Why are people so mean online, and are these people mean in real life too?
I know that the world is full of cruelty and that there are genuinely bad people out there, but I also feel like people are generally good. And to be sure, I have met actual bad people who've done terrible things to me. I feel like there's so many conversations that could be understood between two people if only they listened to each other and were kind.
I received a lot of mean comments on one of my posts, and it's hurtful because it was a post emphasizing social justice while people also supporting social justice were really rude to me. I tried to respond with empathy but just received a lot more mean comments.
Are people really like this? Are these people just trolling, or are they actually mean? Are they actually good people but said some things they didn't mean to? I really really want to believe that they are good people, but the things they say make it obvious that they aren't. But could they be good people in real life, or do I have a too positive outlook on the world?
Also, I can't stop opening social media. What if they keep going after me? What if they want to harm me? Furthermore, I just feel really sad because my post was about ending injustice, and people who claim to be social justice advocates are saying things like I'm excluding others when I'm not. I just want to doom scroll and keep looking to see if others commented. I am active on social media, but people usually aren't mean like that. But this has happened once in the past, and I was actually really sad for a long time and couldn't get off my phone.