By the 1950s, television was well on its way to becoming a prominent feature in every home, and by 2013, 79% of all households owned one. Impressive, but not as stunning as the fact that now in 2020, 3.5 billion people—45% of the world's population—have video at their fingertips thanks to smartphones. With shows available on demand, binge watching has become a wildly popular pastime. So how, exactly, has access to all this video entertainment affected our culture over the years?
As humans, we have the capacity to live vicariously through others, whether "they" be real or fictional. When watching shows, we tend to entangle ourselves with the characters and share in their struggles, success, romance, grief, etc. For example, when I watch "Parks and Recreation," I often experience secondhand embarrassment amidst the comedic situations, and for some crazy reason, I enjoy it. When I watch police shows, I feel a sense of vindication when the criminals get what they deserve.
Exploring our emotions through fictional accounts and characters can be enjoyable and even teach us to empathize with others and their situations; however, it cultivates something I call "secondhand offense." When characters are injured or besmirched, we jump to their defense and long for retribution. After all, it's in our nature to root for the underdogs, defenseless, and innocent. However, somewhere along the way we develop this self-imposed "right" to feel and act on another's behalf, and then we have the audacity to apply this same "right" to real life. We sit by watching others do life and reserve our right to jump in and actively defend whomever we chose based on our own feelings and opinions. For example:
- Have you ever witnessed a sports fan get personally offended when someone was smack-talking their favorite ball player?
- Ever seen someone get personally offended because you were mentioning the potential shortcomings of their favorite politician?
- Did you see in the news where a photographer allowed a monkey to use his camera for a series of popular “monkey selfies" and was sued by an animal rights activist group on behalf of the monkey, claiming the animal and not the photographer owned the copyright to the photos?
The sports fan took on the personal offense he presumed the ball player would feel. Likewise, the political person took on the personal offense he presumed the politician would feel. All cases of secondhand offense. All misappropriated.
You know what secondhand offense does? It causes strife. People will argue over things that don't apply to their own life. Things that actually belong to other people. Honestly, what right do we have to act on behalf of others, especially without their permission? Did Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi ask you to jump into their little spats and personally defend their honor on social media, trolling the feeds looking for opportunities to post backhanded comments and attack their aggressors? No they didn't. So, stop it.
Okay, let's pause for a minute and address something before everyone goes nuts on me… Yes, there are times when we must step up in good judgement and defend someone, especially in situations of bullying etc—BUT—for most occasions, we just need to mind our own business and stop claiming other's lives as our own.
The time is at hand. Let's get our fingers out of everyone else's pies and stop overreaching. Remember what we learned in grade school? Keep your hands to yourself. I hope we all get ahold of this revelation and cut this secondhand offense problem out of our life.
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off
Mark 9:43 KJV
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