Social Media Arguing
This week’s story is about someone’s response to a post I put on Social media. Let me just say I thought it was quite humorous. There was a headline quoting a doctor that recommended wearing four masks. I put the headline in the post and added this:
I would like to do a study. Please answer honestly. Which do you think provides more protection from the Covid Apocalypse:
- Two Masks
- Four Masks
- Hazmat Suit
- Full body condom
Asking for a friend.
I had a few people respond to the humor of the post. I want to share the one response I received from someone I originally considered a friend that did not see the humor. They informed me there are members of our community that are immune compromised such as cancer patients that masks are critical for their safety. I was told the post was in bad taste and I should hold myself to a higher standard. I tried to reply to their post, but for some reason they removed it.
Normally, I wouldn’t have let this bother me, but when they decided to use cancer patients as the target group to reprimand me with, I felt it deserved a response. This was my reply to the person who posted this.
“I am replying to A*** E***** on a comment telling me this is in bad taste and I am being insensitive to cancer patients. I’m not sure why you removed it because you clearly have that opinion, or you wouldn’t have posted it to begin with. I would like to think if anyone is sensitive to cancer patients it would be me. I know the majority of cancer patients I have helped out and have developed true friendships with would see the humor in this. I apologize to you and anyone else that finds this offensive. That certainly wasn’t my intention.
At this point, he contacted me through private messaging asking me to remove my post. “Why, exactly?” was my reply. “Because I asked you to” he responded. The conversation went back and forth. I explained I was simply apologizing to him. He then asked if I would remove his name from the post. That still puzzles me. This person clearly sees that it is their responsibility to point out the cruelty and insensitivity of others. The last thing they told me was their post didn’t say I was insensitive to cancer patients, but I clearly took it that way.
This will be my final statement to this person. Your response implies I am against wearing masks which is not true. When you stated the members of the cancer community are immune compromised you are suggesting my post is insensitive to them. You state the post is in bad taste and I have low standards by posting it. And my favorite was the last point letting me know I am not smart enough to know what you meant.
My question to you is this. Since you care enough about the immune compromised community to call me out on this, why did you remove your post? It is clear you consider yourself more compassionate, sophisticated, and intelligent than me. You probably are. I will just point out one last thing and then move on. Thanks to the extremely generous community we live in, the Foundation run by this insensitive, tasteless, low standard, and unintelligent person distributed over $30,000 to cancer patients and their families last year. I would like to know other than hitting keys on your keyboard, what was your contribution?
I still maintain the majority of the cancer patients I know would find the humor in the post and not be offended. But what do I know? I’m not smart enough to know an insult is not an insult. Thanks for reading.
Next week: Moving on
P.S. Thanks for letting me get that rant out of my system. I’m feeling much better now.