Jackie McGregor: The morally outraged – the self-appointed social media police

I have seizures and I wasn’t offended by her remark. It was a spur of the moment quip.

Nowadays, many are quick to take offence. The growth of social media provided the easily offended, with the perfect vehicle to highlight peoples’ insensitivities to a global audience.

Several years ago, I had a nasty experience with the self-appointed social media police. I had taken my child to the cinema. The house lights were still up, and I noticed a woman seating two little girls.

They looked about eight and six-years-old. I saw her say something to the woman three seats up, who nodded, then the woman accompanying the children left.

She appeared to have asked the already seated lady, to keep an eye on the girls. I couldn’t take my eyes off the kids; I was concerned for their safety. The woman kept looking at them and seemed to get agitated as time went on, shaking her head and talking to her companion. The movie ended; the woman came back as the credits rolled. I watched as the elected babysitter woman, shouted and pointed at the children, then her watch. The returning woman just threw her hands in the air and shrugged in a, “so what?” fashion, then left with the girls.

The other woman was clearly furious, shaking her head and animatedly giving off to her friend, probably annoyed she’d been used as a random babysitter and, like myself, incredulous children would be left alone like that.

I later posted on Facebook what I’d witnessed. One of my FB friends (whom I didn’t know personally) a well-known author, immediately attacked me because I had mentioned the woman’s country of origin in describing her.

“Why did you feel the need to mention where she was from?” she whined, mortally offended on an entire country’s behalf. She wasn’t bothered about the woman’s actions, but about me mentioning the woman’s nationality.

“Would you still be offended if I’d described her as Scottish or Irish?” I stupidly asked, giving her attention and stoking her fire, then all hell broke loose! She began theatrically typing dead-sea-scroll-length tirades of how offended she was. She was virtue signalling, showing she was woke and enlightened, indicating she was on a much higher moral ground than me.

People usually take offence because they have unresolved issues. The morally outraged want freedom of speech, as long as it’s their freedom and their speech.

They don’t want to hear your opinion; they want to hear their opinion coming out of your mouth, and seemingly feel entitled to get through life without coming across things that will displease them. (They clearly didn’t grow up in the 1970/80s!)

As comedian Ricky Gervais said, “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right!”