Over the past few months, concerts are back to being held in venues. A big factor in this is the covid 19 vaccine. Most venues and artists on tour have required the attendees to provide proof of vaccination before entering the venue or a negative covid test. This has caused a lot of disappointment and backlash among fans and has resulted in arguments between fans in the comments and just overall negative mean comments. I am a fan of reading these arguments among vaccinated and nonvaccinated fans for entertainment and was going to a post on one of the comment sections but, negative comments about vaccine requirements have resulted in bands removing their comments sections on a certain post. While looking for an article around this issue I found this article and started reading it along with the comments.
This article was about a woman who was once antivaccination due to the common belief of vaccines cause autism in children, which she said has been debunked since. So the woman has had a change of heart about vaccines and has gotten the covid vaccine as result. She also explained that becoming antivaccine didn’t happen overnight it happened over years of intense personal beliefs around health and exposure to beliefs that catered to hers. Her recent come around also came from life changes, and is supported by individuals who were patient with her coming around to the covid 19 vaccine. This article was very interesting because the woman admitted that her being an antivaccine person as a result of consuming and being exposed to content that aligned with her beliefs which of course led her to be ridiculed in the comments.
A lot of the arguments in the comments in regards to the article were other antivaxers criticizing this woman's recent change of heart and her pushing getting the covid vaccine or saying things like the vaccines are not vaccines they are gene modifiers. In the mix of all this I found an argument between a “vaxxer” and anti “vaxxer” which I will post below:
So there are some screenshots to create a better picture of the arguments in the comment sections also click the link above to read more. Three things about this argument I found in the comments I found negative was 1.) How anti-vaxxers couldn’t let an anti-vaxxers change their mind and opinion on the issue to what she thought was best, instead they ridiculed her. People are allowed to change their minds despite what others think. 2.) How all these individuals felt the need to flock the comment section to debate their ideologies when it is supposed to support advocacy to get vaccinated so their comments should be “ glad she had a change of heart!” or "glad she helping spread the message” these comments are really just arguing with one another trying to push different agendas on each other, nothing positive. 3.) The last negative thing I notice despite what believes I have and what I agree with was that all these people fighting just come off as extremely self-righteous none of these arguments are well thought out or going to change anyone's mind like the article was intended to. They’re just people bickering about whose view is more valid and both sides of this argument don’t really seem to care about each other viewpoints they both just want to be right. I'm not sure how to address the divide out there or this misinformation circulating around but arguments in comment sections like these are not going to get us there.
I am not one to argue online and any time I have I don’t say nasty I just make statements like “ well that's not what I meant or well that's not what this post was about it's about this, or ok but that not what I met I met thing. People online can be very out there so I try not to fuel the argument if I can help it. It's been a while since I fought with anyone online but I try to be very emotionless and direct when responding if I'm going to respond at all.
These are my five online argument rules for arguing online:
) Evaluate the post or the argument you’re about to chime in on, is it worth responding to?
) Are the people in the argument making any logical sense or is it so confusing you can’t follow it? This is a sign not to comment back
If people are commenting or fighting to spread their specific agenda just say right but I don't agree with that because of __. People arguing online don’t do well with pragmatism or not picking a fight back.
If you are going to argue, the argument shouldn't just be based on the personal belief it should have some factual backing to like website you can lead them to educate them on things they swear they know.
Don’t allow this person or people to harass you there are settings for a reason block people you need to, opt-out or mute notifications, stop responding, or report them if you really have to. People online can just have too much energy for these arguments you need to know when to pull back and when things are not worth a response just like in real life.
I have attached this youtube video about arguing online:
