Mental Health and Social Media

I’m of the opinion that social media is probably more harmful than helpful. On platforms like facebook, twitter or youtube, personalities may appear very different than in real life encounters. Not everyone is happy all of the time and not everyone is who they say they are. I will share with you a story that illustrates how people one may admire online turn out to be, at the very least, toxic individuals. This will also serve as a point of reference in case I need to take some sort of action other than the ones I’ve taken. I bring this up because one must shrug off insane crap like this and soldier on in life. Taking people who behave as insanely as in this story seriously will only serve to be a source of rumination.

I’m Hispanic, an immigrant, and I’m married to a Jewish woman. I love my wife very much. I even enjoy the company of my in-laws who, as I understand for many, can be a source of problems as told in countless jokes. Not for me though. My family pretty much work in healthcare as nurses, doctors, home health aides, I actually work in healthcare myself, but more on the prosthetic end of things. I’m also a middle-aged man and have had the opportunity to have met and interacted with many types of people including 2 Holocaust survivors, personally, and 1 Holocaust survivor through history class that focused on man’s inhumanity to man as a guest speaker. I’ve also met a soldier who liberated a Nazi concentration camp and actually fought Nazis. At the time, Poe’s law or Godwin’s law did not exist or wasn’t as prevalent.  I’m also not particularly wealthy. These facts this will become relevant as the story progresses.

The story begins with an opinion. I believe that Patreon is failing in its mission as a creator supporting platform. Patreon has only one job to do. Transfer Patron money to creators and I don’t believe the platform is living up to its purpose. I hold free-speech to be dear to me and that at some point Patreon will start to ban people who criticize Islam. In Europe, there was a woman who critiqued Mohammad and was fined as her speech was considered “hate speech.” So I have been reaching out to my Patreon creators and asking them if there was another platform I can support them with since I believe it is only a matter of time before European law affects the way these platforms do business This was never a demand. When canceling one’s support of a creator I mistook the reason why I wasn’t supporting Patreon for why I’m not supporting the creator. Anyway, I wanted to that up with my creators, so I reached out.

Now the user in question critiques Islam which is why I wanted to continue supporting him, but on another platform, because I do believe eventually HE will be banned for critiquing Islam and I wanted to mitigate this. Some of his videoes are decent (I wouldn’t have supported him if I thought he provided no value) despite the following atrocious behavior.

The order is in the pictures. This person concludes that I support Nazi’s because ??? I still don’t know. But the one thing I do know, he is making light of the Holocaust. Anyone who accuses someone else of being a Nazi needs to be damn sure that the individual actually subscribes to Nazi ideology. In one post he claims to have fought/fight Nazis (including me). I seriously don’t know what that means. Has he liberated concentration camps? Is he a veteran of the WWII? This is a person who claims to be a secular humanist and can say with a level of certainty that he is neither a vet of WWII or someone who has suffered in a concentration camp or work camp under the Nazis. He also seems to be suffering from extreme narcissism. Who the hell says this crap.

So what happened? Again I have no clue. He retweets a feed of mine as if this is some kind of indictment. The tweet showed that I retweeted Jordan Peterson(who is not a Nazi) of a tweet that showed some controversial figures being banned by Patreon. Which I think only bolsters my conclusion that they will eventually come for him, but who cares at this point. The thing that scares me is that people argue emotionally. He must believe the following.

• People who disagree with me politically are Nazis
• Retweets are necessarily endorsements of said tweets.
• Guilt by association.
• has to believe in the no-true Scotsman fallacy
• poisoning the well is a valid way to argue

Now there are some references to “Sargon of Akkad” who is a Youtuber (who isn’t a Nazi), Jordan Peterson a clinical psychologist from Canada (who isn’t a Nazi) and Milo Yiannopoulos (who isn’t a Nazi) which has been grouped together for either commenting or being part of a Patreon Purge. I don’t know if he doesn’t know this, but having controversial views doesn’t make one a Nazi. A Nazi is a very specific thing. Using the word Nazi to describe non-Nazis tends to be in very bad taste, (mocking Nazis = good) and is solely used to “poison the well” because most people do not want to be affiliated with Nazis. I wouldn’t!! Well, this “humanist” has been fairly despicable towards me despite me supporting him via Patreon since January 2018. He seems to mock the fact that it has been only $1 a month which again shows how little he thinks of people who donate to him. Oddly enough, if he thinks I’m a Nazi feel free to refund my donation money lest you be tarred with the sin of accepting Nazi money.

The salient point is he set up a system of thought in which I have to disprove his misconceptions about me. All of the misconceptions of which are in his head. Again, did not see that coming. So remember folks, there are people who will claim to have great lives, claim to be a humanist or moral person and turn out to be false and all the evidence in the world wouldn’t convince them. The kicker is that some of these people are self-appointed arbiters of all that is good and holy in the world despite being the primary offenders of proclaimed individuals. In this case, by claiming to fight Nazis, he has insulted and tried to silence a Hispanic voice and made light of the plight of those who suffered under the Nazis. This in light of the fact that he is a British guy who went to India to get in touch with his Aryan roots….hmmm (this is meant as a joke). More importantly, People can be atheists and still subscribe to a religion or a cult. Staying off social media is probably for the best as it can really poison one’s peace of mind and can lead to the side effect of believing everyone’s life is better than mine, which isn’t true, or meeting people you admire and learning they are pieces of crap. (causing you to believe there is no hope for humanity).