Can we not? 💔

Can we stop doing this, please? Can we stop videoing people in their worst moments, please? In those moments where frustration from like weeks of bad news or, or, or years of poverty or a lifetime of injustice finally inevitably comes to the surface. Can we not? Like, when did we become a society that reaches for our phones instead of reaching out our hands? I've had shitty days. I've done shitty things. I've said stupid things. I've yelled horrible things at very good people. I screamed at a courier once because they were late. They didn't deliver a package on time. I yelled, "I make 3 times what you make!" Like, it didn't even make any fucking sense, and I felt stupid and embarrassed the second it tumbled out of my mouth. Was I an asshole? Absolutely. But it didn't happen in a vacuum. I had just lost a few very hard-fought years of sobriety. My then-wife had just kicked me out. The government was breathing down my neck over taxes. They were about to lock up my bank accounts. All of it, back to back. And I snapped. That doesn't make what I said okay. And I wish I could find that courier and apologize, but like, we are not— people are not just one thing. Right? We are not either saints or villains. Like, most of us have a little bit of both going on at the same time. We are a disorganized mess of contradiction. That's humanity. And luckily for me, this was all before we all had a video camera in our pocket. But now we do. Social media is full of posts like this guy, maybe just in the middle of a breakdown, or crying in a grocery store. Someone lost in pain. Instead of asking, are you okay? We hit record. Like, fuck, what kind of world are we building when the worst day of someone's life can be broadcast to millions for entertainment reasons? Because one day it's going to be you. One day it's going to be your child, and when that moment comes, you will not want the person pulling up Snapchat. You will want someone to meet their eyes and say, are you okay? So can we stop?