When did we become so cruel?

There’s a photo going round of a Maltese woman standing in a bank queue with her short shorts slung so low that her thong underwear is clearly visible. She is not identifiable and yet this woman has my sympathy (and I decided not to share it for that very reason) For, let’s face it, what kind of person would take a photo of this fashion faux pas and post it on FB for the whole of Malta to laugh and jeer at, with some of the comments not stopping at mockery but inevitably slipping over into aggressive misogyny?

But, even as I wrote that sentence I had to stop a minute and check myself – after all, don’t I laugh at the incriminating photos of fashion disasters which Joan Rivers drips her own brand of venom on in every edition of Fashion Police? Yes, mea culpa, I do. So what is the difference here? Why are celebrities and public figures considered an open target whereas private individuals (in my view) should be off limits?

I guess the reason is because those in the public eye, by the very nature of their work, are there to court attention. They thrive on publicity, except perhaps, for those celebrities who keep a low profile and make it a point to stay away from the glare of the paparazzi, living outside of the Hollywood circuit.

And even so, there are times when the public can be inexplicably and unnecessarily cruel even towards movie and TV stars, as well as top athletes, who are often at the receiving end of mean remarks not because of what they are wearing or their last performance, but simply because ordinary people feel they have the right to insult them.

Twitter has made it possible to ensure that these nasty remarks are immediately accessible to the person concerned, and in a clever twist, one American late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has turned this on its head, having famous people read “mean tweets” about themselves.  The result can be hilarious, showing not only the absurdity of being called vulgar names by a complete stranger who just doesn’t like the celebrity, but also the sublime way which the celebrity handles it (well, most of the time anyway).

There are times the public can be inexplicably and unnecessarily cruel even towards movie and TV stars, as well as top athletes, simply because ordinary people feel they have the right to insult them.

After watching this series, and after reading the cruel things said about “woman with thong”, I have started to wonder just how as a society we have become so mean, so ready to ridicule and demolish others? Certainly the ease with which photos can be taken and shared, and the facility of social media to communicate our every thought has pushed the private into the public.

Many were of the opinion that in the case of the “woman with thong”, it was her fault for leaving the house like that, but come on, really? What ever happened to showing some sort of compassion or empathy towards others? The sharing of that photo demonstrated a decidedly mean streak both in the person who originally took it and posted it, and to all those who commented cruelly and continued to share it. (In fact, despite the fact that the woman’s face was not shown, I find it hard to believe in tiny Malta that it did not ultimately get back to her that she had become an unwitting FB sensation).

It’s one thing to privately remark “what on earth was she thinking” to taking the other deliberate step of inviting others to descend on a photo like a pack of vicious vultures on their prey. (In this particular case, it was not as if the woman had shared the photo herself, but someone else took it without her knowledge, in the vein of those photos taken at Walmart of people who dash out to buy something without giving a thought to what they are wearing.)

I hate to think that we are going to start emulating this kind of thing, because it is bad enough that what are meant to be personal FB photos are lifted and splashed all over the place, with an open invitation for anonymous commentators to fire away and decimate the subject – the last thing we need is to worry that there might be someone behind us in a queue or at a restaurant who thinks it’s “funny” to take a photo if we are wearing something unflattering.

Private citizens should remain private, not photographed and publicly humiliated for our amusement.

And let’s face it, unless you are yourself perfection from head to toe, who among us has not had a bad photo or worn something completely wrong? I also find it very unfair when people (whether public or private) are singled out and practically tarred and feathered because of their body shape – in a country where the majority are overweight, let he or she without an extra kilo or ten cast the first stone. None of us is exactly strutting the catwalks as a top model and even if we were, we would probably be more anxious about what we look like rather than being so consumed with hateful malice towards others.

Ultimately, it all boils down to context, the intention and the spirit of what is said. There is a world of difference between criticism or satire of someone’s work, statements and behaviour in a public role and trying to tear that person apart purely on the basis of how he/her looks. As for private citizens, I feel that they should remain private, not photographed and publicly humiliated for our amusement.