Getting worked up about whether something is “really” true? Trying to pin down the undefinable? Losing yourself in the minutia of right and wrong, moral and immoral, truth and falsehood?
You might want to try asking, “does it matter?“.
- Is it really that important what you call something?
- Does knowing what’s happening make any difference whatsoever in what you’re experiencing?
- If someone is wrong on the internet, does that actually affect you in any meaningful way?
- If you told a stranger on the street about all of this, would they think it’s a perfectly sensible thing to spend all this time on?
- Will you stop having the experience if you don’t pin it down?
- Is trying to figure this out actually helping you to live better? Is your life better for the effort?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then carry on. If you answered “no”, then this issue isn’t actually that important, and upsetting yourself about it won’t make your life any better. Let it drop and focus on actually living your life.
It’s funny how quickly social media discourse stops mattering when you minimize your exposure to it. Online, people argue about all sorts of things. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking that they all matter when you’re completely surrounded by petty arguments.
But if you go offline and spend time around people, it becomes clear that very little of it matters. If you start going off about whether bisexuality is transphobic (what?), you’re either going to get corrected by someone in that community or wind up rambling at someone who has no idea what you’re talking about. No one gives a single crap about most of it. The big issues of human rights and equality matter; the niche slapfights of the internet over labels and tribal groups don’t.
If you find you’re getting stuck thinking about niche internet discourse all the time, it might be a good idea to step back a little. It’s not a healthy dynamic to be constantly enraged at everyone online, and there are bigger issues than whether RandomPerson123 can use neopronouns or not. Let people be people and spend that energy on other things.
Offline life is stressful enough without adding a 24/7 stream of online crap. If it doesn’t make you happy, it’s okay to block it. You’re not obligated to look at any of it. This is your online experience, and you make the rules.