This PSA comes in multiple parts, each one essential to understand before you move on to the next one. Since this is the first part, by continuing, you are agreeing that you will hold yourself responsible to the terms of continuation, outlined below:

1. You agree that you will not proceed to the next point without sufficient understanding of those which come before.

2. You agree that you will not take anything outlined herein as a direct attack on you, and will not retaliate upon me for such.

3. You agree that you will at least pretend to listen to, and not simply read, what I have to say.



Now that I have your attention, I would like to begin by stating something pretty rudimentary. However, it is nevertheless essential to get out in the open (and some people honestly don't get this.)

Important point number one: You Are A Human.

What this means, aside from having a specific biology and the like, is that you are not perfect. You will make mistakes. You HAVE made mistakes. You should not expect yourself to be perfect, because that cannot happen. You should, however, strive to be the best person you can be.

Now, being human, you are a social being. Reinforced by the fact that you are on the internet, right now, reading this, you are a being who desires the contact of others. This brings me to my next point:

Important point number two: I Am Human, Too.

There is an implication here. Namely, the fact that "I" and "you" are separate entities. Likewise, so are others with whom you might communicate with. But they are also human. They, too, are not perfect. They, too, make mistakes. They, too, have made mistakes. Now, just like the previous Important Point, this might seem pretty redundant to mention. "Of course other people are humans!" If they weren't, they would not be able to effectively communicate with you. However, there's something I've noticed lately, and that is the main reason I'm writing this.

Important point number three: This Is Not Just Text On A Screen.

Here comes the shocker. It's something that we often overlook, or deliberately ignore, when we go online. Especially places like this. We're here for a certain thing, we don't care about other things, we want what we want and anything that detracts from that experience is anathema.

This is a terrible viewpoint to adopt.

It's hard to properly convey emotion simply through text. Oftentimes, we (especially us furries) will deliberately misspell words, use made-up slang, and insert emoticons ad nauseum to try and circumvent this, but it doesn't always work (and can even contribute further to the ambiguity.) Communication, truthfully, is only 20% comprised of the actual words you speak. That means that 80% of what you want to say over the internet (where the words are all you get) are lost in translation. You miss inflections, intonations, facial expressions, body movements, and even physical proximity. The end result is that it's a total crap shoot whether or not your message gets across in the intended format.

So why is that important to the current Important Point? Well, the fact is, when messages are conveyed incompletely, improperly, or simply received wrongly, a mistake has occurred. And, since this is the internet, and we are free of the Law of Physical Social Constraint ("one can only converse with those who are within appropriate proximity"), an easy solution to one who is perceived to be rude, offensive, or otherwise unpleasant is to simply never talk to them again. Ignore functions make this child's play, and to the person doing the ignoring, it's no loss to them because, after all, there are so many other like-minded people just a click away.

You could never really get away with such a harsh, instant reaction in a real-life social situation. As such, you would be more likely to attempt to patch things up. But due to the nature of the internet, such things are left to fester. Often, people do not realize just how much they are hurting those afflicted, especially as the imposed Cone of Silence holds strong for weeks, months, or even years. Coming full circle, here, we now restate the reason this matters: you have not merely been slighted by text on a screen. There is a person behind that screen. A real, living, breathing human, with thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

And you have hurt them all, and don't even care.

I urge you, if you have anybody you're ignoring, whether formally (through the ignore list) or informally (by simply not responding), please. Talk to them. Reach out to them. Show them that you care. That you're a human, too.



Thank you for your time. And if you were at all impacted by this, I urge you as well, to spread the word.

EDIT: Submitted as a story because now you can favorite it: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5885348/