By: Riley Zipper

My entire life I have been a somewhat pessimistic person. It’s just my nature to be a cynic. I’ve just always noticed the worst in people, and that brings out the worst in myself. 

This year, I’ve slowly been trying to make a change, emphasis on “slowly”, but it’s happening. But this day and age, it’s getting more and more difficult to be a positive person. With social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, it’s almost too easy to be negative. It’s much more satisfying to make a Facebook status saying “You can’t spell ‘suck’ without UK!” than one that says “Great win IU! Proud to be a Hoosier!” and that’s a sad fact. Why can’t we simply praise our team instead of bashing another? It’s actually really tacky, people just don’t realize it.

People are just getting meaner to each other in general. They’re becoming apathetic to other’s feelings. After the IU win last Saturday I looked at Facebook for some reason unbeknownst to me, and saw two posts on someone else’s “wall” that just really made me sick. This person was a UK fan and the people that posted to his wall were IU fans. Obviously, it was trash-talking, but it was so hurtful. It wasn’t directed at the entire Facebook world like most everything else, it was directed just at this person, out in public. They didn’t have the decency to “say it to his face,” (a trite, meaningless expression I hear too much of these days) they said it over a social networking site for everyone to see. This isn’t the only time I’ve seen that happen. It happens all the time.

Now, people don’t have to be mean to be negative. I consider myself a relatively nice person, but I have my fair share of negativity. If one would scroll through my Tumblr dashboard, they’d probably see quite a few negative posts. It’s not my fault, it just naturally flows. I write better when I’m angry than when everything is going perfectly. That’s probably a good reason for all this negativity in the world. People generally like to share their complaints more than their praises. It makes for a much juicier story. Sadly, people like to hear about what’s going badly in the world more than what’s going well. Just watch the news. How many times do you hear “fatal shooting kills three” or “unemployment at an all-time high”? Much more often than “economy heading back in the right direction” or “boy survives with only a scar after his parents were killed” *hidden Harry Potter reference*.

This holiday season, bring back the positivity, and keep it all year long. Next time you almost tweet “Hate my parents! They never let me go out after midnight!” or something much less lame that I can’t think of at the moment, say something like “My GPS is broken, so I won’t be able to find my best friend’s house at night, guess I’m staying home! #firstworldproblems”. Okay, those were terrible examples, but you get the point! Stop Facebook trash-talking, it’s very uncouth, and even cowardly. Supposedly, the people you talk to on Facebook are your “friends,” so treat them as such. Nobody likes a Debbie Downer, be a positive… Patricia? Whatever, just be positive!