Who am I Becoming Online

Most of you know that I’m a comedian.

That’s both a blessing and, sometimes, a problem.

Because when I see something ridiculous online, my first instinct is often to come up with a snarky comeback. And sometimes I’m pretty darn good at it.

But I’ve had a realization this week that has made me stop and think:

The people I follow online have started to rub off on me.

Not all of them, of course. I follow plenty of wonderful, thoughtful, funny and compassionate people. But I’ve also allowed myself to spend far too much time around the noise.

The snarkiness. The insults. The constant one-upmanship. The casual cruelty that seems to have become almost normal on social media.

And I’ve noticed some of it creeping into me.

That’s when I had to stop and say something to myself:

I’m better than that.

I don’t mean that in an egotistical sense. I don’t think I’m better than other people. I certainly don’t have my life figured out.

What I mean is that this isn’t who I am at my core. It isn’t the person I want to be.

And maybe that’s an important distinction.

I’ve always believed in the old idea of “garbage in, garbage out.” We tend to think of that phrase in terms of computers, but I think it applies pretty well to human beings, too.

What we consume matters.

If I spend hours every day consuming anger, contempt, insults and outrage, I shouldn’t be terribly surprised when some of that begins coming out of me.

And this isn’t just about social media.

It’s about the people we spend time with. The things we watch. The conversations we participate in. The voices we allow to occupy space in our heads.

Eventually, it all becomes part of the environment we’re living in.

I’ve had to learn that sometimes the healthiest thing I can do is remove someone from my feed.

And sometimes, frankly, from my life.

Not because I hate them. Not because I think they’re evil. And not because I believe everyone has to agree with me.

Sometimes I simply recognize that my serenity is worth protecting.

There are people I don’t want to be associated with because of the way they treat other people. There really is such a thing as guilt by association—not necessarily because their behavior makes me guilty of anything, but because I have to decide what kind of person I want to be seen standing alongside.

And that brings me back to something much more personal.

Some of you know that I’ve had learning challenges throughout my life. During the first few years of elementary school, I was placed in what was then called the “special” class.

Thankfully, in fourth grade, I had a teacher who recognized something important:

I was capable of learning. I simply learned differently than many other people.

That experience has stayed with me for more than six decades.

It taught me that words matter.

Words can encourage someone.

Words can heal.

And words can cut deeply.

That’s one reason why some of the language I’m seeing used online lately bothers me so much. There are words being thrown around as insults that have a very real history of being used to demean people who are different.

One of those words—the one I wrote about recently—is showing up with increasing frequency.

And I’ll be honest.

My first reaction is sometimes to want to yell right back.

To come up with the perfect insult.

To make somebody feel as small as they just made somebody else feel.

But then I remember:

I’m better than that.

Not better than them.

Better than that behavior.

And so are you.

Maybe that’s the real question we need to be asking ourselves when we spend time online:

Who am I becoming?

Is the person I’m becoming someone I recognize?

Am I becoming more compassionate—or more cynical?

More thoughtful—or more reactive?

More willing to listen—or more eager to win?

Am I contributing something good to the conversation, or am I simply adding more noise to an already very noisy world?

I don’t always get this right.

Far from it.

I’m still the comedian who occasionally thinks of the really clever comeback. I’m still capable of getting angry. I still sometimes want to type something I know I probably shouldn’t.

But I’m learning that I have a choice.

I can hit “send.”

Or I can walk away.

I can follow someone.

Or I can unfollow them.

I can feed the outrage.

Or I can choose something healthier.

Because what we put in eventually comes out.

And I’d like to be a little more careful about what I’m putting in.

Not because I think I’m better than everyone else.

But because I want to become the person I believe I am supposed to be.

Who am I becoming online?

That’s a question I’m asking myself today.

Maybe it’s worth asking ourselves a little more often.