Twice in the last two months, we’ve seen politicians suffer serious political backlash for posting memes on social media. One was a legislator, one was a mayor. One on the right, one on the left. Two noisy bugs.
Casper Mayor Bruce Knell and Laramie Assemblywoman Karly Provenza each violated a fundamental axiom of human communication, which is to “engage your brain before you open your mouth.”
Lord knows what led them to hit the “send” button before considering the potential consequences of posting it. Maybe they thought they could score easy political points with their base. Perhaps they thought their chosen meme would be a code that only those “in the know” would understand.
More likely they didn’t think much at all, relying instead on an appeal to the part of the reader who doesn’t think much either. There’s a lot of that these days, and it’s not limited to politicians.
A social media meme or emoji is an attempt to reduce a complex subject and the mental rigor required to capture it to a smiley face, a flame, or an idiot. It expresses the visceral, not the intellectual.
In today’s world, information comes at us from all angles, from unlimited sources and at warp speed. It’s no wonder our minds have trouble keeping up with this rapid-fire deluge, let alone being able to articulate intelligent responses to the cacophony of white noise.
Here is a specific case. In the year I was born, this column would have been written by hand or typed on an old vertical typewriter. It would then go to a proofreader and an editor. From those desks, it would go to a typist or ironer, and from there to the layout desk and finally to the printer.
Once on paper, a bicycle-based paperboy would dump it on your porch or flower bed, and you’d go in your slippers to pick up the paper and read it with your morning coffee. The whole process can take three to four days.
If something in my column made you vomit coffee up your nose, you should respond by writing a letter. You would (hopefully) collect your thoughts and compose a concise response. You should then seal, address and stamp the letter.
The postman would pick up your letter the next day and deliver it to the newspaper, where your reply would go through the same process as my column before it appeared in print. This process would take at least another couple of days.
So count a week between my composing the column and your angry response. A week of thinking and writing to close the intellectual loop.
Nowadays, the whole process can happen almost instantly with a keystroke or two and a snarky meme or emoji.
This is the hyper driving reality of the internet age we live in. There is barely time to absorb one thought before the next bombards us. The human mind struggles to keep up.
Almost as a defense mechanism against this onslaught of information, we drag ourselves a couple of ill-chosen words or an inarticulate image, just to show the rest of the world that we are up to date, that we are engaged with the world around us. We.
We are all guilty of this mental laziness, including today’s company.
But we should expect more from our elected officials. We entrust the people with electoral certificates to carefully weigh the problems we face, to think about solutions and to consider the consequences.
Politicians certainly have the same First Amendment right to free speech that we all have. But given how their words and actions affect the entire body politic, it’s fair to expect a greater degree of thought from them before they speak or act.
Here the lesson ends.
Rod Miller can be reached at: rodsmillerwyo@yahoo.com
