The Internet and the Tyranny of The Offended

I don’t want everyone to die of shock, so I’m just going to warn you that this is a rare serious post (I do those every now and then.)

While we all know the internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war and was popularized by porn,  one of its major uses lately seems to be as the stomping ground of The Offended.  You’ve likely seen them on various message boards, social networking sites, blog comments, etc.  They’re very easy to spot in that someone will make a rather innocuous comment and one of The Offended will comment back with vehement ferocity, accusing the original poster of all sorts of malicious intent and shaming them for not realizing they could have said something to Offend someone.

The old saying “you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time” rings especially true on the internet where there live swarms of people who seemingly wait for the opportunity to let you know how very Offended they are.  The Offended, basically, want everything that you do or say to conform to their value system and the moment you say something that they disagree with, rather than keeping quiet about it and ignoring it like a sane person would, they let you know that they are Offended!

The Offended are more of less the ones responsible for the latest, greatest eroge situation because someone let them know about a stupid game called Rapelay and told them what it was about, and they became Offended!  Sure, most sane people don’t play that game anyway and sure you could goto Wal-Mart and buy Grand Theft Auto IV, a game which rewards you with cash for killing people, but The Offended found something that had to be stopped.  I don’t blame the eroge makers for blocking non-Japanese IP’s from browsing their sites, as I’m sure that The Offended are looking through them for something else to be Offended about.

I myself was attacked by one of The Offended after I posted something on Twitter about morbidly obese people always using the handicapped electric carts at stores (instead of letting people who are actually handicapped use them.)  I’m sure you’ve seen them yourself, fat mom, fat dad, fat kids all riding around on electric carts piling them full of donuts, hostess cupcakes, and soda.  Naturally someone was Offended by this and called me an “insensitive prick” before sending me a couple of private messages about how their mom was overweight because of knee problems and they were REALLY really really upset by the comments I made, then promptly unfollowed me.  Granted, someone handicapped like their mom was the person I was talking about that should be able to use the carts, but rule #1 of The Offended is that the only proper reaction is a knee-jerk overreaction.

The Offended are a very small minority on the internet, yet the most vocal minority in that they complain the longest and the loudest, and they personally attack you.  I know you’re wondering what the best way to handle The Offended is; the solution is very simple, just ignore them.  Ignore them and never, ever mold the things you want to say around not trying to Offend someone; it’s impossible to not offend The Offended.

If you want a case study on ignoring them, you have to look no further than a few of my favorite BBC television personalities; Gordon Ramsey and Jeremy Clarkson.  Both of these people offend various groups all of the time with the comments that they make, yet both of them are extremely popular.  One of the reasons being that they speak their mind and don’t stand around acting wishy-washy trying to twist themselves into knots so as to not offend someone.  People respect you for speaking your mind and not backing down from nonsense complaints; they don’t respect someone who dances around everything trying to avoid any confrontation ever.

So, if you’re a sane person, say what you want to say and don’t worry about who may be Offended.  If you are one of The Offended, SHUT UP!