Earthlyeducation, Trisha Paytas

Social media exposes us to a vast array of “content,” blurring the boundaries between what is serious and what is a joke.

Contains discussions of gun violence.

I don’t find violence to be funny. 

Most of us, I hope and assume, would agree. 

However, I’ve recently begun to question if our actions match our words. I’m sure that, if asked in a serious context, the majority of FHC students would agree to have empathy; they would not claim to find joy in others’ pain.

Yet, at the same time, having empathy and respect sometimes seems to be only one part, the initial part, of a response to someone else’s suffering. I am not speaking, and I cannot speak, for everyone. However, I am drawing from what I have observed from some of my peers.

When we hear about someone’s death on the internet, whether a “normal person” or a celebrity, it should be instinctive to feel a semblance of sadness or empathy. At least some respect.

For a moment, I think most do have that feeling of internal silence. After all, that could’ve been my brother who was hit by a car or my aunt who lost the battle with cancer.

But what comes after that moment? I believe that it can be deep irreverence. 

Take, for example, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, if merely for the fact that it gathered widespread attention. Yes, he was a controversial figure, and I have no doubt that many people felt extreme distaste toward him. 

Does that somehow make the video of him being shot funny? 

It’s not just the instances of gun violence and death that spark disrespect. 

Remember when the worker exploitation of companies like SHEIN became public?

The issue of fair labor hasn’t magically resolved itself. Even if it was, laughing about how exploited children made the garment you’re wearing doesn’t justify the fact that you’ve supported it.

It is not that our school is a place of pervasive cruelty and disrespect—it isn’t. This is a widespread societal issue, and my peers just happen to be the people with whom I encounter it. 

I believe that the internet is the master behind the curtain, serving as a digital wall that makes others’ suffering seem unreal. 

In my English course, “postmodernism” was one of our recent keywords. 

The term, in one of its various contexts, refers to irony, irreverence, and a mixing of high and low culture (e.g. Andy Warhol paintings like “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” mixing art with an everyday item). 

However, the significance of postmodernism in our current digital age is what particularly stuck with me. The structure of social media is postmodern. 

Think—you’re scrolling on TikTok, watching teenagers dance to a pop song. You’re laughing at your friends pretending to be Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, and then you’re viewing a news report about a school shooting.

Or on Instagram, when you scroll from a story reposting Trisha Paytas’ trip to New York City to one reposting the entire ecosystems and animal species that are disappearing due to climate change. 

It is all treated as the same; there is no online distinction between serious, funny, sad, or joyful. It is all “content.”

This online environment—where, let’s be honest, we spend a lot of time—forces us every day to lose our boundaries of what is serious and what deserves respect.

If you laugh at the meme someone reposted, why wouldn’t you joke at the news of natural disasters, too?

I don’t have a magnificent solution for this problem, and I’m not sure that there is one. However, I think that an awareness of our irreverence is where we start. Try and think before joking: is this truly something funny?

I don’t believe that I am “taking things too seriously.”

We need to be more serious.