On January 11, 2012, #OnlyUglyPeople was trending on Twitter.
For those of you not in the Twitter know, a trend is a popular phrase or theme currently being spoken across twitter, oftentimes using a hash tag in front of it that you can click to follow along in the conversation.
So what’s the big deal about #OnlyUglyPeople trending on Twitter? Well, for starters, nothing good ever comes from calling people ugly, and what came from this public game of teasing and name calling were really, really hurtful words.
Here’s just a taste of what was said (as they wrote them – I have changed nothing).
#OnlyUglyPeople say “it’s what’s on the inside that counts”
#OnlyUglyPeople Wear a whole bunch of makeup ..
#onlyuglypeople have money and that’s why they still get laid
#onlyuglypeople can wear stupid clothes. If your pretty and your wearing stupid clothes go die. Or get acne
#onlyuglypeople have even uglier friends so they can be the cute one
#onlyuglypeople get drunk and have more confidence than they did when they was sober
#onlyuglypeople get mad cause we always ask them to take the pic for us
#onlyuglypeople gotta stay dressed at all times
#onlyuglypeople take those pictures where it cuts off right at their lips.
#onlyuglypeople try hard in education cos they know they aint got the looks to marry someone with a good flow of income
#onlyuglypeople claim celibacy when they not gettin any
#onlyuglypeople are complaining about the trend #onlyuglypeople
#onlyuglypeople turn around when a guy whistles/yells/psstts
#onlyuglypeople take all group pictures
#onlyuglypeople believe in blind dates.
#onlyuglypeople have cars, animals, or money as their Avi
#onlyuglypeople have no mirrors or any reflective surfaces in their houses
#onlyuglypeople think that standing in the mirror for a long time will make them better looking
#onlyuglypeople say personality is the only thing that matters… #letsbehonest i don’t see any people falling in love with fat gingers
#OnlyUglyPeople date fat people.
#OnlyUglyPeople Smile and dont sho they teeth
You get it. It’s gross.
Social media can be such a blessing. It has the power to connect nations. We can share ideas and thoughts in an instant. I now have friends in the Philippines. I find people for jobs and hire them faster than ever thanks to Facebook. I can see what famous photographers are photographing as it happens thanks to Google+. These things would be impossible without the evolution of social media.
Yet, we use social media like this?
Stop it.
It’s one thing to have an opinion and a sense of humor. It’s another to be #ugly. #OnlyUglyPeople find humor in being a bully. We can see what you say. Be accountable for your words. They hurt just as bad in type as they do coming out of your mouths.
Stop it.
image courtesy Diary of a First Child
#onlyuglypeople can’t spell.
Okay, seriously, this brings up some questions I’ve been having lately. While I don’t believe in ever saying unnecessarily mean things to people, (I would never call someone fat or ugly, etc), I do believe in being honest. For example, yesterday at the gym, the same guy (a retired teacher) came to talk to me and started in on his negative rant about today’s students. Something snapped in me, and I blurted, “Jesus Christ, you have a bad attitude.”
I am not really sorry for what I said. I cannot be around negative people, so this was my way of putting up boundaries. I suppose I could have said it in a nicer way, so I will own up to that.
But does telling my honest thoughts to people make me mean? Or does it just make me real?
You know, I’ve had this conversation with my mom. She is a wonderful person, and she would never try to hurt someone’s feelings, but she is very blunt. You always know what she’s thinking and you always know where you stand with her. When she inadvertently upset one of her friends at work, I sat down with her, and we talked about how sometimes, even though being honest is the right thing, how the message is delivered makes all the difference in the world. So being honest, per se, doesn’t make you mean. If you say it meanly, that makes you mean. (And fwiw, teachers can be very, very negative, and it drives me, another teacher, up the freaking wall! If you hate your job, your students, and your administration *that much*, find another job, because you’re not doing it well with that amount of negativity anyway!)
Mean is always said/written with malicious intent. Honesty may hurt, but is never said/written with malace intended.
#onlyuglypeople is not honest or real. It’s intent is to hurt, bully and belittle.
I did notice the different voices in the posts, some sound like bitchy girls and douchebag boys and some sounded like they feel like they belong to the group #onlyuglypeople.
The first group needs to get a life and stop being so bitter about their own insecurities. The second group needs to know it gets better, sometimes with help, but it does get better.
My momma taught me that “pretty is as pretty does.” Those people weren’t being very pretty.
Also, in our house we only use the word ugly to describe behavior. Never people. People aren’t ugly.
This made me cry. This is so heartbreaking. I’m just at a loss for words.
Thank you for this.
I love me some Twitter but have been staying off of it for the past few days for this reason. The tide of some tweets is turning quite nasty…for a bunch of reasons. I have way too much stressful shit going on in my life – I don’t need to see any more negativity.
Wow, I almost expected you to say how you took each and every one of them over your knee and gave out spankings. That was so well said, Meredith. I don’t know why we (as a society) still think that insults are funny.
Comments on this entry are closed.