More Thoughts From Me #70: Thats Your Opinion

I use to get into “fights” on twitter a lot. I would say something (or I’d say something to somebody else), somebody would disagree with me, and we’d go back and forth until we both got fed up and unfollowed and/or blocked each other. The problem with fights on the internet, especially places like Twitter, is that nobody wins. EVER. If somebody has their mind made up, you are not likely to change it. So why do we feel the need to share our opinions? Why we do we feel the need to say “No you are wrong” when we disagree with someone? I wonder…

If you’re a video game fan, then its likely you have an opinion on something game related. Whether that opinion is related to a well loved game, a hated game, a company you love or one you hate, you can bet someone else feels the same and someone else definitly feels the opposite way too.

And sometimes, you just feel like talking about the stuff you love or the stuff you hate. You will just share your opinion and then all of sudden…you’re having a Twitter agrument.

If you share your opinion online, in some kind of social media thats open to the public, then you open your self up to other peoples opinions. Someone might see what you posted and want to tell you what they think. No, you didn’t ask them what they thought. You didn’t say “So what do you guys think?”. If you did that, then you asked for it. But most of the time, you just want to say what you think and you are not asking for a fight.

It doesn’t matter if you’re asking for a fight or not. If someone disagrees with you, whether they are a follower or just a random person, they’ll let you know what they think. Of course, you do have options if this happens. You can reply back to them or you can ignore them. If you reply to them, it could lead to an interesting conversation, but most likey it’ll lead to a fight.

Nobody wins in these internet fights. I’ve gone through a few of them and they just go around in circles and eventually one or both of the people invovled just get fed up and stop talking to each other. What happens if you just ignore the person?

You might think its rude to ignore people but I’ve found that its the best solution when it comes to social media. I’m not saying you should block the person or unfollow them. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t reply to them if you think a fight is about to happen. I’m sure some think thats rude or cowardly.

Listen: this is the internet. No good comes from fighting somebody about an opinion. You have your opinion, they have their opinion, and its farfetched to believe you’ll change someones mind. You can read what they said and consider it. Its not a bad thing to hear other opinions. However, it can be very annoying to get a negative, unsolicited opinion about something you love.

For instance, if I said that I thought Animal Crossing was the best game ever and then, out of nowhere, someone disagrees with me and tells me why Animal Crossing sucks. I’ve never had this happen. Though if I did, I’d probably block the person. I did have someone tell me once why they disagreed with me about a tv show I loved. It doesn’t matter what media you care about, there will always be people who wants to fight or just talk trash about the thing you love. Why do we do this?

So I pass this question over to you now, because I have no answers. I’m not sure why we feel like we need to argue with people on social media. Why can’t people have opinions without someone feeling the need to disagree them about it?

And this is a much worse problem when you are famous or sort of famous (not saying I am, lol, just saying I’ve seen it happen). It seems like famous or sort of famous people can’t have opinions. So should we just not have an opinion on social media? How should we deal with people who just won’t leave us alone? Let me know what you think in the comments. I am asking for your opinion…

Next week: Space, the final frontier! Star Trek in video games. Have we ever had a great Trek game? I look back at the Star Trek games I’ve played. And I also share with you my idea of a cool Trek game.