The World's Common Tater

I was at work Monday when Notre Dame was on fire. I texted my daughter to tell her and we texted back and forth a little about the fire and how sad she was about it. Her graduation gift this past summer was to go to London and Paris. She loves history and museums and was excited to see all of the history in the cities. Notre Dame, of course, was one of our stops. I was happy to be able to share the experience with her and her brother. I posted the picture I took of them to remember the happy times and to reflect on how glad I was that they got to see it before the fire. Many other people I know posted their picture from Notre Dame. It was their personal connection to the story, same as me posting my picture.

Of course, others didn’t see it that way It didn’t take long for the cesspool of Twitter to jump in to post about how posting a picture of yourself at Notre Dame was making the tragedy about you and what a terrible person that makes you. Or to post about how it was really just bragging about the fact that you went to Notre Dame. Or to post about how going to Notre Dame isn’t impressive because everyone’s been to Notre Dame. How dare people post their pictures of Notre Dame on the day Notre Dame was burning! I feel like this is just as much, if not more, yelling look at me! look at me! I’m better than everyone else because I respect Notre Dame too much to post a picture. Do I think some people posted a picture to get likes on social media? Yes. Enough so that it’s worth constant Twitter posts about it? No.

Now, we’ve reached the point on social media with constant posts shaming people who might be planning to donate money for Notre Dame restoration. Posts imploring people to donate to who they think is more worthy and that the Catholics have enough money. Valid? Probably. But aren’t people allowed to donate their money where they choose? Do you really need to go on Twitter to tell people how you think they should donate their money? Is this just another way to make sure people know you are better than them? Look at me! I give my money to more worthy causes than you. I’m so special.

Is this entire blog post me saying look at me, I’m better than all these people shaming people on the Internet? Probably. I just think we could all be better and not spend so much time judging others about how they process bad news. That includes people writing blog posts like this one. And now I end the post with the aforementioned picture so people can judge me.