I sat down this morning to peruse my normal list of Bloglines subscriptions and noticed an upsetting trend. I don’t know if there is something in the air or what but people are just being mean and rude in other people’s comments. What is up with that? And why do people who choose to be catty and nasty and snarky always seem to do it anonymously?

I’ve seen enough adoption snarkiness over the last year to know that adoption and catty women can go hand in hand. It is a shame that the process brings out the worst in some women but I have also met some of the best, nicest, most considerate and supportive women through this same process. So you take the bad with the good.

I guess blogging is the same way.

I have read (and sometimes met) some of the most amazing women through their blogs. I consider blogging to be a mostly positive thing that brings like people together and allows us all to have a tiny peek into each other’s lives and thoughts.

But you might notice I said “tiny peek” and not “picture window view” or “reality tv-esque reveal”. Because no matter how open a person may seem in their blog, I guarantee you it is still only a tiny peek. A person’s day is made up of hundreds of thousands of moments, feelings, emotions, interactions and incidents. Those few moments we choose to blog may not be the most important, the most influential, the most special or genuine or depressing or scary. Those private moments are often the ones we keep and hold dear, sharing only with our closest friends and family.

To read a blog and judge a person’s character, their worthiness, their intent or desires or sanity or kindness or abilities as a parent is nothing but ignorant. It is no different than making an assumption about the kind of person an actor is based solely on his performance as a character in a movie. Do people not really realize this? I question why anyone would spend moments of their day reading other people’s blogs for the seemingly sole purpose of judging them? People like this clearly have really lacking self-esteems and need to judge others in order to build themselves up, rationalize their own parenting or validate themselves in whatever way most needed. And why would those same people go ahead and comment, publicly but anonymously? Because the comment is intended only for themselves and they want the release without the responsibility that goes with it, I guess. These comments aren’t constructive, kind, helpful, supportive or otherwise useful. They are just a waste of pixels. They are nothing but spam.

:: this message brought to you by your friendly protective friend and fellow blogger. Thankfully I have not been the (knowing) recipient of Blog Snarkiness so far but I’m sure it is just a matter of time.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Taboo Topics, Venting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.