Have you ever seen a video of people talking or expressing opinions and you think to yourself “what kind of idiocy is this?” How dumb can you be to say such meaningless things? Certainly not dumber than you look.

You must forgive my language, as I’m writing this with complete disgust toward some people online. I can’t name them, and I can’t repeat what they said but have you ever experienced this? The feeling and the pressure inside to go and write about some random person, or sometimes rather famous people, and just express your utter disgust and aversion towards them?

And the worst part? People listen. They actually sit there, nod, and take it as gospel. Because the person saying it has a checkmark or a million followers on social networks, suddenly their word carries weight. It doesn’t matter if what they’re saying is completely detached from reality. The damage is already done the second it leaves their mouth.

I used to just ignore these, well because most of the time what they said didn’t affect me, but I learned that if you don’t rise to defend others, they won’t rise to defend you. It’s selfish but it’s, yet again, human.

But here’s the thing about ignoring it. Silence has a cost. Every time someone with a massive audience says something ignorant and nobody pushes back, that opinion starts to feel like a fact. It spreads. It gets shared, clipped, quoted, and before you know it, you’re arguing with someone at dinner who heard it from someone who heard it from that idiot online. That’s the damage I’m talking about. It’s not abstract, it’s very real.

I used to ignore them, but nowadays it bothers me a lot more than before. The fact that they have a platform to spread their idiocy, affect people, and seem reasonable, while being a complete idiot and ignoring the facts of the matter, is triggering me a lot lately. I’m so sick of this “I’m a celebrity so I have an opinion about everything” nonsense. You need education, you need facts, and you need actual information on the matter so you don’t spread your ignorance.

People underestimate how much this actually affects younger audiences especially. When a kid or a teenager sees someone they look up to confidently saying something wrong, something harmful, they don’t fact-check it. Why would they? That’s their idol. And that’s exactly where the real damage happens. Quietly, in the background, shaping how an entire generation thinks about something they never got the real story on.

You haven’t experienced it, you don’t know all the fact. I can believe your intentions are good but I won’t ignore the result of your idiocy. Your intentions are good, your outcome is the worst possible, sadly.

You can put back a movement, you can destroy years of hard work of people, and you can benefit the wrong people and damage a whole lot of people simply because you didn’t check what you’re spreading. It’s wrong. Please consult someone with the experience, someone with enough knowledge that will guide you to see the truth, or at least all sides of the matter.