Shout Out to Keyboard Warriors

I have a love-hate relationship with social media, which in this day and age, means that I have a healthy relationship with social media. I slowed down with the internet posts a year or so ago, when I started receiving genuine hate mail and attacks from internet trolls. It didn’t bother me, but it still wasn’t something I looked forward to.

The problem with internet trolls, is that their arguments are undeniably ad hominem, in other words, they attack the person rather than the content. As much as we hate to admit it to ourselves, sometimes these attacks cut deep. Although there’s power in not responding, there will always be those vivid conversations that you have with them in your head. However, something really empowering happens when you don’t respond – other people come to your defense.

They come out of nowhere and you’re never ready for them. They spend their hours roaming the streets and corners of the web, prepared to demolish ignorance and stupidity. They are: The Keyboard Warriors. 

There are mixed reactions when it comes to the phrase “Keyboard Warriors”. A lot of people immediately associate them with the word “coward“. These people, I believe, are generalising due to a lack of open-mindedness towards the impact that technology actually has on society. Other people believe that Keyboard Warriors cannot express themselves well in real life, and take to the internet because that’s where they express themselves best. This, I believe is also not entirely true. There are a lot of reasons people take to being Keyboard Warriors, sometimes it’s just a form of procrastination, other times it’s because they’re overly passionate and cannot keep their views to themselves. Over the course of the years, post to post, protest to protest, the role of the keyboard warrior has proven highly important in the little every day battles that we face. The internet is filled with pests, who do not fact-check,  and attack when they feel personally victimised by a post that has very little to do with them, which in turn, exposes their ignorance. This is where the Warriors come in, and clean up any mess that the ignorant try create on the pages of your timelines.

Reasons we need Keyboard Warriors:

1. They research the fire before they burn you with it. Because more than often, the keyboard warrior’s job is to protect the world from denseness and oblivion, accuracy is key. A keyboard warrior rarely engages in battle without the right ammunition.
2. They’re the army that sense when you need them. They’re kind of like super heroes that way. You never really have to call for a keyboard warrior, they’re already there. They see everything, they know everything.
3. They can teach you a thing or two, merely using memes, gifs and emojis. Twitter is the best place to see this in play, sometimes 140 characters is a bit of a nuissance, and meme says everything you need to know about the situation at hand.
4. They show you what should be news. Follow the keyboard warrior, and they’ll show you what didn’t cut it in prime time news. The things the media really doesn’t want to show you. Or they will correct the media. Such as when the SABC was quick to report violence and havoc occuring on the University Currently Known as Rhodes campus. Keyboard Warriors were quick to make the media humble.
5. They shut idiots down with words that you never saw coming. There is nobody spicier than a keyboard warrior. They’re endorsed by both Robertsons and Rajah, and when they tag-team with other keyboard warriors, you don’t need to look at your watch to know how late it is for you.

In the current times of crisis that are occurring on University campuses across South Africa, there is a high need for the Keyboard Warriors. They are key to this revolution, without them, I believe our cries would not be as public as they are. I am not denying that there are faults to internet arguments, nor am I promoting internet arguments or cyber-bullying in any way. We can all agree that there are better things to do with our time. What I am saying is that the Keyboard Warrior is overlooked, so this is their shout out. In reality, it is rare to have someone do what they do. Nobody corrects ignorance in real life, and  hardly anyone is ready to defend your views. If we had the same thing occur on the internet as in reality, I think a lot of people would be reluctant to share knowledge and insightful perception with the world. That, I think, is detrimental to our social intelligence. So thank you Keyboard Warriors, your work, doesn’t go unnoticed.