July 27, 2012

• Why I Comment

  So @TheTheologiansCafe posted an entry last night asking Xangans why they comment. My first instinct was to post something funny, but then I got to thinking about it and decided to sleep on the issue and make my own entry in response to this question. So here are the reason why I comment on Dan’s blog, or anyone else’s blog for that matter.

  1. To serve a purpose: Sometimes I will post a comment to defend someone who is being attacked, or to reinforce a friend who is in the middle of a fight. Sometimes I will post to further a cause that I believe in. For instance when people started to say that the shooter in Colorado must be crazy, I stepped in and said that not everyone who is crazy commit crimes like this, and not everyone who commits violent crimes like this is crazy.

  2. To try(key word) to be a good Christian: I very, very rarely swear and when I do it is because something has so chocked me that I would actually do it in real life. The last time I swore on the internet was when Theo posted about human barcodes(I mean, Germany anyone?). One of the things I try to keep in mind at all times is that as a professed Christian people are going to be watching to see how I act, react, and in general treat others with whom I interact. Do I attack them for not holding my point of view? Do I defend them in the fact of an attack for not holding the same point of view? Has there been some kind of injustice? I believe a Christian is called to step in during these kinds of times and be a bright spot in the cloudy world that is the internet.

  3. To try and show that not all people who are technically ‘crazy’ are raving madmen: Everyone who follows Dan’s blog knows that I have Schizophrenia. Everyone who follows my blog knows about my Schizable posts that are modeled after the Autisable posts that can be found on the Xanga main pages. I know of a couple other people on here with serious mental illnesses that are seriously struggling to keep ahold of themselves. I want to show that it is possible to be a rational, lucid person with the right medications and that we(anyone with any kind of mental illness) are not all dangerous human beings who are a threat to society.

  4. Because the internet(including Xanga) is full of anonymous hatred: Go look on youtube at some of the comments. Go look on the huffington post comment section found through the netscape.com rotating feed. There is so much anger and hatred on those sites that it is nauseating! Xanga is much better in this regard, but still has some darkness. I want to try and make sure my comments are uplifting and intentionally geared towards being a beacon of light in the darkness. I’ve seen the way people treat each other all over the internet. It’s wretched out there. And that is without the experience of being on Facebook and Twitter where cyber bullying is so rampant among teenagers and those who are still teenagers at heart.

  5. To make a friend laugh: I will admit that I have been a hypocrite a time or two when it comes to being a ‘good christian’ in that I’ve used terms like ‘spooge u’ on a friend’s blog. But it was meant to make them have a laugh, not to be crass. Like I said in 4, I try to make my comments as uplifting as possible because this is a failed world that we call the internet. There has to be some decency somewhere or we’re just living in a world where life is ‘Nasty, Brutish and Short’(A mini to the first person who identifies who said that). Speaking of which….

  6. Minis. Minis make people smile. So do recommendations. I’m going to start sending out a lot more minis for uplifting comments and recommendations for blog entries and comments that are a beacon in the darkness. I feel like those of us who try to stay postive in a negative world deserve to be rewarded for our efforts. If not in this life, in the next. I can’t say where your positivity comes from, but mine comes directly through faith in Jesus Christ. Which leads me to….

  7. To represent him: Yes this is close to being a good christian, but not exactly the same. Being a good christian means holding your tongue, turning the other cheek and things like that. Consciously being a representative of Jesus Christ means that I must be held accountable. If you see me attacking someone for their beliefs with foul language or see my tone begin to cross the line from a casual discussion into the realm of offensive personal attacks, I want, I expect, you to call me on it. I can try to be a good steward of this responsibility, but I need other Christians to hold me accountable. In return, I will do the same for you. As representatives of Christ Jesus we are called to hold each other accountable and to wtiness in his name.

  So I hope you now understand why I make the comments I do. I will not be perfect. I will slip up. But these are the standards I hold myself to whenever I make a comment. What standards do you hold yourself to? I’d like to know.

  • 6:22 pm
  • 17 Comments