Last week, I wrote a short opinion about sexism. My server logs show that some people read it. At the end of my opinion, I asked people to click on a link to imgur.com showing my very short comment and spend 15 seconds expressing their opinion–with a simple upvote or downvote. My log files show that some people clicked on the link.
There are two replies on my comment on imgur.com: both left by a troll on the website. No one who clicked through from my website voted or replied. Please take a moment to read closely because my feelings about this are specific and narrow and almost certainly not what you would expect my feelings to be.
First, here are the two absurd replies.
I am not offended or hurt by the replies. The troll is a troll: the comments are moronic.
I am not offended or hurt that of the people who clicked from my website, no one voted or replied.
What hurts me is that I post details about my life and express my opinions here, many people read what I write, but only a few people do anything. Many people understand how difficult my life is, and I would be dead without the help I receive, but the overwhelming majority of people cannot even be bothered to click an upvote button or a downvote button.
Why? Why do so many people read about my life but do absolutely nothing? For a few years now, I have often felt that many people think of my life as a spectator sport or as some sort of extremely real reality-TV show. To many people, I am not fully human: I am only a character is some bizarre story. To many people, my feelings do not matter–or they only matter in so much that they are entertaining or interesting.
That is the definition of degrading treatment: to lower my status from a human with feelings and rights to a mere character in a story for your entertainment. My pain should not be entertainment for you.
