A friend of mine posted an article recently about the call-out culture. To be quite honest, I didn’t even know that the call-out culture could be considered a culture, but after reading that article, I thought to myself, “finally, it’s in words! That thing that I’ve been trying to say is in words!” The call-out culture is a relatively simple concept; the call-out culture is one that accepts and encourages when people “call out” other people, typically online, for their toxic behaviors. The catch is that those who are doing the calling out often resort to toxic behaviors themselves, going so far as to attack the other person rather than the argument itself, and even dehumanize the person who is being “called out” for their toxic opinion. I see this on both sides of the political binary and on all parts of the age spectrum. The call-out culture essentially gives a person the full privilege to conveniently forget (and in some cases, deny) that their online opponent is a human being as long as their opinion can be considered evil or otherwise negative.
If you've read my article from last week about the petty trend, it's probably sticking out by now that I find pettiness and the call-out culture to be incredibly similar. So now, you’re probably wondering, “Okay, but how is this relevant to being petty? Being mean when you’re calling someone out should be okay because sometimes being nice doesn’t work and when you call someone out you’re actually touching on a real issue. The petty trend and the call-out culture are so similar because the concept itself is pretty much the same: it encourages you to be mean by giving you an excuse or a seemingly positive trait to mask over your meanness. While the petty trend gives you the privilege to be mean in the name of “brutal honesty,” the call-out culture gives you the privilege to be mean in the name of “righteousness.” This call-out culture thrives almost solely in discussions of politics and religion, though I don’t doubt that it’s reared its ugly head elsewhere. The call-out culture, I’d argue, is much more toxic than the petty trend. The petty trend can bring out the Regina George in the best of people, but at least it doesn’t resort to dehumanizing other people for having different, albeit flawed, worldviews.
So, what can we do about the call-out culture? How can we make it less toxic while still getting the point across that someone is promoting dangerous rhetoric? One of the biggest things we can do is to change our words when we talk to people online. When someone makes us mad because they just don’t seem to be getting what we’re saying, it can be really easy to resort to name-calling, thus derailing the whole argument, and in addition, our credibility as representatives for our worldviews. It can be difficult for “tones” to come across over the internet, but cutting out personal attacks against the author and other snide remarks can make all the difference. It probably won’t magically change the person’s mind, but you can get your point across without the unnecessary nastiness. There is also usually the option of privately messaging them. This is definitely the bolder choice, despite the fact that it is a personal, one-on-one conversation. It’s important to keep the nastiness out of Facebook Messenger as much as it is to keep it out of the comments section, and always remember to ask for the other person’s consent before messaging them.
The call-out culture, as toxic as it is, emerged from a desire to let people know when they were engaging in dangerous or flawed rhetoric. Despite its original intentions, it has derailed into a free-for-all to dehumanize other human beings in the name of moral righteousness. If we don’t make some serious changes in the way that we “call out” other people in debates, then the call-out culture is going to have to go. Being rude in the name of righteousness gets us nowhere.
