Lately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend on Twitter, people are downright rude to each other. Now I know the internet is not the shining example of human decency, but I’ve been watching people pass off being rude as ‘just telling the truth’. As if some flippant statement about being a truth teller can absolve them of common adult behaviour.
What follows is an open letter to all the truth tellers.
An Open Letter
I’ve been following you on Twitter for a while now. Watching you tell the “truth” to everyone you can find. Here’s the truth for you though.
You’re an asshat
I’ve always found it funny that your particular brand of truth seems to offend the person you’re telling the truth to. In fact I’ve rarely gone a day without seeing you post something that could be considered racist, sexist or rude and you always follow it up with a statement about how you’re telling the truth. I don’t think that’s what’s really happening though.
I really think that you’re pretty insecure and need to offend others just to feel better about yourself. Then somewhere a grain of common decency surfaces and you realize your an asshat. So you dutifully make some blanket statement about telling the truth. That way you can get away with saying pretty much anything. If you truly cared about others your brand of truth would come out much differently.
Let’s use the age old illustration of a wife/girlfriend asking if what she is wearing makes her look fat. What if the truth is she looks like a bloated whale? Are you going to say.
“Yes babe you look like a dead whale that’s beached and swelling in that. Don’t get mad, I’m just telling the truth”.
Not if you really want to stay in a relationship with her. You’re going to say that she might be able to find something that is more flattering. Both of those statements are truth, but the first one is how you talk.
It’s about time you remember what a real adult acts like and change your tune on the truth. Or I guess you could continue to act like a petulant teenager through the rest of your 30’s.
4 responses to “Cloaking Rudeness as Telling the Truth”
The problem with open letters is that only people who are already interested in being nice will straighten up and fly right. Asshats will just keep Asshattin’. Sometimes it’s just better to name names.
True. Then you walk a very fine line to becoming the asshat in the story. I’ve certainly done my fair share of being an idiot, I just hope that when I get called on it I can take steps to fix the situation not default to “Hey I’m just telling the truth.” That’s totally an escape for being a jerk.
The medium affects the message. With only have 140 chars to play with there’s not always room for a sugary coating. If you assume someone is being offensive, that’s what you’ll see. I’m not saying the asshats aren’t out there (they are) but if you’re going to survive on the interwebs (like in the rest of the world) you have to adjust you asshat-sensitivity filter or get used to crying yourself to sleep at night. If you put yourself out there (nobody is forcing you) then haters are gonna hate.
Yes there does need to be a level of grace extended because of the lack of characters in a Tweet and the lack of tone, body language. I suppose I’m trying te speak more to a few people where a few times a week they are telling someone not to get offended because it’s just the truth. If many people are calling you on the same thing, maybe you are the issue.