Ranty, ill-informed, public accusations…

I’m all for a good rant, as readers of my blog will be aware. But whenever I rant, I first make sure I am well enough aware of the subject/person/thing/animal before I rant about it. I ranted about 3d movies because I have experienced 3d movies and have done 3d animation. I ranted about paying attention to detail because I have encountered many a lack of it in my time. I ranted about the errant apostrophe because, well, let’s face it, that deserved it. You get the idea. I only rant about topics that I feel qualified to rant about given the realms of my experience.

What I don’t do is see one comment/picture/video clip/tweet/whatever and jump to a conclusion about the subject/person/animal/thing/things and immediately launch into public accusations against them. Because that would be remiss of me. And spontaneously immature. And irritating to all those people who are vastly more informed on the matter than myself. And hurtful to all those people who are genuinely fighting for the very thing I am ranting about but are going about it in the right way, and who are actually making a positive difference. For me to completely disregard that in my ignorance would be rude, and would damage me as much as it would damage them.

So before you make public attacks against people/animals/inanimate objects/whatever, ask yourself ‘am I qualified to rant about this?’.

·      Do I know anything about it?

·      Have I done my research?

·      Is my information up to date?

·      Have I actually thought about what I’m saying before I rant?

·      Am I confident that I’m not just blindly throwing ill-informed accusations around?

If the answer to any of these is ‘no’ then keep quiet and don’t launch into ranty, ill-informed public accusations.

If you are inadequately informed on a subject or if you are not qualified to comment on in, then don’t. 

It belittles you and damages the very thing you are campaigning for.

Elloise Hopkins.