A cute twit by a young lawyer crossed my path and struck a chord. As I’m wont to do, I contributed my reminiscence to the mix.
Is it in his eyes?
Oh no! You’ll be deceived
Is it in his sighs?
Oh no! He’ll make believe
If you want to know if he loves you so
It’s in his kiss
(That’s where it is) https://t.co/4vCcp4t2y5— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) March 3, 2019
I expected nothing more than a smile, but what I got was surprising.
It’s not that she didn’t care for the lyrics. That’s a personal choice. It’s that she assumed I wrote them. The skull was a nice touch. Rather than take umbrage, I replied with a link to a video, which also evoked a curious response.
Really, Scott? 1964? Anyway, I’ll check it out.
Well, yes. “We had music in 1964. Really we did.” Upon hearing the song, it all clicked.
My profound apologies. I know that song. My mom played it all the time growing up. Awwww.
That was very kind, although no apology was necessary. I wasn’t offended in the least, but a bit saddened by the assumption that anything beyond the immediate knowledge of a young person would be assumptively worthy of a skull and derision. Life existed before 1981.
But was somewhat more disturbing was this:
This was the reaction to the bit of snark about lawyers writing love lyrics. Was it about lawyers? Maybe old men? Regardless, the leap to idiocy struck me as far different than Keiko’s mistaken assumption, as it reflected the need to pile on, while simultaneously proving Dr. Taylor Burrowes to be wrong, dumb and a blithering idiot. There’s no own like a self-own.
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Who better to turn to for online mental health therapy and relationship coaching? The phenomenon of people whose finest attribute is manifest ignorance doing the LMAO [some sort of emoji] in order to conclusively prove their viciousness is unfortunate. Had she merely “liked” the twit, as others did, that would have been understandable. After all, it was pretty funny had it not been the product of youthful hubris. But she had to go a step farther, to go through the effort of initiating a twit of her own.
It’s understandable that people on the twitters are unfamiliar with such things as songs that were popular long before they were a twinkle in their father’s eye. Even when their mother played the song all the time. No one can remember everything, right?
But before one leaps on top of the snark, especially someone who feels herself entitled to offer advice to anyone else on the planet, it would seem that a bit more than vapid snark should be known lest one beclown herself in ignorance.
There is big old world out there, kids, with lots of stuff that happened before you existed and about which you either know nothing or not enough. Take a breath before you leap to assumptions. Take a moment to ponder whether the universe is bigger than stuff you know. And if you want to hold yourself out as someone capable of helping others, try not to conclusively prove you’re a moron, not because you were unfamiliar with an old song, but because you had to, just had to, jump on the pile.