The Problem With the "Everybody's A Broadcaster" World Of Social Media
I'm a newspaper columnist, and I've been one for a long time, which is to say I used to have to fax my column in to the New York Daily News because nobody there had email.
It used to be that there was some vetting before you could put your views out to the masses. You generally had to be considered a person who had some sort of wisdom and judgment as well as some writing ability.
Social media, of course, changed that.
However, we are still operating under the old standard, meaning we judge everyone harshly.
McKay Smith, a guy who does these amazing long tweet threads about Holocaust stories and survivors tweeted this -- and I am with him 100%:
The line that shouldn't be crossed is destroying this poor young woman for a really terrible mistake.
— McKay Smith (@McKayMSmith) September 14, 2019
You are a Museum account. Rise above this. https://t.co/VXAstBhRWy
He said he's losing countless followers because of this tweet, but he is absolutely right.
This is the tweet and the tweet retweeted within it about a pose of a girl visiting Auschwitz by some UK media dude named Grant Tucker: "Imagine visiting Auschwitz and making it your priority to take a photo with your ass sticking out on the same tracks that transported millions to their death."
(UPDATE: Museum erased the tweet, but the guy who posted it put it up. Click on the link within the tweet. I don't want to post it large and further abuse the girl.)
Pictures can capture important moments, emotions and shape our memory.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) September 14, 2019
But there are lines that should not be crossed. The lines of respect & decency. The lines of simple common sense.
While visiting @AuschwitzMuseum take pictures. But respect the history of this tragic site. https://t.co/RfxwfCYxGJ
Somebody in the thread pointed out that maybe she has some patented pose and just struck it without giving it too much thought.
Maybe she's not all that mature.
Does that call for widespread public shaming?
Which is more damaging, an ass-out picture in front of Auschwitz or countless strangers on the Internet going after a young woman?
Appreciate Jon Ronson:
Grant, I think for fairness you should tweet the photos of the other millions of tourists who don't behave perfectly at Auschwitz.
— jon ronson (@jonronson) September 14, 2019
And my final words:
None of us behave well at all times. If our behavior were constantly documented and scrutinized, we'd all go through regular social media witch burnings.
To be human is to be an asshole. To have character is to recognize when you've been an asshole, be accountable, make a meaningful try at doing better, being better.
Good common sense response.
jdgalt at September 15, 2019 6:53 AM
I guess I'll be the bad guy. I don't see an issue with that picture. It doesn't look disrespectful to me. That said I am also fine with the museum message written above.
Ben at September 15, 2019 7:47 AM
And then we have professional journalists engaging in this:
9/11 pareidolia in the sky.
Standards haven't just slipped, they've collapsed.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 15, 2019 8:01 AM
Amy's right; the young woman shouldn't have her life ruined for something so insignificant.
Her ass, however, is something to be proud of, so there is that.
roadgeek at September 15, 2019 8:22 AM
I've never understood "selfies" anyway.
So, yea, it could be that is her typical stance when taking a selfie.
And yes, Amy, you are spot on with "everyone's a broadcaster".
People take pictures, post tweets, etc. that in the past would have only been seen/heard by their friends. We didn't have the technology to share with those beyond our small circle of friends.
Today, with the technology of twitter, Facebook, etc., anything online can be shared by millions.
And most people have not really woken up to that fact. Say or do something stupid and it WILL be shared by others.
And, then there is another issue too. They have turned a place of mass murder into a tourist spot - just what on earth did they think would happen?
I see this kind of "bad" behavior often near ground zero in New York. It has become a tourist spot; one of the "must see" or "must do" things in New York. So, of course, there are always those who do something that will bother others.
And, this is really nothing new. I remember being in Europe decades ago, well before social media and cell phone cameras were common. Just about every major church that we went to visit (as tourists) had a sign near the front door reminding folks that this was not just a tourist spot, but, that it was a functioning house of worship and asked that you behave appropriately.
In the one church we were inside when a christening started; so, we sat in one of the pews in the back and just stayed quiet until the short service was over. Not everyone will do so; and if it gets out of hand, then stop being a tourist spot.
charles at September 15, 2019 10:01 AM
"Which is more damaging, an ass-out picture in front of Auschwitz or countless strangers on the Internet going after a young woman?"
Not the first misbehavior of the antisocial media crowd, and not the last; FB/Twitter/Instagram et al just make it easier and quicker to advertise your (lack of) character.
August Ames was hounded on Twitter for expressing her doubts about starring in an X-rated video with a bisexual male. She was correct to be concerned, because even in the porn industry, AIDS is a) real, and b) more likely to be carried by bisexual or gay men than straight men.
Called every name in the book, she killed herself.
Say what you want about her lack of toughness, it makes me glad I don't have Twitter.
Radwaste at September 15, 2019 10:20 AM
That pose is typical to gymnastics and some dance styles. You'll see it used to end the performance. There's no reason to assume she's trying to be sexy. It's just an odd choice in that context. But then there is no 'good' Auschwitz pose.
We're entering a dangerous time in which media companies are struggling with dwindling resources and so journalists have increasingly been preying on ( 'calling out') unknown members of the public. Even bigger outlets like CNN have been doing this. And their presentation of the target is typically very biased.
I'd love to see someone return the favor and discredit this practice in the process.
For instance, it wouldn't be difficult to fabricate evidence that Tucker had a prior relationship with this woman and has been stalking her. That recently his behavior has become more threatening. And now he's pasted an old picture of her onto one of Auschwitz to humiliate her on social media. Put that out anonymously as a women too afraid of him to reveal yourself, then let him cook for a while. Once things have reached a boil you can reveal that it was all fake.
That's actually something the hooligans at 4chan would enjoy, and I bet they'd be good at it.
Maura at September 15, 2019 12:45 PM
"There's no reason to assume she's trying to be sexy."
'Jumping on dead Jews at Auschwitz' - an artist responds.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 15, 2019 1:16 PM
I'm so ancient I remember when taking your own picture everywhere you go and showing it to everyone you know would be considered a personality disorder.
Boy, the way Glenn Miller played ...
Kevin at September 15, 2019 1:24 PM
Even bigger outlets like CNN have been doing this.
It's their only reason to exist. From the Covington Boys to the reddit user who was threatened with doxxing for doing a video mashup, and pretty much everyone in between.
It's all they've got.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 15, 2019 3:07 PM
> Her ass, however, is something
> to be proud of
Gee, thanks, Argy... Now I have to go back and figure out who she is and what she said.
(Cursory investigation when Amy first posted this was a thicket of broken links and overly-discreet judgments. It was like trying figure out what Pizzagate was all about.)
(Or was that gamergate?…)
Crid at September 15, 2019 3:24 PM
Chances are, she was never taught anything in school about Auschwitz, or WWII in general. To her, it was just another tourist stop.
Cousin Dave at September 16, 2019 8:19 AM
> To her, it was just
> another tourist stop.
A few years ago, I think it was at Auschwitz, there was an enormous international dustup when someone tried to open a discotheque a mere nine hundred yards of the site. The club owner was annoyed, and I can sympathize. (Ah, here 'tis.)
Every corner of our planet is haunted. Go back far enough and there's a savage rape and an abject murder in every backyard. We all know what it's like to see a spot on a highway with partially-burned candles and windblown ribbons and signs where some beloved family marker (perhaps even our own) was killed in a car crash… And then, passing by months later, to see no marking for the event whatsoever.
Three generations later, German children wonder if they'll be allowed to dance and chase tail as do young people around the globe, or whether a (forbidding) exception is to be made in their case.
Crid at September 16, 2019 8:39 AM
Member, not marker. Proofreading is for ninnies.
Crid at September 16, 2019 8:40 AM
"German children wonder if they'll be allowed to dance"
Apparently it's still strangling their sense of humor.
Patton Oswalt
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 16, 2019 9:03 AM
Bob Newhart on the German sense of humor: Thissss man hasss no hair. Vhy do you call him curly?
Crid at September 16, 2019 10:55 AM
Of course, the real way to prevent another Holocaust with Auschwitz and the countless other death factories is to turn in your guns and trust the government.
Right on Beto.
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Jay J. Hector at September 17, 2019 5:22 AM
"I'm so ancient I remember when taking your own picture everywhere you go and showing it to everyone you know would be considered a personality disorder."
The word you're seeking is narcissism. I'll be the devil's advocate here. Social media is a blight on civilization. Everyone does become a broadcaster, with no merit-based barriers to entry. Yes, when you visit Auschwitz and think it's appropriate to take a selfie, and then publish it, there's inherently broken about that. Unfortunately, that brokenness will only spread because people are, by and large, stupid lemmings, and because postmodern thought has outlawed the concept of shame. Shame serves a purpose in maintaining civilization, and if the shaming of this woman for this tasteless exercise in narcissism, makes even a few people stop and think before taking and posting a selfie there or similar places, then it's worthwhile. It won't ruin her life - it will be forgotten within days, and only people even more broken who comb the internet for ancient sources of outrage will remember it.
The real question is whether millennials are capable of learning better judgement about social media.
"Three generations later, German children wonder if they'll be allowed to dance and chase tail as do young people around the globe, or whether a (forbidding) exception is to be made in their case."
It's less than 5% of the area of a rather small town, and it's not in Germany. It's smaller than thousands of the world's cemeteries. Is there no part of the world that you can accept not being given over to frivolity?
bw1 at September 19, 2019 5:54 PM
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