The Overbearing Weight of the Opinions of Everybody Else About You
"You’ll stop caring what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do."
— David Foster Wallace
The persistent haunting of other people is never more present and volatile than when subjecting yourself to the thoughts and lives of everyone online. That said, the presence of feeling judged by those around you was a problem long before the internet was created and co-opted by commerce and public shaming.
Shame has been a tool of the zealots and puritans for as long as people could band together in tribes and find scapegoats, which could be made examples. The reason we continue to make use of phrases from historical persecution—witch hunt, tar and feather, McCarthyism—is that any time ideologues get it in their heads to pick on some segment of the populace it follows the same basic structure and outcome.
When shame doesn’t work, the mob loses their shit as if to dare ignore their outrage and self-righteous desire to control is so unacceptable that the persecuted must then be destroyed altogether rather than allow even one to survive.
Aziz Ansari was trolled for being the dick-end of a bad date—fully consensual, completely non-rapey, yet when things didn’t end as a love affair but a one night stand with a famous guy, she jumped on the #MeToo train and rode it with glee—and he thoroughly wore his hair shirt and publicly apologized. He was allowed to continue his track without every TwitterFuck and Incensed Feminista responding with vitriol when he had the temerity to enjoy a meal n public.
Louis C.K. was not quite so contrite—he did apologize but apparently not enough or as completely self-deprecating—and so his (also consensual and non-rapey) offense sentenced him to non-stop horror at the mention of his name in the public discourse. Sure, as the bully apologists will claim, he’s still working, but how conveniently hypocritical for the Woke to despise the bullying by millions online of Leslie Jones but champion the same treatment for the comedian with a masturbation fetish.
In part, I think we hate Donald Trump with such an unreasoning passion is that he is wholly unapologetic. He demonstrates no sense of shame despite our best and almost hourly attempts to make him feel it. When confronted with his open and careless defiance of our best efforts to bring him down, to hurt him emotionally, to finally cease his trolling and bullying, we lose our minds and our compass no longer points north but all over the place.
While an obvious overcorrection on the part of Trump, I think it’s a healthy impulse to disconnect some from the need of others to hurl judgment upon us. The constant demand for apology followed by the unending criticism of the quality or sincerity of the response creates ouroboros that eats us alive.
First, know your values. Understand your principles and stick to them regardless of the chattering of thumb-typed dipshittery.
Second, practice speaking your mind. This doesn’t mean you have to be combative or an asshole about it. Just clear through your need to negotiate every interaction and speak honestly.
Third, judge others less. Spend less time doing to others what you find is crippling you.
Fourth, GET THE FUCK OFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA! Not a purge or a break. Get rid of it. It is built for this sorbet of bullying nonsense and is optimally utilized to make you feel like shit. You know that narcissistic boyfriend you finally managed to escape? That is Facebook and Twitter. They are your ex-boyfriend who gaslit you and told you you were fat or stupid or voted for the wrong person.
Finally, if you do something you believe you should be ashamed for doing, rectify the situation, apologize as best as you can, and divorce yourself of it. Sure, people on the tubes will bring it up to prevent you from doing something important or enjoyable but when they bring it up, smile and say, “Yup. I did that. I apologized and I’m over it. Why aren’t you?”
