There is a certain demographic who, by virtue of their age, heard numerous times in childhood the old rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me. It was a kind of verbal armour, the schoolyard equivalent of brushing yourself off after a fall. That was a simpler time, when the worst thing someone could call you was “four eyes” or “teacher’s pet,” and your biggest existential threat was not being picked for bullrush.
Fast forward to today, and we inhabit a world where public discourse has migrated from playgrounds to platforms, and from slingshots to smartphones. The rise of social media has democratised expression, but at a cost. Now, anyone can say anything, and they frequently do. Worse still, this anything is turbocharged by algorithms whose sole concern is engagement. Not truth. Not balance. Not nuance. Just clicks, rage, and virality. Pile on to that the unholy trinity of troll farms, partisan echo chambers, and generative AI bots with too much time on their synthetic hands, and you have a perfect storm of polarisation and toxicity.
I was thinking of that old rhyme – sticks and stones – the other day, when I did something profoundly unwise. I searched my own name on social media. In my defence, I was curious. In hindsight, it was the digital equivalent of poking a wasp nest with a stick made of meat.
Scrolling through what felt like an endless litany of abuse, I found myself, rather surprisingly, learning quite a bit about me. According to the keyboard warriors of X (formerly known as Twitter, now the flagship product of Elon Musk’s libertarian fever dream), I am both a Jacinda Ardern apologist and part of some sordid romantic entanglement with Chris Luxon. Impressive versatility, really. Apparently, in the alternate universe of the internet, I’m simultaneously sleeping with the former PM’s policy portfolio and the current PM’s PR team.
For clarity, since nuance is in short supply these days, I do think the Ardern government managed the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic with an admirable blend of compassion and clarity. I also think that, later on, they became bogged down in ideology and groupthink, unable or unwilling to recalibrate when the facts on the ground changed. In other words, they were human.
As for Luxon, yes, we’ve met. A few times. I’ve spoken with him when he was at Air New Zealand, in the early chapters of his political career, and more recently in his capacity as Prime Minister. I don’t have a poster of him on my wall, nor do I perform nightly ritual chants in his honour. He’s a man doing a tough job in a tough climate. Some of what he does works, some of it doesn’t. Again: humanity.
But the social media mobs aren’t interested in this sort of commentary. In the binary logic of the online pitchfork brigade, if you’re not 100% against something, you must be 100% for it. If you suggest the vaccine rollout was necessary, you’re a fascist. If you acknowledge the impact of lockdowns on mental health, you’re a COVID denier. Subtlety and honesty are punished. Absolutism is rewarded.
And so back to the feed: I learned that I am a globalist shill, a self-hating Jew, a Zionist puppet, a woke Marxist, and also, somehow, a neoliberal capitalist stooge. There’s almost a kind of poetry to the contradictions. If I had the time, I’d make a bingo card. I even learned that as part of some global media conspiracy, I had a habit of murdering young entrepreneurs.
This all might be laughable if it weren’t so corrosive. Because while I’m a reasonably thick-skinned guy with a decent sense of irony and a willingness to lean into a bit of online absurdity, not everyone has that luxury. And even for people like me, this steady drip-drip of bile can start to shape the way you show up in the world. It can make you hesitate. Second-guess. Pull back. And when that happens to enough people, we all lose. We lose good faith. We lose courage. We lose the shared civic space where robust, respectful disagreement can live.
It would be easy to turn away. To stop engaging. But I believe, perhaps naively, that the only way to reclaim the public square is to stay in it. Not shouting, not trolling, but showing up with a kind of principled stubbornness. Saying, “I don’t have all the answers. But I’m willing to listen. I’m willing to try.”
So yes, the sticks and stones might not leave bruises. But names, words, language, they do shape us. They shape our politics. They shape our policies. They shape our possibilities. That goes equally for David Seymour and Chloe Swarbrick before anyone suggested there was political bias in that sentence.
Just maybe, if we can find our way back to a place where people can disagree without demonising, where complexity isn’t the enemy of clarity, we might be able to build something better. One post, one conversation, one comment at a time.
For the record, and since I’m absolutely certain that this opinion piece will be miscategorised as some shadowy advocacy for censorship and Government oversight over the thoughts and deeds of the citizenry – it is not. I have a general belief in free speech and a concern that regulation, however well-intentioned, can have unintended consequences. But here’s the thing: to enjoy the benefits of free speech, we also have an obligation to think about our words and their impact on other people. And that’s the piece that seems to be missing these days.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to mute some notifications, and maybe go outside, where the only sticks and stones are made of actual wood and rock.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Jewish refugee children, especially those from Germany, were bullied and called worst names than ‘sticks and stones’. The past wasn’t always a simple time.
Well written. I think a word that could describe what is missing, and often has been missing from humanity, is respect. Ardern used being kind, but people can be cruel to be kind. Being respectful encompasses different views, and the willingness to listen and be open to change as you describe Ben. It eliminates ad hominum attacks and the vitriol you describe. At a national level it would prevent wars. It should be a mandatory part of our curriculum, as it is in Japan.
Well written, Ben. Absolutism, polarisation and confirmation bias have all been exacerbated by social media. Keep showing up!
Thank you for saying it Ben