Deirdre

One of the latest trends on YouTube is the 'Shit people say' videos. Different short films of varying quality have popped up, depicting John Bull Irish people say, suburban mothers say, non-vegetarians say to vegetarians, new age girls say, new age guys say, normal guys say, normal guys don't say, and so forth. Some of the videos are funny, some pretty unfunny. It's all in the delivery and level of professionalism. I've been thinking about shit people say a lot lately, both funny and unfunny, and thought I'd provide some examples of what I've come across in various different contexts.

Sometimes, you have to read between the lines to really understand what's underneath the shit people say, as there's usually a subtext. In other cases, there's no translation, and the shit can be taken at face value as just another piece of crap. There are two types of shit people say: the benign type, and the non-benign type. The benign type is disingenuous, and we all probably engage in it, but only to spare others' feelings, as in, 'How do you like my new leopard-print one-piece cat-suit? Seventies nostalgia is all the rage this season.' To which you'll perhaps respond, 'You look great!' Unless said garment is being worn by Angelina Jolie or Naomi Campbell, this is likely to be an example of the benign shit people say.

As you get older, I suppose you tend to get a lot better at translating the non-benign bull. Some sentences have multiple possible translations, and it can be difficult to determine which is the most accurate. It can depend how well you know the person making the statement. All of these things have been said to either friends of mine, or to me personally, at some stage.

I have been thinking for some time of blogging about Internet sock puppets and trolls. Technically, sock puppets are those who post under several names on the same thread, but to me, anyone who attacks people who are open about their identity under anything but their own name is a cowardly sock puppet, as well as a troll. Today when checking my comments I found an instance of why sock puppetry is so despised on the Internet by decent and honest users. The people who post know their point has holes in it, and they are generally trolls with a chip on their shoulder who are going to begrudge no matter what. They change the goalposts of an argument to suit their own agenda, discarding the laws of logic and rationality assumed by most decent human beings. They are often pathological liars and bullies, and often contradict themselves. The only thing worse than these nuiscances are people who impersonate others on the Internet - something that affected me once when working abroad, when two of my email addresses, both work and personal web address, were hacked, and messages sent that I didn't write.

I reproduce the comment from the sock puppet in question below, with my comments in square brackets. Significantly, it is posted under the wrong article. In my view it is better to illustrate by example what is so ethically problematic about trolls. If they expressed their points openly, I would have more respect for them, even if the same points were expressed. Beneath the original comment I've reproduced two responses from me, admittedly written in frustration and deep irritation, but this in itself illustrates why there is a problem with people who use the facility for anonymity provided by the Internet for purposes that are less-than-honourable. They do it to rile people and create discord and anger. They have strong feelings of resentment and one-upmanship towards those they target, based on their own sense of their inadequacies, and are usually people who are hiding behind the anonymity. I have found in my life that those who have strong feelings of one-upmanship can do a lot of damage, though they are not always dangerous when communities are alert to them.

Despite neglecting my blog of late, today, I felt compelled to take some time to mark Martin Luther King Day, which isn't totally irrelevant to my thread recently, given that he is a man who stood up courageously against institutionalised bullying of massive proportions, and won many victories against it.

Much of the rhetoric about King today sanitizes the man, glossing over the many times he spent resisting the authorities and breaking and challenging laws that were unjust either on paper or in their application. King spent many long nights in jail and many days worrying about whether his house and family would be fire-bombed by the sick bigots in the Ku Klux Klan. He was bugged and smeared by the FBI, and crucified many times over.

Workplace bullying is a blight that can ruin lives and rob organisations of their most conscientious workers. In a climate of economic uncertainty, workplace bullying increases. This is not, in my view, because the bullies were nice people before and now are suddenly nasty, but because economic pressure brings the worst in people into sharp relief. Not everyone manages to maintain their dignity and grace in the midst of bad economic news. While I would not claim to be an expert on the subject of workplace bullying, after an extremely hairy experience in 2001 while working abroad, I did a huge amount of research into the area, and so know a little about it, both from experience and reading. I know a little about bullying among adults outside the workplace too, from various extra-curricular activities. There are many good websites written by experts, including the one for the Trinity College Anti-Bullying Centre.

In January 2010, Irish teenager Phoebe Prince took her own life in a Massachusetts suburb after being systematically bullied by high school peers. The case created a storm of media speculation and reporting, with the teenagers involved in the bullying facing serious charges and uncertain futures. While it seemed clear that Prince had pre-existent problems, it also seemed clear that the school authorities were complacent and neglectful. The school prom went ahead soon after the tragedy, as if she had never existed. Why are we so tolerant of bullying in Western society? Why is it often so normalised? Why, when we see it happening to those around us, do we so often fail to hold the bullies accountable?