August 15, 2014

by Anne Miller

Has anyone noticed a new Facebook page called Tick South Burnett?

I don’t know who started it, but it’s like a breath of fresh air while wading through a sewer.

Visiting Facebook often feels like standing in a public bar five minutes from closing time. If you’ve gone there for reasoned argument and civilised debate, you’re at the wrong place, mate.

It’s the negativity that chips away at my soul.

I have seen every school in this area targeted by whingers – usually by a parent who can’t spell.

My guess is they didn’t like school very much when they were younger and are now “getting even”.

Who would want to be a teacher?

Our hospitals also cop abuse. You would think local hospital staff were conducting amputations with a blunt butter knife.

Who would want to be a nurse?

Likewise … who would want to be a police officer? or a councillor? or a politician? I could add journalist to this list, too.

In the olden days – before Facebook, that is – if you had a complaint, you had a few simple choices:

1. Actually complain. You could do this face-to-face, in which case I suspect you would refrain from calling him/her a moron (or any x-rated noun) to his/her face. Or you could even write a letter … a quaint concept that requires time and effort.

2. If it was a business, not shop there any more. You might even advise two or three friends not to shop there any more either.

But these days if a shop assistant doesn’t respond with the alacrity of a super hero, customers whip out their “dumb” phones and let rip with a tirade of expletives on Facebook to hundreds of followers who take everything they read as gospel truth.

Don’t like someone’s driving or parking? Take a pic or video and shame them! Be a self-righteous dobber. It’s your right!

Remember your mother telling you not to hang out your dirty washing in public? What an old-fashioned concept!

Confused? Well think about this:

In the “olden days”, if you were arguing with your spouse, ex-spouse or children only the neighbours heard the yelling.

Now readers in Turkmenistan can read all about how much you hate your “sperm donor”, a charming term used by some locals on Facebook to describe the father(s) of their children.

Australians used to be known for their stoicism and laconic wit.

Ask an Aussie whose home had just been burned down in a bushfire or washed away in a flood how they were going, and they’d generally reply “OK, how are things going with you?”

But raised on a diet of American TV, movies and “social” media, Australians these days seem to think they have a First Amendment right to spew out cruel observations and business-destroying tirades with no thought whatsoever about the consequences of their actions.

How is this making life any better for any of us?

PS: Of course, Australia has no “First Amendment” to the Constitution. That’s an American concept, too.