Should you get angry at this article or comment online?
5 key elements to sort out the genuine from the “malicious”, and not loose your time and energy getting angry for nothing
A lot of articles on medium, or online generally, are meant to anger their readers. They are designed this way for mainly three reasons. The first is to generate comments and visibility, because people can’t help to read and comment on something they find offensive. The second is for the writer to express their anger, in a bitter and vain way. The third is just to generate rage and anger, for the pleasure of offending people, the people who do that are generally called “trolls”.
After reading a lot of articles here on medium, I think I found 5 key elements to look for, to know if an article or comment is a genuine point of view, which deserves your time and energy to engage in a meaningful and fulfilling way, or if it is a malicious attempt to anger you for the sake of it. I think it is totally unnecessary to continue reading an article or comment that harbors those elements, and to lose your energy getting angry or responding at it. The people who write those kind of pieces are not looking for genuine conversations, they are looking for “mayhem”. The people who write articles mainly to anger their audience are either malicious, or, more often than not I think, have some “psychological issues”. I’ll explain more on that in the conclusion. Here are the 5signs to look for, to know if an article is worth reading and commenting on, or not.
1-Obviously condescending terms
The first sign to look for, in my opinion, is condescending terms. For instance, sentences like “he responds like an entitled teenage boy”, or “check your math”, the “bogus cliché”, “he laments”. Condescending terms are terms which sounds disdainful, full of contempt and superiority. They are a very good sign that you should stop reading an article or comment. But why exactly? Because they are not “useful” to express an opinion. They are not arguments. Those terms don’t help you to think, they are not trying to change your opinion. Those words have only two purpose, to express anger, and to elicit anger. Stay far away from anything, really anything, that sounds bitter and condescending.
2-Very broad generalizations
This one is a very telling sign too. I would risk a generalization myself for this one, very ironically, and venture to say that most article that lack nuances are often bad (not always though, but it’s a good sign to look for). Generalizations are easy to recognize. It’s simply terms or ideas that sound “universal” and too simplistic, things like “women are too picky”, “men are trash”, “white people are weak”, “black men don’t like black women” etc… and more generally any term that sounds good but is very vaguely defined, and could almost be synonymous to “everything”, terms like “the system” or “systemic”. Those are very good signs that you should be careful with what you are reading. But why exactly? Very simply because, as you probably know, reality is complex by nature. Any thoughts that over simplify reality is generally misleading, and will not help you to gain more knowledge of the world.
3-Buzzwords
This one is less obvious, and you have to be more careful. Some good articles use “buzzwords”. But I would venture to argue that an article that use too many “buzzwords”, or complicated jargon, is a little red flag.What do I mean with “buzzwords”? Basically I mean words that are “trending”, and that “sound good” if I may say. Some Buzzwords also overlap the previous category of “broad generalization” seen above (like “systemic”). I will not argue about the relevance of those words, wether they mean something real or not, that’s not the question. Some of them can be justified. I will, on the other hand, argue that the over use of such words can be a red flag for a lack of “real thought” from the writer. That means the writer is more looking, in my opinion, to write something that “sounds good”, rather that something that really explains. “Buzzwords” are “cool sounding” words, that are generally not necessary to explain an idea clearly, and are often very broad with a vague meaning. Basically they can mean very different things. An example is a term like “patriarchy”. I am not saying in any way that the patriarchy doesn’t exist, and I really hope I won’t offend anyone by labeling this term as a “buzzword”. But to explain it simply, a patriarchy can be a country like the USA, or France, and also a country like Afghanistan or Venezuela. It overlaps very different situations and realities. Other examples of buzzwords include “hypergamous”, “toxic masculinity”, “the male gaze” “rape culture” etc… I insist on the fact that those words are sometimes justified in an article. A buzzword is not necessarily a wrong word. The red flag is not the word itself, but an abondance of those words, with a lack of definition.
4-Absence of reference to source material
This one is a very obvious sign to look for. If a writer cites or quotes a study, or present numbers, with no link to the source, you should generally proceed with extreme caution. I would even argue that sometimes, if the claim of the study seems “off”, you should even check the source or the study yourself, to verify if the writer understood it clearly. It happened to me a few times, here on medium, to realize that a writer totally mischaracterized the results of a study they were citing. This article is a very good example: https://themaverickfiles.medium.com/tinders-sexiest-job-survey-results-reek-of-sexism-e8199e865478
In this article, the author explains that, according to a survey mentioned in the article about job preferences for men and women on Tinder, men are more interested in looks than women. But the survey seems to indicate, to my understanding, that women rank men models higher (8) than men rank women models (10). The survey seems to clearly contradict the claims of the article. I’m not saying the author is wrong, just that the study doesn’t really back their argument.
5-Hate
This one is more elusive than the other points, but still telling in my opinion. Of course, hate is sometimes justified. But generally, I would argue that hate is not necessary to explain a point, even about really “hateful” people or things. Most serious books about nazis for instance, like Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt, don’t show “hate” toward their subject in the writing, even if we can suppose the author probably “hate” the people they are describing. If a writer seems to show hate, even if the subject of the article “deserves” such a treatment in theory, I would argue to be cautious.
That was my 5 key elements to look for, to know if an article or comment is worth investing your time and energy in. Now, in conclusion, let me try to explain why some authors write articles like this. The two categories of author who write “malicious” articles, in my opinion, are either “malicious”, or have some “psychological issues”. Those two types of authors have different motives. The malicious ones, I think, know what they are doing. They know that offending people is a good way to be read, and therefore to make money. They either want to make money, or just like offending people for the thrill.
Now let’s talk about the authors who have “psychological issues”. By that I don’t mean people who are clinically mentally ill. And to some extent, I’ll concede that we all have psychological issues of some sort. But I mean people who have been hurt, and/or brainwashed by certain ideologies. For instance very religious or ideological people. People who are “radicals” in any given ideology. The problem is generally not the ideology (or even the religion), but the cultish manner in which these people believe in their ideology. After all, I personally believe there are reasonable communists, capitalists, feminists, men rights activists, christians, atheists etc… But some people become “radicals” in those ideologies, when they can’t question anything from their respective ideology. And, more telling, when they show hate for people who disagree with them. I realize it’s a cliché to say it, but I believe it to be true.
Those people don’t really have “bad intentions” at heart. And they probably think it’s other people who have bad intentions. They just have, well, “psychological issues” for lack of a better word, that distort greatly their understanding of the world, and attach their deep sense of identity to their beliefs. Probably to cope with suffering, anxieties, insecurities or traumas, but I’m really not an expert on psychology. It is absolutely not possible to “reason” with them unfortunately, and therefore I recommend you should avoid trying to do so. Would you question the existence of God with a fundamentalist christian? No of course, that would lead nowhere. But you probably can with a moderate christian in a meaningful way. In the same way, you can totally question the rape culture with a moderate feminist, it can lead to very interesting conversations, as I experienced myself (and you will learn a lot, as I did myself). But I would argue against trying to do that with a radical feminist for instance. The same is true for almost any ideology I believe. How do you make the difference between a moderate and a radical? Just look for the 5 key elements I listed in this article ;)
Don’t get angry for nothing, life is too short, and have a good day :)
