Wednesday, April 30, 2014

What is WRONG With People?

So I saw this post today on Facebook by a group I follow and was completely disgusted and disturbed.  If you can't get to the link, the main idea is that a gun manufacturer worker went out of his way to track down the leader of an anti-gun group, pretend to be a member of that group - took a picture with her no less - and then proceeded to thank her for all the free publicity her group has provided for his guns and employer.  If that's not troubling enough, the comments posted on the business Facebook page are disgusting, immature, and inappropriate.  Any self-respecting business would pull those comments - but I can only assume they appeal to their base demographic (pun intended) so they left them.  First of all, so the anti-gun group gave you some publicity and sales...good for you.  If negative publicity is more effective for your business than your advertising, I think it says something about what you're selling.  But I digress.  So why not just send the group leader a snarky email?  What is the possible motivation for seeking out this group, pretending to have the same beliefs, and then calling yourself out on your actions?  I guess maybe Todd Kauranen thought he was really making the group leader feel bad about herself and the group's actions, and in fairness, she probably was disgusted - that she let such a slimeball stand so close to her and there's digital proof of it.  I just don't get it.  What is wrong with people?

And to add to that, there are the comments by the "followers".  Which reminded me of an article I also read this morning, about the YikYak app and the trouble that anonymous comments can cause for high schoolers.  The difference between the Facebook comments by Todd's friends and the YikYak app is that the Facebook posts were made by recognizable, trackable people who most likely have their real names listed with their comments.  (Their mothers must be so proud.)  Either way, the maturity level of the comments seems to be equivalent.  And if that's the level of forward thinking and maturity displayed by even a few of the gun owners of America, I feel even less safe than I did before.  Yet I still don't own a gun, which I guess makes me less of a coward than they are - but I'll save that post for another time :)

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