In 2022, fifty years after I graduated from Lake Havasu High School, I was one of the recipients of its Distinguished Alumni awards. We had moved to Oregon from Lake Havasu City the previous fall, and I was still caring for my elderly mother, so I wasn’t able to return to Havasu and attend that year’s graduation ceremony where they handed out the awards.

However, I wrote a speech, which was delivered for me by someone who happened to be one of my teachers during my senior year of high school. I wanted to share one passage from my speech which I believe summarizes the topic of this post. 

It read: Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.

We will come back to that passage in a minute. But first, I want to discuss social media.

With the possible TikTok ban looming and Meta’s decision to roll back any controls on hate speech in the name of free speech, social media has been a topic in many people’s minds.

I started regularly using the internet back in 1991. Seven years later Google Search came on the scene and five years later Google introduced AdSense ads which gave content providers a way to generate passive income on their websites. It’s something I did for a number of years.     

There were other ways for content providers to earn passive income, such as eHow, established in 1999. There, you could write your own ‘how to’ articles and receive a share of the ad revenues each month. Other similar platforms popped up.

Four years after eHow made its debut came MySpace, followed by a social media explosion. While MySpace wasn’t the first social media platform, it’s what many of us older folks tend to remember.

For a social media platform to be profitable, they need users. After all, who wants to advertise on a platform without users? One way to lure users to a site is to provide content. One way to provide content is to incentivize its users to provide content. You know, like those cute cat videos. One way is to allow users to monetize their content.

Of course, a platform can’t pay all its users. That rather defeats the purpose. That would be like paying all your customers to come eat at your restaurant. But you might pay some to eat at your restaurant if they also provide a service that attracts more customers. Maybe they play the piano or can sing.

On many social media programs, when accepted into their creator program, how much they pay depends on the number of your views—and the number of engagements. If one of your videos gets a couple million views and a thousand comments, you might get a nice paycheck that month.

On social media, many content creators have discovered an easy way to make money, providing they are careful and walk a fine line—because this might also get them banned from the platform. Yet, considering how much I see it on social media, I don’t think the line is all that fine.

What am I talking about? Simple. Rage baiting. Hate is profitable, it seems.

For example, over on TikTok some supposedly conservative white woman made a video accusing liberal women of threating to come to the south and beating conservative women for not voting blue. She phrased this like it was a big thing. Us liberal women were all plotting to take some road trip so we could kick some lady conservatives’ butts. Um…that was NOT a thing.

Maybe it was not a thing, but wow, did it blow up! Liberals commented about how no one was coming to attack them. Others pointed out it sounded a little too close to a racist white woman trying to stir up racial tension since liberal women in the south might more likely be black. And then we had the conservative men posting about protecting their women, or claiming their women could easily kick a lib chick’s butt. And so on.

People made stitches, and the entire trend went on for a while. Someone was making money. All on hate. All on fostering division. The videos got hundreds of comments from both sides.

That is just one example. But there are countless videos and posts where someone says something ignorant or insulting about another group, which ends up giving them views, comments, and a fat payday.

However, I wonder how much of the hate and triggering content stems from that creator’s true beliefs—or is he or she simply making content that brings in a monetary return? Profiting on hate.

While I am sure some of the ugly comments and videos reflect the creator’s true beliefs, I’m just as certain many come from an entirely different place—What can I say that will really rile up people and get them to comment?

Either way, I find it disturbing.

Now I’m going to return to that passage I shared from my acceptance speech. Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.

I am seventy now, and I continue to hold on to the belief I expressed in that passage. People whose prime focus is to build wealth, with no consideration to their fellow human, never achieve true happiness. Happy people tend to spread happiness. Just as miserable people tend to spread misery.

To say there is division in our country is a gross understatement. I think one thing I find so troubling with our current president elect is his propensity to call others nasty names. He’s normalized it, and if I was raising small children today, it is certainly not a trait I would want my children to pick up.

We have these devastating fires in California and some people are so quick to spread lies and hate, turning this into something political. My cousin lost his home in this fire. One of our close friends, their niece lost her home, and one of our longtime friends told our daughter several of her friends lost their homes. My point being—this thing touches close to home. And while some may not see this as ‘touching close to home’ from their perspective, and not warranting any of their empathy, I certainly don’t understand the hate, lies, and counterproductive rhetoric they choose to heap on the victims of these fires.  

Aside from the profit motive of pushing hate speech in social media, I can’t wrap my head around the fact some people out there really get their jollies seeing someone else suffer emotionally or physically. It’s often someone they have never met before, but maybe the person differs from them, or they are jealous of what that person has. I am seeing more and more people in power and government fostering this type of behavior.

A number of years ago, I received a Facebook message from a girl I knew in junior high. I will confess, I didn’t remember the girl. It had nothing to do with the girl. I just have a crappy memory. Apparently, she had gone to one of my birthday parties I had when we still lived in Covina the year before moving to Havasu. Back then, we lived in what was considered one of the nicest areas of Covina, California, in Covina Hills. I didn’t live in a track home; it was a custom home my father had built and designed. She in turned lived in an apartment in a modest part of town.

The party was a boy-girl party, and when the boys went home, it was a slumber party for the girls. By the tone of the letter, I felt the girl believed we were in some way ‘wealthy’ and she expressed how much she appreciated how nice and welcoming we were to her, even mentioning my mother.

It was such a sweet letter, and I immediately shared it with Mom. I can’t adequately explain how it made us feel—knowing we had left this girl with what was obviously a lasting memory—a positive memory.

I can’t say I was always such a nice kid. In fact, I cringe at many things I’ve done over my lifetime. I only hope when engaging in those cringe worthy behaviors I didn’t leave behind some unpleasant memory for other people to deal with.

Today, with each email or post I receive from one of my readers, telling me how my books helped them during a difficult time, or simply how much they enjoy them, or how my characters seem like old friends, it reaffirms my belief I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Providing comfort, company, entertainment, and laughter is far more fulfilling than making someone feel ugly.