Over the past couple of years, spending time on the internet has taken up more and more of my time. It happened so gradually. Then I realized that between blogging, spending time first on MySpace and now on Facebook and Twitter, reading articles/editorials/blog posts, etc., I spend at least two or three hours a day on the internet - and that's not counting time spent watching t.v. online or working.
I love that it's so interactive, that you can find information on anything or anyone, find old friends, make new friends with similar interests, and feel like someone is listening when you comment on a blog post or online article. I love that if I tweet Maureen "Mo" Ryan of AOL's TV Squad (and formerly of the Chicago Tribune), chances are better than decent that I'll get a response. I love reading Roger Ebert's blog posts and the accompanying comments and knowing that there ARE other people out there that think the same way I do.
One of my favorite parts of internet life is reading articles, making comments, reading the responses of others, and responding to those as well. I love knowing that there are other people out there interested in the same things that I am; I even feel like I've made "friends" with people I've never met in person. (Hello, @pccurmudgeon and @StaceyKade!)
For the first time, I feel like I've had a negative experience with this.
I was reading a "cheat sheet" on a popular pop culture website about the upcoming Hunger Games movies (c'mon, you know they'll make more than one) and the books by Suzanne Collins that they're based on. It was a helpful, well written explanation of who the different characters are and how they relate to each other. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the author was obviously very excited about the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen.
In response, I thanked the author of the article for the information provided and mentioned another article that had a conflicting view point (specifically about Katniss' appearance. In the book she is 16ish, olive skinned with dark hair; Jennifer is 20, fair, blonde and blue-eyed.), explaining that I was reading several different viewpoints before making up my mind.
Initially, I was excited about the thought of Jennifer as Katniss - she was phenomenal in Winter's Bone, so I know she has mad skills. The more I thought about it, though, the more that casting seemed wrong to me. The second article that I referred to objected to Jennifer's casting because of Hollywood's history of "white-washing" characters to make them more appealing. That wasn't really my objection, though. My objection is that she's too old, not that she doesn't have the talent or is too fair. I can look past that.
Anyway, I literally felt attacked by the author of the cheat sheet when they responded to my comment. It was very much a you're wrong, you weren't in the casting sessions, how could you possibly know what happened, skin color didn't and shouldn't have anything to do with it, don't be stupid kind of response.
Maybe I didn't word my comment carefully enough; maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it's the internet. It's filled with people who make comments that you may or may not actually agree with. What did I do that triggered such a response? And was the response really that severe? When I first read it a couple of days ago, I felt attacked. When I re-read it half an hour ago, it didn't seem nearly as belligerent, but I'm not sure if that's because I read it wrong in the first place, or if it's that I've gotten used to it and now it doesn't seem as strongly worded.
Do you comment regularly on articles/blogs/commentaries? Do you go back later and see if responses have been made to your comment? Have your experiences been negative or positive?
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