What DO We Talk About?

People have always loved to talk. It was that desire to share one’s thoughts and experience that lead to the appearance of speech. These days, it’s very easy to socialize. There are no rigid frames to communication, one can contact practically anybody, tell the whole world, what the day was like. At least, the part of the world that’s aware of the internet and Twitter.

You’d think, what endless opportunities that gives us for creativity, for ideas, for finding like-minded people. But, no. I mean, there are, of course, all t

hose things, but in order to get to them, you have to get through such enormous amounts of junk and drivel, that your fingers, already raise above the keyboard, fall hopelessly.

That is a very sad paradox: while getting access to masses of information, what 90% of users actually take are soppy phrases for status-updates, one thousand and one tutorial for making your eyes (already drooping with make-up) even prettier, endless pictures of kitiies/doggies/babies/expensive cars and, of course, a right to illiteracy.

On this last point I could talk for ages, but, to be honest, I don’t really want to, because I feel squeamish. I love Russian, I love English, I don’t mind new words and phrases entering these languages, but I will never understand those native speakers who allow themselves to distort their mothertongue, excusing themselves by the fact that: “It’s the Web, everyone does that here!”

That’s one problem. Now, let’s turn to internet-communities. It’s always a pleasure to see like-minded people burning with the same ideas or just enjoing similar activities get together to share impressions, news or simply talk to each other. Alas, it’s not all that nice and pretty.

I don’t mean the haters, whose point of life is taunting the people on the net who can’t get to them. It’s the most devoted members of said communities who bother me. In a while, some ofr. them turn into fans. And then – into fanatics. After that, talking to them is near to impossible. Are you prepared to talk about cars 24/7? You’re boring. You told a girl who wants to weigh 75 pounds to stop torturing herself and eat something? You’re jealous and know nothing about beauty. You didn’t denounce ever eating meat after seeing footage from a slaugherhouse? You’re a corpse-eating  freak, burn in hell!

Why? Because their initial narrow-mindedness gets even worse because of constantly talking about one topic only, so, eventually, any deviation from the course they’ve taken is considered a crime that deserves a punishment as severe as quartering, along with nail-pulling strangling.

And, of course, there’s always the herd instinct. Spending too much time with a bunch of people, mulling over the same thing time and again, anyone can get caught up in the craziness. There’s no place for tolerance – the real kind – not the one gets everyone squirming once a touchy subject like sexual minorities or racie is as much as brushed during a conversation.

And we do need patience. Respect for other people’s opinions needs to be cultivated in every single person. That way, many of today’s problems would just go away on their own.

In the end, no one can tell you, what and how to talk about. But, please, let’s not be primitive. We mustn’t forget that speech is a gift that only humanity has been granted with. Don’t just walk all over it.