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user-inactivated  ·  3283 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: #PrayForParis: When Empathy Becomes a Meme

Maybe I am dismissing the little things about it; maybe a part of me thinks that rather than doing little you better do nothing at all or go big, in a rather black-and-white perception of it.

Still. It bothers me that we encourage such superficial nonsense. Click a button, and you're abolished of your sins of uncaring. One's encouraged to say a few words and thinks of themselves as, indeed, doing something of value, when the fact is - their words are not of any value. What creates the atmosphere of caring is caring, not some memorized phrases uttered over and over. You'll show caring whether you use the phrases; it won't be a choice but a manner of acting.

I don't mind people saying whatever they truly feel about an event. In fact, I encourage it. That being said, it's hard for me to believe that a meme phrase is capable of conveying true feelings of any person - otherwise, the person in question is too flat to exist. I will believe it when someone says "I'm angry at those assholes doing the evil acts". I'll believe someone saying "I feel so sorry for the victims of the events". Believing that one "#praysforparis" I'm incapable of.