Discussing The Easily Offended

Mark Thomas

DisasterTheory vocalist and guitarist

It has always been amusing to me that people actually spend their time trying to find things to be offended by, and actively trying to alter or change those that may have said or done something that has offended them.

Over the past few months, our following has graciously grown across all platforms. We’ve received love and support from fans all over the world. There are 14,000 of you on our Facebook page (up front just under 4000 in just a few months) and 22,000 of you on Instagram. We have definitely felt the love.

The way we approach our social media presences is the same as we approach everything else. We tend to lean toward sharing our music, merch and things we find funny. Inevitably, we know in advance that you the fans are not going to find every piece of content we share enjoyable or funny. We are okay with that. That’s how life actually works. You’re never going to please everyone all of the time. We do not actively set out to offend people. We do however find it amusing when people are offended over a meme on social media. There actually seems to be a sense of severe loneliness perceived of people who have that much time and are that sensitive over a meme that is intended to be funny.

Gone are the days that someone can see or hear something they don’t agree with and simply move along, ignore it or avoid the resource of that which offended them. Now, they need to express their offense to you. They feel the urge to tell you how you should change to fit them and give you advise on how to be liked by them. The truth is, we have no interest in that. When 36,000 of you enjoy our music and the content we share, to think that we would change what we do or say to accommodate the handful of people that get upset, is a ludicrous expectation. It’s the same as telling someone “In spite of me knowing that 99% of your audience enjoys what you do and say, instead of me just choosing not to consume your content, I think you should change everything about yourself to fit my intellectual and emotional needs.” Why would we alter ourselves to conform to the few whom would abandon us the moment we said something they didn’t like and trade our loyal supporters for them? It’s not going to happen.

We also will never tell a fan “well if you don’t agree with us, we don’t want you as a fan.” What we will and have said however is that “if disagreeing with something we’ve posted is enough to get you to leave…well, we wish you the best.”

What is “good” is determined by the masses, not by the few.