian DJ's prank call.
Now, these are all like I just said tragic and sad.
It's distressing knowing that their are Christmas presents for a bunch of children that have already been wrapped, never to be opened.
It's horrifying that Jacintha chose to take her own life, leaving behind two children.
It's sad knowing that in light of the shootings, many people aren't aware that 17 children in China also died today.
All of this creates a recipe of sadness, sorrow, empathy but most of all hate.
But why? Why in times like these do we completely lose our shit? Everybody, instead of being united in grief and support of the families of the deceased, we turn to lash out at anybody and any company.
First off, we have the shootings. I saw two status's mourning the dead, the rest were about how how terrible the American government is for not outlawing guns, then gun users arguing back with the age old argument "guns don't kill people, people kill people" then the anti-gun folk lashing back saying how the people use the guns etc etc.
This debate can go on, and on until the cows come home and if I'm honest I have no interest in it. All I know right now is that because of this, it seems every British person on my Facebook knows the ins and outs of the American gun law.
But more bizarrely is this....
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This, is the game franchise Mass Effect. It's a game that has a really shitty ending, and guns. Those are the only two pieces of knowledge I have on this game. Never played it and I'll probably have no intention to. But, this game is somehow at the centre of a vicious hate whirlpool. No, not because of the shitty ending, but because of the shootings? It's true. I don't know how these dots were connected, I'm gonna take a punch in the dark and say shitty reporting but the Facebook page of Mass Effect has exploded with hate comments pinning the entire tragedy on them.
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Shit, that was quite the serious blog for me. If you do have any discussions or stories on your own run in with Mob mentalities then let me know, I like getting irritated at stories like such so either leave a comment here, or on my Facebook page.
In addition to today's shooting in Connecticut, today's stabbing in China, news also shook the world of the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, an apparent result of two Australian DJ's prank call.
Now, these are all like I just said tragic and sad.
It's distressing knowing that their are Christmas presents for a bunch of children that have already been wrapped, never to be opened.
It's horrifying that Jacintha chose to take her own life, leaving behind two children.
It's sad knowing that in light of the shootings, many people aren't aware that 17 children in China also died today.
All of this creates a recipe of sadness, sorrow, empathy but most of all hate.
But why? Why in times like these do we completely lose our shit? Everybody, instead of being united in grief and support of the families of the deceased, we turn to lash out at anybody and any company.
First off, we have the shootings. I saw two status's mourning the dead, the rest were about how how terrible the American government is for not outlawing guns, then gun users arguing back with the age old argument "guns don't kill people, people kill people" then the anti-gun folk lashing back saying how the people use the guns etc etc.
This debate can go on, and on until the cows come home and if I'm honest I have no interest in it. All I know right now is that because of this, it seems every British person on my Facebook knows the ins and outs of the American gun law.
But more bizarrely is this....
This, is the game franchise Mass Effect. It's a game that has a really shitty ending, and guns. Those are the only two pieces of knowledge I have on this game. Never played it and I'll probably have no intention to. But, this game is somehow at the centre of a vicious hate whirlpool. No, not because of the shitty ending, but because of the shootings? It's true. I don't know how these dots were connected, I'm gonna take a punch in the dark and say shitty reporting but the Facebook page of Mass Effect has exploded with hate comments pinning the entire tragedy on them.
So because Adam "Ryan" Lanza 'liked' Mass Effect on his Facebook, this effectively means that Mass Effect may as well have done the heinous crime themselves. Afterall, shootings only occurred in life after shooting games came out (A hint of sarcasm there).
Most people, like me don't even know what the fuck Mass Effect is, they've never played it, never seen it, never even sampled it. But, they do know however that it is the responsibility of gun crimes. Take a look at the picture of the cover.
There's man, an alien-ish looking pair of eyes and what looks like another alien. This, in no way can be related to a man shooting in a school, as far as I know there has never been a game in the history of existence to have a "shoot the school up" feature, because they know they'll be in the firing line of a bunch of idiots looking to place the blame.
And so we have the title of this post. Mob Mentality.
A person is rational, people are not however.
When something happens, tragedy or not people who are bought together by hate and anger lose the ability to think for themselves, they let the loudest and most obnoxious person do the talking and then they simply echo this persons views in different ways. It's evident from the picture of M.E's Facebook wall that most commenters have never played the game before, yet some are accusing EA of promoting this, some are saying they have blood on their hands, some are even pinning the blame on them for the darkness in the world. EA are shitty, but fucking hell chill the fuck out.
This is just one of those many, many things now which is throwing video games in the most negative of spotlights.
Kid hijacked a car, must be because of Grand Theft Auto!
The Colorado shootings, obviously because of Batman.
Kid gets involved with the wrong gang? Fucking Eminem!
And now this, the boycott of a game because the killer liked it on his Facebook page, well guess what? He also liked Theatre on his wall, are we all just going to head on down to our local theatre and burn it because it obviously creates a sense of overwhelming violence? Hell Macbeth is filled with murder, never seen that getting the blame for these kind of things.
As a young ten year old, I played Grand Theft Auto 2, I watched South Park and I went on to listen to Eminem. Did I ever go on to turn into a killer? No, because I dictate my own morality, not differential media outlets, everybody does.
Scapegoating is an idiotic notion, one that will get us nowhere, we link every shooting with some form of entertainment, it's the most easiest bailout option to go for, instead of teaming up to take down the industries maybe they should try and find a clear solution, or just come together in support for those who need it, not against those who have nothing to do with a situation.
But then we move onto the next related subject.
A few paragraphs ago, I referred to the killer as Adam "Ryan" Lanza. I did so because the media, in what I can only imagine to be shitty kneejerk reporting at best confirmed the killer to be Ryan Lanza, and proceeded to post a link to his Facebook profile.
This is Ryan Lanza, the person who was thought to be the killer, media outlets had already released his information before it emerged that the killer was instead Adam Lanza. His brother. At the time of typing, this picture has been shared on Facebook 10,400 times. Most of the comments in the shares believing that is was him, and calling him every name under the sun.
This was his status later that day.
Just try to imagine this for a second, think of the emotional cocktail of negativity that would plague you should this happen to you.
You're at work, it's a normal Friday, everything is going well. But then, you hear on the news your last name. You check it out, and right there is your own face, along with your name saying that you've killed a bunch of children.
Then, you find out that your family has been killed, your entire world is quickly descending into chaos, and you're then bombarded with emails from thousands of people telling you to burn in hell. All because the news jumped the gun.
Seriously, I don't think I've ever felt this bad for a stranger before, all I can do really is hope that people form some common sense and instead of bombarding him with hate mail either let him be, or send him condolences, and secondly I hope he sues the news websites for millions for the shit they've just put him through.
And then we have the latest controversy in the UK. The infamous Aussie Prank call, or the Royal Prank as I believe it's now called.
Some back story for you.
Two Australian DJ's prank called a hospital with a horrid impression of the Queen, a nurse put them through to their surprise and had information on Kate Middletons well being on air. This, sadly led to the suicide of the nurse that put them through Jacintha Saldanha.
This has exploded into the mother of all witch hunts, it led to the entire radio stations Facebook page being shut down due to a flood of livid comments.
Thousands upon thousands of comments were calling for the DJ's loss of job, loss of freedom and even loss of blood (An eye for an eye was an actual quote).
Whilst I admit, prank calling a hospital is a pretty fucking dumb thing to do, nobody, especially two DJ's from the other side of the world could have foreseen the coming events. Only a few people bought this up though, whilst the rest wouldn't sleep until they let the duo know that they had English blood on their hands.
Surely, though, the English public aren't that stupid? Right? Any idiot can see that there were underlying problems with the nurse, a prank call would not kill anybody, it may have been the final straw on the camels back but would it be the one and only reason? Of course not. Anyone who believes so would just be a moron.
Hundreds of people have made pranks calls in their lifetime. I'm awful at them, but I've done them. You've probably done them too, they're more or less common practice on radio shows, and why? Because they're popular, do you really think that they'd still be around if every prank call was met with such animosity?
It was a stupid prank, that led to an unfortunate events, barely anybody knew about the prank call though up until the moment the papers blew it way out of proportion saying it was one of the biggest breach of security in recent history, day after day came a different headline about the consequences which would be faced for accepting the call probably isn't going to help matters for somebody already under so much pressure and attention for simply putting a phone call through, yet the DJ's are still getting daily death threats.
It's gotten to the extent where I feel really shitty for the DJ's, at the end of the day, they know what has happened, they probably won't go a day without thinking of it now, the female DJ is herself believed to be at self risk now, and yet the general population have them painted as these duo of evil pranksters giggling at their acts.
You can see how it happens though, you go onto the wall in question see a bunch of furious comments, and from their you're thrown into the mindset that this amount of people can't be wrong, these DJ's must be terrible people, and you instantly, without any prior knowledge feel a sense of anger, unjust hatred. I'll admit, I went onto the page to check out the hate and at first disliked the pair for their actions, then I read a fucking article and put two and two together and figured "Well, they wouldn't intentionally kill somebody".
What would happen though if one of the DJ's took the nasty comments into play and actually killed themselves? What would the mob think of that? Because if a prank call is good enough to kill somebody than surely they should all be accountable for their comments and get the exact same amount of hatred in return? Or would it just be another tragedy that could have been prevented, and thus blamed on somebody else, like their dog or something.
The whole point of this post is to just say, just because a bunch of people are angry about something, doesn't mean they're all right, opinions are personal, but when it comes to mob mentality boom, opinion isn't a personal matter, it's a shared matter that's adopted a molded into your mindset. A few years ago a paediatrician was protested against, assaulted and harassed because people got the word paediatrician confused for the word paedophile. People are actually this stupid when forming this mentality (The full story's here).
The most striking and obvious example on how stupid mob mentality can be started by anyone, me, you. Give it a try if you're feeling risky.
Say you're at a set of traffic lights with a group of people waiting to cross the road. Wait for a while, then cross when it's not entirely safe to cross, and at least one person will walk into the road with you. I do this inadvertently from time to time when running late for work and it's bewildering to see people walk into the road just because somebody else in. I assume it's some sort of safety in numbers mentality to compensate the mob one.
My only advice to come from this is to think for yourself, doing otherwise is negative and let's face it a complete waste in everybodies times.
Instead of placing the blame on a company, notion, or other person maybe people should all come together in support and compassion as opposed to direction their attention on anger and misplaced hatred. That or just stop being fucking morons.Shit, that was quite the serious blog for me. If you do have any discussions or stories on your own run in with Mob mentalities then let me know, I like getting irritated at stories like such so either leave a comment here, or on my Facebook page.
Much Love!
Dan
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