I’m 99.9 percent sure that social media was a mistake. With it now becoming an everyday part of our lives alongside eating and breathing, it’s morphed the way we see the world for the worst.
The toxicity it has brought to our society has made us all far more stressed as we become more and more enslaved to it. I sometimes have fantasies of deleting everything and living in a world where I’m free from the oversaturation of news, opinions, and Stacy’s fourth selfie of the day, but social media is so ingrained in our lives that even our very jobs rely on it.
One of the worst creations social media has brought on is the outrage mob. At just the flick of a switch and the press of a button, you can send thousands of people on the attack at a single person. You can lose your job, your family, or anything you hold dear if the mob is rabid enough, and it doesn’t take much to make them rabid.
Case in point, Guardians of the Galaxy star and all-round stand-up guy, Chris Pratt, posted a picture of himself to his Instagram the other day, and you would have thought he endorsed puppy kicking. Why? Because he had a water bottle in his hand.
Here’s the photo.
Yup. That’s it. This picture was enough to cause people to lose their ever-loving minds because the water bottle in his hand was single-use. What kicked off the mob?
Jason Momoa of Aquaman and Game of Thrones decided to post a response chiding Pratt about the water bottle.
“Bro i love you but wtf on the water bottle. no single use plastic. come on,” wrote Momoa.
This kicked off a slew of comments about Pratt’s choice of a water bottle. Scrolling down Christ Pratt’s feed, you can tell that many were more focused on the original intent of the post, and that’s to promote workout gear and regimens in partnership with Amazon. However, every other comment was directed at Pratt’s bottle.
Pratt, in turn, apologized for the bottle.
“Aquaman! You’re completely right. Dammit. I always carry my big gallon size reusable water jug with me too. I even had it that day!!!”
“Love you too buddy,” Pratt added. “My bad. I don’t want your home of Atlantis covered in plastic. Hear that kids? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.”
Look, I’m all about recycling as well. Despite environmentalists taking environmentalism overboard, recycling and using recycled materials is actually a conservative idea when you strip away the gaudy window dressing the left has put over it. However, I really feel like this was something that shouldn’t have even been an issue.
For one, Momoa should have kept his comment to a private DM or text message. I don’t think Momoa actually meant any harm by the comment, but the social environment we live in today should have made him more careful. In his defense, he did seem remorseful for the problem he caused, as he later apologized for putting Pratt in that position.
“I’m sorry this was received so badly today I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he wrote in his own Instagram post. “I’m just very passionate about this single use plastic epidemic. the plastic water bottles have to stop i hope u make a reusable water bottle for amazon so we all can purchase.”
But secondly, and most importantly, it’s a damn water bottle. Are we really so into policing one another that we feel the need to go into an all-caps rage fit because Pratt grabbed a piece of plastic from Ozarka? Do you think it’s going to inspire people to grab their own bottles, half-finish them and then jam then straight up a sea turtles nose?
Thirdly, why was this even newsworthy enough to begin with? Yeah, I know I’m writing about it, but that’s because this story appeared in The Hill, Daily Mail, Cosmo, Page Six, E! Online, People, NBC News, Fox News, and there are more, but I’m tired of listing them because I think you get the idea.
Social media was a mistake.
And Chris Pratt shouldn’t have apologized.
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