Facebook Needs a “Sympathy” Button

If you’ve ever posted some sad news on Facebook, you might’ve watched as the status received a few likes followed immediately by comments such as, “Liked for sympathy” or “I’m only liking this out of support.”

It’s not surprising that a gesture meant to stand on its own needs a little explanation when the post in question is negative rather than positive or neutral. “Like” is an odd verb to use when someone’s talking about their recently deceased pet or a crappy day at work, but a thread full of identical comments reading “Sorry to hear that” seems almost as awkward.

I’ve got to say, if you are capable of noticing Facebook reactions, your news ain’t that bad. And if people in your life need Facebook buttons to express their support, maybe it’s time to get rid of them.

I think the world has gone insane. My blogroll is overflowing with posts about the Leftist students who police each other and their professors for signs of anything they might find uncomfortable and politically unacceptable. Here is an example (linking to more examples). And here is another one. And here is the response to the previous one. And I have at least 30 more, if anybody is interested.

The whole thing is beyond weird. Where are these people hiding if they are managing not to notice that students on the Right behave in exactly the same censorious, nitpicking, fault-finding way?

There is no political division here. The “political correctness” scandal is entirely apolitical. For every anecdote of Leftie students freaking out over something minor and trying to shut everybody up, I can offer a mirror case of Rightie students doing exactly the same thing. This is the most bipartisan issue I can think of. The Left and the Right are offending very equally in this area.

This isn’t about politics, folks. This is about the society of consumers where people have been convinced by advertisement that any discomfort, no matter how tiny it might be, is entirely abnormal and should be immediately cured with a magic pill. These people are not called Leftists or Conservatives. Their name is consumers. And woe be unto you if you cause them any vague discomfort whatsoever. This discomfort might happen in the realm of political discussions but it can also be related to anything else. And when consumers feel discomfort, they descend on you like an herd of irate shoppers who have just seen the last 5-dollar waffle-maker escape from their grip during a Thanksgiving sale.

Have you considered that you only see Leftists engage in this obnoxious policing of everybody around them because you simply don’t meet enough people who are politically to your Right? I happen to be meeting them all the time, and they know how to be just as tiresomely whiny about anything that deviates in the slightest degree from their received pieties as the annoying idiot Lefties in Chait’s and DeBoer’s essays.

People who are throwing fits over Colleen McCullough ‘ s sexist obituary have probably never read her extraordinarily sexist books. McCullough made a brand out of her hatred of women.

It is only fitting that, in death, she would be remembered through the lens of the worldview she dedicated her life to promoting.

I read Thornbirds at the age of 11 and will never forgive McCullough for making me wonder whether being a woman was really as horrifying and disgusting as she was making it out to be.

We are now placing bets on whether Ukrainians or Americans will be the first to be blamed by Russians for burning down the library.

Of course, there are always Germans, and it might well be their turn.

The library of the Russian Academy of Science has burned to the ground. 14 million volumes perished in the fire.

“This must have been arson!” N exclaims.

“Oh no,” I say. “Let’s not be so optimistic. What are the chances that somebody in Russia decided to do something, did it,  and actually succeeded? I’m sure the barbarians were trying to read but, as always happens with them, fucked it all up.”