Kiddo,

One of the resolution to your concern is, we all could champion in refraining from posting on threads generated with little uprightness or generated flippantly. But again, that is not going to happen because people always will look for posts that will be a little sensitive in nature. I often find myself replying on threads that propagate hatred and bigotry when I could have easily done without. So partly I am ‘one’ of those people you are speaking of.  But here is a difference; I refute an argument only when I have a substantial ground to bolster my point, and when there is someone who pitches in a stronger argument than mine, I gladly retreat.

However, ‘screwing up’ a well written post is something I have always struggled to understand. But maybe it is an individual’s insecurity that leads him/her to do so. For example, here is an original post –

“ Shristi Shrestha is a good looking person, I hope she wins Miss World pageant”

And then there is a reply like this –

“Miss world my rear side, my friend banged her in Maitidevi”

Funny someone mentioned Nas above, his reply used to be exactly in similar fashion until he decided to beguile most of us since 2008 with his new soul-distilling analytical avatar. I am not being negative; I am just simply stating the fact.

This type of argument is uncalled for, and with little connection to the content, but we mostly do that for some reason. One of the reasons could be her fame and prettiness we do not have a chance of beating against, plain jealousy as you might say, the insecurity that a fellow Nepalese is so pretty and popular, you just want to either kill her or kill yourself. And the other reason could be we cannot live without posting something witty, cunning, negative that makes us believe we are better than the rest. Also, the competition to garner ‘likes’ in sajha plays a pivotal part as well. You might be amazed how many people ‘like’ sarcasm.

But then there is another reply to the same post –

“She is so ‘preety’, she looks like ‘Angleina Joli’, go Nepal. We are Nepali, we are Gorkhali, our blood is warm, and we need to support our sister Shristi”

Again, we all have a little issue with this post because for one, the poster is so smitten by her beauty and his/her nepali pride that he/she doesn’t even care about spelling mistakes. This is jingoism, which could lead to a little combativeness if a woman from a neighboring country beats her. I personally have issue on this post because the poster has little visibility about the beauty pageant. More or less like a reverse situation where one ‘likes’ a status in facebook where one says ‘I am so sad my dad passed away yesterday’.

And then there is one more reply to this post –

“ She is very beautiful, and seems promising, but the questionnaire round could be a little hard on her considering she struggles to get her point across, I have my fingers crossed, may she win”

This is perhaps the MOST MUNDANE AND EQUIVOCAL reply to the original post because it lacks spice, sarcasm  and thrill and  is very likely to get unnoticed unless the person with the second type of reply comes ahead and says ‘what makes you think she cannot speak English you ‘jakass’

I know I am rambling, but then there are lots of variables that come into play in such replies. Our upbringing, our aspirations, our principles, our attitudes, our insecurities, our pool of friends, the environment we live in all play their own part in crafting our outlook. We cannot change it unless we completely overhaul our beliefs.

I support argument, but I do not support belligerence. I support wit and humor, but I do not support rebukes and sarcasm. There is a thin line between these extremes that people often fail to acknowledge. That is why we are who we are.

Time to Yawn.

Last edited: 07-Aug-12 09:13 AM