The nuances we have lost

Do we forget that because we are very into these extreme memes created by the internet culture to stigmatize others for the sake of some cruel laughter?

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

I was born into the internet, in which whatever you see is either black or white: extremely big butts, exaggeratedly big boobs, scarily smooth skin, dry-blood evil acts, or radical spectrums of ideologies. The other day (also on the internet), somebody demanded me to choose whether to be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel.

There is no middle ground, no breathing space, no consideration buffer zones. No nuances are needed.

I got all of that in the years I traveled and studied in the U.S., where the media fed me the extremity and, of course, the boredom of living in black and white being stuck on the internet.

Why do I call it "feeding"?

I have been using the same set of social media accounts, but nowhere else into which I traveled except in the U.S, that my social newsfeed fed me extremely upsetting things, which left no space for nuances. Extraordinary good people. Extremely bad deeds. Radical speaking. Tremendously hatred. So much sweetness sometimes. Too salty, as it has to be.

Even the jokes on social media by U.S. social accounts have to be more upsetting than in other places. For example, yesterday, I watched a cooking video made by a Cambodian chef who cooked from her garden with wood stoves, and she fried chicken feet for some munching snack. A comment read like, I would fall die right away if I ate this disgusting food, posted by a man profile from Illinois. No excitement to know more about different way of being. Only disgusting sticks.

I get it because so many newspapers already reported that social media channels manipulate the algorithm to feed users the most upsetting things to generate the most responses. However, to know about that through newspapers is different from living in it and flowing into the spectrum of information.

The nuances of living are this magical experience of the mundanity that we (Here, when I say we, I mean social media people, like me) have already forgotten. In several cases, I realized how narrowed my emotional range has become with the shape from the online information reception:

One afternoon a year ago, I sat on a bench, looking out the Moonlight State Beach in California. An old couple came and sat on the bench next to my spot. The husband started talking loudly for about 20 minutes about nuclear reactions, how nuclear reactions came about, and what he had explored when he was working at the university. I was listening the whole time when the Sun was magnificently red.

In that 20 minutes, none of what he said stuck in my head. It was like a disturbing babble of a man who was unable to let his past go. He was so loud, and everyone nearby who came before them to watch the sunset already left.

Why was I still sitting there? - I was both annoyed and curious to see how that would come about with the stunning sunset. Would the nuclear reaction manifest in the the Sun's act of shining this world?

The woman was much younger than the man. Sometimes, I glanced at their site and saw her frozen in her own thoughts while he talked. She neither interrupted nor asked questions. None of what he spoke was in her interest, I thought. At that point, my thoughts were upsetting because I couldn't concentrate on the sunset, so whatever I thought was as extreme as the internet.

Suddenly, that woman stood up in the middle of his train of talk and whispered something in his ears. Then she left. She came back from the car with a black and white blanket. She put the blanket on his lap and on her lap, and wrapped it up to his other hands.

"Now, tell me again, what did you and Paul do at that lab in 1989?"

Now, this! I couldn't remember what that man said loud and clear in 20 minutes, yet I remembered this question quite clearly. I realized how "internet" I was, expecting the scene of utmost extreme or utmost boredom with high contrast to either dramatize or make a meme out of others' living experiences. Yet, those spectrums do not consider the nuances of the couple's relationship. He might have been loud and annoying and sinking into his own thoughts, but his partner listened to him, tried to keep him warm, and interacted with him in a meaningful way. That is how people are when they love and live together.

This sunset-watching scene returned to me often whenever someone mocked a couple with quite big age differences. Some days ago, a young, good-looking white man posted an AI-created picture of an old, miserable-looking white man wearing the U.S. flag standing with a very young and sexy Thai woman. The ugly AI-created design created a good laugh among the "Bangkok Expat" group. An old American man and a young Thai girl. A middle-aged woman and a young man. A 70-year-old Westerner and a young-Asian-looking partner. All are laughable, according to this post's standard.

Whatever they are into, the couple have the partner to be a companion and empathize with. However loud this man was, a sweet person kept him warm and asked him questions. Is it how we are supposed to be as human beings? - Or do we all forget that because we are very into these extreme jokes and memes created by the internet culture to stigmatize others for the sake of some cruel laughter?

Three years ago, I lived in Las Vegas amid the pandemic.

Near my place, there was a park. I often went to the park in the afternoon to run and do yoga alone. At that time, people sat and moved a bit away from each other to avoid the Covid-19 spread. I was sitting on a bench after finishing some workout. A man came by and sat right next to that bench. Because another person was quite close by, I put my face mask on. He took his face mask off and looked at me: "Do you really believe in this sh*t? It must be spreading with Chinese people like you," he said something like that to me.

I didn't know how I should respond. The man was much taller than I was; I couldn't stand a chance if I wanted to argue. I didn't want to communicate with a mask on. I took my bag and left.

The incident left a bruise in my head. I was new to the U.S. back then. I didn't believe rumors on the internet were in play right at my spot in the park. I got angry with myself that I didn't respond and gave him a proper answer. Maybe we might have got into a heated argument, and I might have spat at him at the end to scare him away because I looked Chinese. I was a coward. I was slow. I was unable to defend people who looked like me and let the lie spread. Countless blames circled in my head, and I couldn't sleep that night.

I read a lot more about the hate built upon Asian-looking people, about those who didn't believe in Covid-19, and laughed their heads off about face masks. I was burnt in this intense loathe. Everything I read on the internet proved to me right that the man used rumors and his hate to counter me at the park. I swore I would pay back properly if I had ever met anybody who talked to me like that. For some years, I would see this pattern of misinformation/correct information circling around the internet in every corner of the world.

After the pandemic, I visited my dear friend in a South East Asian country. To my surprise, he repeated almost everything the same as that guy I met in Las Vegas. My friend, who looked similar to me, an Asian, thought that the Chinese were spreading the disease to the world. The anger surged up my throat, and it took so much effort for me not to yell at him during our reunion at his family home.

I consider myself lucky because I didn't correct and argue with him at that dinner. We met each other often again at his home during the whole month I stayed there. I talked to his wife, his kids, his mother. I gradually understood how the idea came to his mind about the Chinese spreading disease or face masks didn't help.

Amid the pandemic, the local government and his village medical officials forced the villagers to buy face masks at steep prices. He couldn't go to work at the construction site, and had no income, yet he had to pay for face masks, some of which were over $5/each (To compare, if he worked from 7am-5pm, he would earn $11 at his job). He had a family of five to take care of, and every time the officials dropped by, he had to pay $25 for new face masks. They didn't use the masks because they were not allowed to leave home or village to go anywhere, yet they had to buy them.

Not only he but many villagers gradually believed that face masks were a hoax to coerce them into buying expensive face masks.

After I heard about the situation and checked the flimsy face masks piling up in his home (which normally cost less than $0.5), the bitterness rose in my mouth. I didn't know how much struggle they went through in three years of forced lockdown and the harsh practice of pandemic exploitation. My friend had to fight for his family in a meager economic situation, bad governance, and distorted and half-true information from an exploitative public health system. Of course, he would think as what he thought with that overwhelming burden.

These are the nuances we don't have anymore living on the internet. Everyone is labeled into one camp of belief or ideology. If people think like anti-vaxxers, they must be the anti-vaxxer mad heads. And we should confront them, just like that man in Vegas facing me, or I should have confronted him.

At my friend's reunion dinner, I might have lost a dear friendship if I confronted him with my distorted version of the truth from the internet brought from the U.S., without considering my friend's version of understanding.

I was in Saigon some weeks ago and walked out of a shopping mall. A middle-aged man approached me, "Miss, I went to Saigon with my Mom and we were robbed of all our bags, with very little money I had to take her to the cancer hospital. Now we have no money to save her. Can you spare me some help?"

I asked him: "I am sorry. Can you take me to your Mom? I want to see her and see how I can help."

The man swore at me and left. I knew this would happen because this is a typical scam in front of shopping malls in Saigon. But I decided to give myself a chance to understand the situation, stopping myself from being too fast to conclude, and lastly, allowing both of us to respond to our truth.

I got the truth I wanted. The man gave me the truth he didn't like. Both of us got on with our daily living. I didn't get upset for being scammed as I used to feel when I read the backend of their drama online. Real-life responses helped me unwind the anger, let me live, and let others live their ways with their free will.

I have stopped reading heart-wrenching or heart-warming stories with one snapshot on the internet, both in social media and online news outlets.

Readers and clickbait are the primary purposes for these channels to thrive. I, as a tool/user/product, suffer mentally and physically, buying into the emotional surge of the stories in the extreme. There is nothing good in an extremely good story; it not only shows how dire the situation is, it also shows how rare good deeds are, or it tries to prove that in this terrible world, someone is doing a good act.

I don't read cheesy good action on the internet because I don't believe that the world is getting terrible, no matter how I was convinced by all the forces in the world. I encounter good acts everywhere from almost everyone I meet. Living is hard, but living with good intentions is what everybody does on a daily basis.

There is nothing good in heart-wrenching or heart-breaking drama with one snapshot either. Sometimes, people write the stories for clickbait purposes, to buy the credibility and fame they long for, and sometimes just to smear others with dirt.

I have been searching for nuances in my surrounding world, from my response, the world's actions, the people I encounter, and the acts committed. Trying to get behind, beside, in front, under, above... an easy snapshot of the story gives me more access to understand people and their responses to the world. With the same appearance (the Las Vegas man and my friend), different responses come to different situations in their lives.

Life doesn't necessarily have to be black or white; for my life's sake, I am afraid of living in black and white. I have tried so hard to get over the control of technology and conscious manipulation tools.

Why do I want to live in such a monotonous way of being? - I refused, and get on living with the confusing and brilliant quality of responses that the world shows me. I yearn for the abruptly unpredictable outcome that breezes into my being, in the form of patient listening, time-taking conversation, efforts to collaborate and empathy. All of these require slow responses of every side involved. The effort of living is what I have skipped by years of living on the internet, woven into this habit of constant judging and being emotional.

No snapshot-good-deeds actually solve a painful situation. No quick torn-cloth exposure makes the conflict better. There is no need for both chicken soup and the devil.

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