*Thread* Yday someone sent me an email which was quite upsetting to me on a human level.

They have things going on in their life, saw a feature that brought up sad feelings and decided the best course of action was to email me to tell me how awful and inconsiderate I am

The feature in question was a really nice one, was supposed to bring some joy given that we are constantly accused by readers of being 'too negative' when all we are doing is reporting the news.

I replied to the person offering my sincere condolences. Because I do feel really terrible for their situation, because I am a human and I have human experiences too.

I explained that the feature was not in any way meant to hurt anyone, but I can't apologise for publishing it

They replied apologising but they also said they 'wanted to vent anger', that they are a 'keyboard warrior' and doing that to me 'helped' them feel better with their sadness.

The trouble with that, though, is that I'm a human too.

Every time you send an email or a tweet or a DM you aren't typing into an abyss.

You are talking to a human being. A human with their own issues, dealing with grief, loss, trauma, illness etc.

Everyone has their own ways of dealing with things. Everyone needs to vent sometimes. But does that anger necessarily need to be sent to someone else? A stranger who has no bearing on your situation?

You don't know what that person has gone through. They might be suffering too.

It feels GOOD to vent anger. It's a physical release. Anger is a big, hot ball of flames and by venting you remove it from yourself.

But when you send it TO someone, they have to absorb it.

So just to say - we need to reconsider how we use the internet. It's not always the best place to deal with things. Venting takes a minute, makes you feel better for a time & you can forget what you said. But remember if there's a human on the other end of the venting, they won't