I have a serious illness and I have done a self-diagnosis. I suffer from Opinion Fatigue.
It is mainly caused by the awesome people I follow on twitter and the media.
Just recently we had the Big Race Debacle of May 2012. I specify the month because I’m pretty sure we’ll have another one next month. And the month thereafter. It will have different players, but it will center around the same theme.
Then this week we had The First Big March Debacle. I call this the First March Debacle because I’m pretty sure there will be more, very soon. As a sidebar: I am of the opinion (YES! I have an opinion!) that Helen Zille secretly rubbed her hands in glee over that disaster as it exposed the underlying sticks and stones (so to speak) mentality of our society.
Here’s how it plays out:
A bunch of Journos are on the scene of the “crime”, be it virtually or physically.
They tweet about it.
Everyone gathers at the virtual dinner table (twitter) to see what is happening. There is much grumbling and mumbling and the racket is deafening.
The journos are retweeted with opinions.
The opinions get retweeted with more opinions.
People get upset about other people’s opinions.
There is a twitter war with sides being taken very swiftly.
No one wins.
We inevitably revert back to another Big Race Debacle.
Everyone that dared to step away from twitter for 5 seconds wants to know what the hell happened.
Everything gets rehashed.
Rinse and repeat opinions.
Rinse and repeat arguments about opinions.
Another virtual scuffle breaks out.
No one wins again.
All this while? The journos stand back and enjoy the virtual shit storm, all the while also rubbing their hands in sheer glee.
Then those journos go away and think about the events and opinions of some people that weighed in.
Then everyone writes an opinion piece.
Or an opinion piece about someone else’s opinion piece.
And few people remember what actually happened.
But the best thing of all: people’s tweets are suddenly news. It irks me that quoting people’s tweets has become news. Surely they are mostly opinions and not fact? It makes me feel a little dirty.
I acknowledge that there is never a 100% true reflection of the facts, only a perceived reality, but aren’t we moving further and further away from reality and closer and closer to the perceptions and opinions of but a few people?
One of the things I love about twitter is that I get to see the thoughts of very bright and very knowledgeable people as events unfold, it just gets incredibly noisy. Instead of wanting to weigh in I find myself backing away until all the noise dies down and everyone has gone away to write their opinion pieces or people are busy reading the opinion pieces.
Instead of being a place that is entertaining and supportive it has become a competition of who can shout the loudest and it is exhausting. (And don’t for a second think I’m completely innocent, I also have my moments!)
Does this mean I’m going to abandon twitter altogether? Hell no, but it does mean that I should be looking at who I follow. Which kills me, because I love everyone I follow and I like being able to stick my nose in and have a conversation with random people, there’s just too much other noise.
What do you think? Too noisy or do you love it?