Opinions

At the beginning of summer this year, the company which provides my day job made the difficult decision to begin phasing out a number of locations across the country. The unfortunate byproduct of this was a large number of positions being eliminated at the various affected campuses. It wasn’t unexpected, but it was still an emotional time; the nature of my own position meant I knew a lot of the people who were let go, and a number of them were personal friends. To make things worse, the day of the announcement was also the first day after my very good friend and work partner had left for a different job, and we’d not yet found a replacement for her shift. Reeling from the shock and chaos that swirled about in those first few weeks, it was hard not to despair.
But the darkest moment was when a former student – a real gossip queen – stopped by during the busy time just before class to give her two cents on the whole situation and get whatever dirt. As my friends will tell you, I dislike gossip as a general rule, but I especially despise when someone comes to talk to me for the sole purpose of trying to extract information of which they have no business. All the worse if the topic being inquired about is one of a personal nature, and if the person asking is doing so in a way that impedes my work. Hit all those points and now my temper is hot.

She had a lot of questions I didn’t have answers to and a lot that I wouldn’t have answered if I did. My canned (if somewhat irritated) responses to her trying to wheedle something juicy out of me frustrated her, but not enough to take the hint and go on her merry way. Instead, after hitting the proverbial wall several times with her questions and getting increasingly exasperated with me, she finally let out a snotty, “Well, I’m SURE you have an OPINION, don’t you?”

I stopped what I was doing and took a deep breath. My temper may have been boiling, but because I am a professional, I will keep that temper in check publicly¹. But sometimes, like this moment, it’s a little more difficult. I turned to look her dead in the eye. “Of course I do,” I responded evenly through gritted teeth. “But I’m not going to share it in a public forum, and I’m certainly not going to share it with you.”

*****

With the advent of the Internet, anyone with access to a computer and a connection has a platform to spout off whatever views they want about whatever topics they want, whether their information is accurate or not. Whether they use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media forum², just a couple of shares or retweets and one person’s thoughts can suddenly have an audience of thousands or more in a very short period of time. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – there have been plenty of instances where news disseminated through social media reached a broader audience in a shorter period of time and was able to recruit more helping hands in an emergency than could ever have been done in the past. Humans are by nature a social species, and having tools to aid in that interaction can make a huge positive impact. It’s amazing to think that we live in an era now where the individual has more power than ever before to have their voice heard.

But with power comes responsibility. Each person is personally responsible for the words that come out of their mouths or over their keyboards. In the United States, we celebrate our freedom of speech (First Amendment, baby), but it’s important to remember that freedom of speech does not mean a freedom from consequences on what we say – if a guy calls his girlfriend fat, he runs the risk of her leaving. If he uses an ethnic slur against his boss, he’s going to get canned. That’s not infringing on his right to free speech; it’s showing that our words and actions have repercussions, and if we don’t want to deal with the repercussions, we way want to rethink how we say something…or avoid saying it at all.

The more one is visible in the public eye, the greater that responsibility becomes. Streamers have to be very aware of this on multiple grounds – most of us don’t make enough from our broadcasts to quit our day jobs, so we have to maintain a certain level of decorum to make sure we can continue to pay the rent and put food on the table. Streamers with kids are aware of the fact that their offspring and their offspring’s friends will most likely stumble across their recordings someday and need to think about what kind of message they’re leaving behind. More famous individuals need to be aware that the wrong thing spouted off to the wrong person can end a career (Mel Gibson, anyone?).

Personally, I have a number of things to bear in mind before I put something out there publicly. In addition to the discretion used in regards to my day job³, I have to set examples for my writers and my students. I don’t have kids of my own, but I do have younger people who look up to me and mimic what I do. I’m well aware they’re watching. So if I’m looking at a situation and taking the role of Switzerland in regards to an issue, don’t automatically assume it’s because I don’t have an opinion. I might be gathering information. I may be practicing non-reactionary responses to control my temper rather than making snap judgements. I may be quietly teaching others to gather information and think through issues for themselves rather than taking the opinion of whichever authority figures they try to model after.

Or maybe, like the events of this weekend or the exchange with the former student in my resource center, a particular topic is just a little too personal for me to discuss outside of a very select group of people.

*****
¹ Usually.

² Facebook meme reposts are a big offender – a little snippet of opinion attached to the juvenile challenge of “Share if you agree! Only 1% of you will have the balls to repost this, the rest are Communist puppy-haters.” Readers, please, if this is you, please stop. Fact check things before you re-post.

³ Who have been exceptionally supportive of my RCM projects, which is not generally the norm between a corporate entity and a media organization. I’m acutely aware that a lot of trust was placed on me not to screw things up.