How Social Media Makes Us Passive Aggressive.

The definition of passive aggressive is of or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

 As you see being passive aggressive isn’t a good character trait to have. I was riding in a van with some Soldiers going to a funeral detail. I forgot what the topic was but a Sergeant was talking about the dumb things Privates do in basic training. One Private in the van asked if the Sergeant was calling them a dumb Private. The Sergeant said no because that would be passive aggressive and he takes a direct approach with people.

Most people who are passive aggressive have an intimidated personality. They fear taking a direct approach with problems so they do or say something that is indirect in hopes that the target audience gets a clue that their action or words are directed towards them.

Social media allows people to be fearlessly passive aggressive. You can say whatever you want without having to look someone in the eyes or hear them give an immediate response in person. You don’t have to worry about who sees your passive aggressive post because you can assume how many people saw it or didn’t see it by whoever reacts to the post.

And I realize that I am a passive aggressive person. Sometimes I post things online just to see what kind of reaction it will get. It can be a post against Trump supporters, white people, Atheists, etc. Even in person I rather give someone an attitude to show them I’m upset rather than addressing what the problem is.

Most people have social media friends that are different from them. Liberals have Conservative friends, Christians have Atheist friends, Heterosexuals have gay friends, Black people have white friends, Soldiers have Marine and Air Force friends, and so on. This allows people to post memes, statues, and articles, on their social media when they are feeling some type of way towards someone or a group of people without addressing the issue directly with them.

I know I have some Trump supporters as Facebook friends. Whenever I am angry with what Trump is doing or angry at those who voted for Trump, it’s too easy for me to post a meme or a NYTimes article about Trump to take a stab at those who support him. I don’t even tag the Trump supporters I know in the post. I just post it and hope that they see it even if they don’t react to it.

Being passive aggressive is taking a gamble on fixing your problems. You’re showing that you want your emotions to be recognized but you either don’t really care to solve the problem or you’re afraid of addressing the problem.