Growing up in high school I went through the MSN messenger era. I would spend hours each day after school with friends chatting online. MSN messenger didn’t have photos and videos like todays social media carriers. ‘
It was basic: hop online and chat with your friends. Overtime it did get a little more entertaining, it offered new features to socialise with friends, but it ultimately gave way to bigger and better things like Myspace. This was the greatest, we could share photos, watch videos, customise our Myspace page, it even had a top 5 friends list! Oh to be on that list…
As I grew up, Facebook became all the rage and eventually Myspace disappeared into history. There are now currently over 1 billion people who have a Facebook account. More people are connected today than ever before, I can share my life in Australia with family and friends all over the world. I can document my important life milestones, I have even created a private page just for family and friends to store photos of my little girl Chelsea. Those photos will definitely come out at her 21st!
Facebook has grown way beyond being just a social media resource, it is where a lot of people get their current news and events, every business, every media outlet, most people I know, will have their very own Facebook page. It is almost abnormal not to have a Facebook account.
It has been a medium for many to express their views and opinions. Large-scale movements have even used social media as a platform for change or awareness. The point I am getting at is, a lot of people use social media daily and while there is a lot of good that can be done with it, so can a lot of bad.
Nasty trends
Over the past couple of years there has been a trend for some users to pass around photos of people who would be considered by society to be “different” or “unattractive”. These photos would consist of a person who is either heavily tattooed, heavily pierced, overweight or have a facial deformity of some kind, and people were encouraged to describe them in one word or phrase. The comments that people would leave were horrendous:
Idiot…
Disgusting…
Stupid…
Loser…
Kill yourself…
These were just some of the thousands of things people would leave in the comments section. Imagine if these things were said to you straight to your face, imagine if these words were said to you behind your back, imagine if a complete stranger who had never met you, verbally abused you with these descriptions.
Refusal to conform
These photos were passed around a lot, on a weekly basis one would pop up on my newsfeed because a “Facebook friend” of mine had decided to add to the insults.
Until one day someone decided to do something completely different. A colleague I work with decided to comment on one of these photos of a heavily pierced man. I know this person to be a man of integrity, someone you could trust, someone who loves and serves God, surely, he wouldn’t stoop so low as to add something negative to the comments section? I opened the comments and frantically searched for what he had added. This is what he said:
Interesting…
Unique…
Loved…
Human…
I was blown away. This person is one of the most magnificent human beings I have ever met, and he didn’t disappoint. So much hate had been thrown at this poor individuals’ photo, and like a light in the darkness his word shone so bright, they echoed God’s heart for the man in the photograph. You see, God does not judge the outward appearance of anyone, but rather he looks into their heart to find their measure.
We humans will often recoil at the sight of someone different, judge them before we have even met them. We look at each other’s skin colour and we make a judgement, we look at each other’s professions and we make a judgement, we look at each other’s dress sense and we make a judgement, we look at each other’s social status and we make a judgement.
I thank God for people like my friend and colleague who are willing to buck the trends of negativity and judgment. My hope is that many others saw what I saw and have reflected on their own comments and prejudices.
We need change
As humans, we get offended so easily. We almost always refuse to hear some one’s heart on any matter. We would rather throw our toys out the cot instead of trying to understand someone else’s point of view, just because they think, act or dress differently to us.
It is time we embrace each other, celebrate our differences, honour each other’s cultures, love each other despite our outward appearance, accept each other, because it was God who loved us first and accepts us warts and all.
Jarred is an HPE and Mathematics teacher on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, he is married to Haley and has a beautiful daughter named Chelsea and are expecting identical twin boys soon!