Sadly, in this day and age social media users are standing by and waiting for something that offends them…
Public figures have an almost impossible expectation to navigate the politically correct waters of social media or face very public backlash and accusations. Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt learned this the hard way after a seemingly innocent remark he made on his Instagram account. Pratt posted a promotional video on his Instagram for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, where he urged viewers to turn up the volume and not just read the captions. This sparked a huge outrage from the hearing impaired community. Pratt explained that he meant no harm; he was simply engaging his viewers and encouraging them to click on the video.
Anyone familiar with Instagram knows that videos appearing on the news feed are muted until they’re opened for viewing. I would never have given it a second thought, but many took offense to Pratt instructing his fans to listen to the video. He has since apologized in sign language, adding he wasn’t prompted to do so by publicists. He recognized that although he meant no harm, he could see how members of the hearing impaired community felt that his video was insensitive. It was very classy of Chris Pratt to make the effort to communicate his thoughts using sign language.
While I can certainly understand that people may have been offended by this, I can’t help but think it was blown way out of proportion. It’s almost like social media users are standing by and waiting for something that offends them. Pratt is no stranger to the wrath of social justice warriors. Last month, he found himself apologizing after he made a remark that blue-collar Americans aren’t represented in Hollywood. This was after social media warriors came for him with their pitchforks in one hand and caramel lattes in the other. What will Chris Pratt be crucified for next?
The United States is entering an incredibly crucial phase where something will always offend someone in our society. While it’s important to keep the channels of communication open for dialogue and understanding between groups, tolerance goes both ways. Accusing a person of being discriminatory is as ignorant as someone who actually discriminates.
People need to start assessing situations before jumping to the convenient conclusion that marginalized people are being attacked. There wasn’t anything malicious about Chris Pratt’s post. He still took into consideration the feelings of those who felt such. That didn’t stop the “Chris Pratt makes fun of deaf people” narrative from being passed around social media platforms. He even called on Instagram to start including captions for hearing-impaired users.
When telling people to “listen to this” is what’s causing outrage, it’s definitely time to step away from the computer. The mobs were already waiting for Pratt to slip up again in their eyes. It can’t be easy navigating the internet with entire hordes of social justice warriors waiting to pounce in the name of a cause most are probably not involved with themselves. Instead of trolling celebrity Instagram pages, maybe they could look into organizations that help those who are hearing impaired.
