I'm Not a "You People"

It's time to challenge social media's favorite lie

This goose is giving you the side-eye because it knows what you do on the internet. Walden Pond; photo by author.

I was an early adopter of the internet. I used to sit in alone in my high school’s darkened computer lab when I was supposed to be in Spanish class, building websites on AngelFire and perusing AOL’s many chatrooms.

There were hundreds of different ones, set up for any affinity you could think of, and I would pop in and out of them to see if anything interesting was going on. It was so easy—you could just click on “animal lovers” or “Cowboys fans” (don’t judge) and be dropped into a virtual space with a handful of people you’d never met but with whom you ostensibly had at least one thing in common.

Chatrooms technically exist today, but they have fallen by the wayside as social media has taken over. And why not? It’s essentially one big labyrinthine chatroom.

Well, two.

There’s the internet of the left, and there’s the internet of the right, and more often than not these days, the two bubbles feel like mirror images of one another’s extremes—worlds that will never overlap, full of caricatured villains that all believe theirs is the one and only correct viewpoint. This fact is so obvious that the inhabitants of each world feel tremendous (yet somehow unironic) pity, disdain, or even hatred for their counterparts on the other side.

“That’s the problem with you people,” a woman said to me from across the chasm a few weeks ago, when I ventured toward the double-walled border between spaces. She proceeded to assign to me a host of attributes that bore no resemblance to my actual belief system. What she described was an avatar of a “Liberal,” a shorthand attempt at boxing up and dismissing anyone who holds one of a constellation of viewpoints that oppose her own.

We were talking about free speech, hate speech, and censorship. I argued that users of a platform have the right to be protected from hate speech. She argued that Liberals don’t have the right to limit the expression of opposing points of view. I argued that opposing points of view are different from hate speech. She called me a “You People” and then gave me the electronic pat on the head so many keyboard warriors like to employ. “It’ll be okay, Nicci,” she said to me, disengaging from the conversation she had begun by arguing against a thesis I never stated.

Most of the time, this is how these conversations go. The two participants talk over and under each other, usually in a very public (online) space, but they never quite meet. They argue around and around, an ouroboros that consumes itself and spawns again across space and time, always following the same script. Though one person might come away satisfied, there will never be agreement, because the two parties are not trying to agree. They’re not even trying to have a conversation, not really. They’re just trying to prove how right they are. They’re also signaling to others on what side of the bubble they live, so that when they go back they’ll be greeted by onlookers with pats on the back, congratulated for speaking the truth even if the other person was too blind/dumb/willfully ignorant to come around.

If they listened, they might actually agree with each other’s points. But they’re so busy yelling into their megaphones, trying to show how right they are, that they never realize they’re both arguing a different thesis.

A lot of us have gotten to the point that we really only need to know one thing about someone before we toss them into one bubble or another. If you exhibit a single “Liberal” opinion, you’re lumped in with the left wingers. (And, once you’re there, you better hope you don’t ask a question that makes you look disloyal to the cause.) Say something conservative and suddenly you’re a Trumper.

Of course, real life isn’t what social media’s infinite chatroom would have you believe. Actual people are much more nuanced and colorful with a wide range of experiences that have informed their opinions—which are not monolithic, as easy as it would be to assume that.

One of my favorite people to talk to is a guy named Brian. We met from my work covering news for my town; he is familiar with town government and often has background I don’t have that helps give shape to the stories I cover. He’s also got similar roots to mine; while we’re not from exactly the same place and are separated by a decade or more in age, neither of us is from around here and hearing his drawl brings me back home.

My friendship with Brian exists in the no-man’s land between this bubble and that one, in the world where we can shake hands and have a beer and engage in real, actual conversations. In a place where we can admit when we don’t know something and talk about it when we disagree. Where we can interrogate the other person’s viewpoint, as well as our own, without fear of being labeled as one thing or another.

Sadly, especially on the internet, there are very few places where this kind of conversation can happen. We—especially those of us with public personas—have to watch ourselves. If we say the wrong thing, or say the most well-intentioned thing in the wrong way, or even ask the wrong question in the wrong company, it can do real harm to our trust quotient among the people and groups we rely on for social support.

My conversations with Brian come in short bursts: “What did you think about that Committee Meeting?” or “Do you really believe…?” or “What do you think of RFK, Jr.?” But it’s in this constrained space where my perspective is challenged more than anywhere else. And it’s because our talks are based on mutual respect, genuine curiosity, and an assumption that the other person means well and wants the best—even if we think they’re incorrect or misinformed. We can talk about research and personal experience and acknowledge where things get murky. We can bring up—and take down—counterarguments without condescension or resorting to ad hominem attacks.

We don’t talk about it much, but I think Brian is a registered republican. I know he voted for Donald Trump once—maybe even twice—and that he wouldn’t do it again. I’m a registered “unenrolled” voter who has consistently voted Democrat in presidential elections. Those two facts would be enough to whirl us to opposite sids of the room in most spaces. Yet we agree broadly on many things, and we can respect each other’s positions when they don’t align.

Brian has helped me see other sides to issues that I wasn’t primed to see because of my life experiences, and I hope he would say the same about me. We’re not always going to agree, but our friendship has brought considerable stimulation to my mind—and value to my life.

I grew up hearing that politics are best left undiscussed in mixed company. We’re going to disagree on something eventually, and that’s going to be uncomfortable. And the easiest solution to that discomfort is to shut out any voices that aren’t singing our tune. That way, we don’t have to articulate our reasonings for feeling the way we do and we don’t have to feel challenged. (After all, if we know our beliefs are the only right ones, what benefit will we get from examining them?)

But I think that’s a mistake, and in fact this kind of behavior is what created these two separate spaces in the first place.

Just as we all deserve to be heard, all of us deserve to have our biases and assumptions challenged, and we need to be able to listen to, consider, and respond to opposing viewpoints. Politics aren’t just some abstract ideology. They’re real life. The way you vote has tangible effects on actual people, and as I said in the welcome letter to this very publication, ignoring politics is a privilege held by those whose circumstances aren’t worsened by the policies enacted via these political alliances and decisions.

Talk to someone who challenges you (in a respectful way, duh). As uncomfortable as it might feel at first, get to know their story and their reasons for arriving at their opinions. Instead of looking to dismiss all the “you people” you find, find someone you disagree with and figure out what you have in common.

I bet you’ll find your bubbles overlap more than you think.