About 10 minutes ago, I clicked on a little piece of non-news on the Huffington Post. Apparently, through pure coincidence, Zach Braff and Mitt Romney were seated next to one another on a plane last night. Prior to getting on the plane, Braff noticed Romney walk past him, and started live tweeting about having spotted Romney. When he got on the plane, Romney ended up sitting next to him, and joined in on the fun by tweeting a picture of the two with the caption "May the odds be ever in your favor."
It was all a little fun piece of non-news which made a celebrity and politician seem more like real people. A fun coincidence we could all enjoy because of Twitter.
...and then I got to the comment section.
THE COMMENT SECTION!
At the moment I sort my comments on the Huffington Post based off which have been FAVED the most (or LIKED the most, in Facebook speak). Based on this metric, this was the top comment for this totally harmless piece of non-news.
The 2nd most FAVED comment was someone agreeing with the above comment. These two comments had 6 times as many FAVES as the third most FAVED comment.
Let's break this down:
- One famous person saw another famous person at an airport and tweeted about it
- The two famous were seated next to one another on a place
- Both famous people tweet a picture of themselves together
- A whole bunch of random people on the internet lost respect with our first famous person for taking a picture with another famous person
STOP AND THINK ABOUT IT!
I don't know the person who made the comment. Maybe they personally know Mitt Romney, and Romney personally wronged their family. I doubt it, but it could have happened.
More likely, there are three possibilities for why the person lost respect for someone taking a picture with Romney:
- He's a Republican
- He's rich
- He's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
That doesn't exactly reflect well on the commenter or his buddies. We only have a few options here:
- He's intolerant of people with different ideas
- He's intolerant of people with more money
- He's intolerant of people with different beliefs
Maybe that doesn't phrase things strongly enough: ...I know I'm stretching a bit at this point
- He seems to oppose the idea of democracy
- He seems to oppose the American dream
- He seems to oppose religious freedom
Tolerant of Everyone They Agree With
tol·er·ant
- 1.showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.
in·tol·er·ant
- 1.not tolerant of views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one's own.
Since I don't know this commenter, or the truckload of people who FAVED his comment, I can't with authority make definitive statements about them. However, I have spent far too much time in the comment section on the Huffington Post, and I have noticed patterns. There seem to be an awful lot of people there who get really really mad about any time a Republican or a Christian makes a comment which they view as "intolerant" or doesn't stand for "equality." Or, you might say they are intolerant of others' intolerance.
This particular incident of total non-news reveals some of their true colors. It's not just that they disagree with Romney, they openly judge people who are friendly towards him.
Based on a Google search, Zach Braff voted for Obama. It's highly unlikely that he's a fan of Romney. He just made a few tweets about him, and posted a picture. I'm not a huge fan of either of these two individuals, but it was a fun story. A person who responded to the comment phrased things nicely, "People can have different views and still be friendly towards each other. That's kind of a staple of civilization." So very true.
Maybe it's just me, but I think you may be a highly intolerant person if you're intolerant of someone taking a picture with Mitt Romney.
Comment sections really are the wild wild west of the internet!
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