Okay tweens, we need to have a talk about social media.
For those who didn’t take to Twitter in outrage this past Sunday, let me explain. During a charity soccer (football) match, One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson was tackled by professional footballer Gabriel Agbonlahor. Naturally the fangirls (and fanboys) of the world took to Twitter expressing their outrage through 140 character death threats.
First of all, this is simply not acceptable. It just isn’t, there’s absolutely no excuse.
Still, assuming that most of you are in middle school, I’m going to explain why: I know it’s super easy to express yourself in 140 characters, skip the proofreading, post, and then forget about it, but here’s the thing: When you share something on social media, other people can see it. So, when you make threatening comments towards a soccer (football) player or anyone for that matter on Twitter, other people can see it. In fact, other people will see it, and there’s no excuse. Hormones will only get you so far.
I realize times have changed and your options for sharing your undying love for [insert name of pop star of the moment here] have greatly expanded, but lets keep our heads about this. In my day we made overly glittered posters and skipped the homicidal messages. Times have changed.
I was a screaming tween once (KTBSPA). You should have seen the epic standoffs between BSB and NSync fans circa 1999. Those were tween conflicts. Difference is our catty remarks were confined to the halls of middle school.
Perhaps the problem is 1D has no natural enemy. Although I claim a certain level of ignorance in the specifics of One Direction. You may find a 1D song or two in my iTunes library, but I couldn’t tell you which one Louis is, or have told you that one of them was named Louis until I heard this story.
Regardless of where your tween loyalty lies, I think we can all agree that hormones and social media were just not meant to be. Think before you tweet…also spell-check.
________________________________________
Mashable: Soccer Star Gets Twitter Death Threats After Tackling One Direction Member
…bi-daily smile…
