Muslim Has Melt Down Over Banned Book on Live TV

Watching this vid helped me put a finger on something that's been bugging me a for a while now.  It seems to me that an awful lot of online culture centers around people reacting to videos of people having emotional outbursts.  This is just one example.  Think of the video behind the autistic screeching meme.  Or all the political rants with people being outraged about one thing or another.

Strong emotions tend to stir up strong emotions in others.  Whether it's in sympathy or in opposition, it's a part of who we are as social animals.  And of course in real life connecting emotionally to those around you is central to relating to others.  But this isn't real life.  This is the internet.  Even assuming that a video is what it appears to be and isn't the product of poes or trolls of some sort, it's not the same as reacting to someone in person.  The immediacy of these sorts of videos makes it feel very much the same, but it's not.

Almost all the time you won't know the person in a video, will have never met them and never will meet them.  You don't know the context.  Take the guy ranting in this video about Islam.  Imagine for a minute that this fellow just had a major fight with a close family member over religion.  That puts it in a whole other light, doesn't it?  When someone is talking into a camera, it feels like they're talking to you, that the emotion is directed at you.  But it's not.  Most likely the person's emotion is because of and directed at something or someone in their life.

So I think we'd all be better off if we took an emotional step back from videos like this.