Here's why everyone is acting like such a jerk lately

[Qutzupalotl]

Here’s Why Everyone Is Acting Like An Asshole Lately
There’s a scientific explanation for why we’re all at each other’s throats.

Katie Way

Over this past pandemic year, we’ve seen astonishing displays of generosity, solidarity, and compassion. On our best days, we’ve linked proverbial arms with strangers and taken part in mutual aid drives, massive bail fund donations, GoFundMe boosts, and street action; we’ve also shown up for struggling loved ones, and received the same care and support in return. Ultimately, though, not every day can be our best day. More and more, bad moods seem to be prevailing, and bad interpersonal behavior follows accordingly.

A few totally hypothetical examples: roommate group chat “drama” over a kitchen counter that’s not quite immaculate; a thicket of subtweets so dense you’d need a machete to slice through them; skepticism of whether a co-worker “cut in line” to get a vaccine; an eye-roll at a photo of an acquaintance’s newborn baby; or a “thumbs up” response to a friend’s text instead of the real response they clearly wanted. Basically, a lot of us aren’t exactly being “nice” right now, and we’re definitely not being kind.

Writer Maya Kosoff wrote about this ambient bitchiness, especially potent Online, in a Medium post—where she gently suggested that we’re misdirecting our anger at our loved (and not-so-loved) ones instead of aiming it where it belongs: at the people and systems that put us in this position in the first place. VICE has written about pandemic-related anger before, too, which felt especially potent when public safety protocol was more nebulous and COVID rulebreaking had more potential for pronounced consequences. Now, our anger is likely a lot less righteous, especially when it’s directed at people whose circumstances we can't possibly know.

Why might rudeness, meanness, and pettiness be guiding our actions right now? According to therapist Ashley McHan, the answer is simple: we’re tired, and as Kosoff wrote, we’re tired because of forces outside our control. “Over time we get fatigued,” McHan told VICE. “If there hasn't been change happening around us or there hasn't been improvement of situations, our ability to tolerate them is going to decrease… Our ability to cope might eventually piddle out.”

Over the course of the pandemic, McHan said we’ve taken everything we can to the chin as far as our “window of tolerance” allows. “The window of tolerance is a cool concept when we're looking at our ability to regulate emotions, to tolerate distress, to tolerate stress, frustration, and just how we generally respond to and handle difficult moments,” McHan said. She suggested we picture a window cracked open by four inches. Anything that can fit through that opening is bearable—we can handle it without getting worked up. Any additional stressors beyond that window, however, put us in a state of arousal that’s not our norm.

more:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5b7nj/heres-why-everyone-is-acting-like-an-asshole-lately
(TLDR: pandemic stress)

[True Dough]

1. Listen,

I'm just a jerk by nature. It comes naturally. Nobody has to do any explaining to this piece of work!

[TheBlackAdder]

11. Everything is a scandal or RED ALERT to drive endorphines (runner's high) keeping viewers addicted.

.

FOX News capitalized on this to keep their viewers addicted. If they detach, they will do into a depression as the endorphines wear off. That is why they always have those Red Alert and beeps to peak the viewer's tensions and keep them hooked.

.

[LizBeth]

2. Not only pandemic. We have to deal with an issue and no person will answer a phone.

We spend so much more of our time waiting waiting waiting and jumping thru hoops anymore to get anything done. Comcast, Gov, even Wayfair, I call and can hardly get a person or not at all. Our world is being set up in a way to heighten anxiety and frustrations. So many rules anymore, monopolies that leave us no choice and no repercussion.

[Mr.Bill]

4. We have invented communication devices that are beyond our wildest dreams.

And we are using them to avoid talking to each other.

[demtenjeep]

3. we were just commenting the other day that the Pandemic was making everyone

mean

[stopdiggin]

5. Who you callin' an ....

Screw you and your silly assed 'theories' .... Oh, wait ....
----- --- ----------- -----

[jmbar2]

6. The planets and the moon are aligned

in the house of Doo Dah

[dweller]

7. After 4 years of being throttled

by an orange maniac, the last year coupled with his lethal bungling of our health and very lives with his mad scientist ‘cures’ and lying pathological denials, my being safe in solitude from the dismal outside world was almost a godsend ... I’m a loner by nature, unfortunately I’m now 97% feral and probably can’t be safely assimilated back into society

✌🏻

[Tree Lady]

15. I was thinking the other day I don't even want

To see people anymore. I think I have got so use to being just my husband and I and we have our own safe spaces in the house we live in most of the day. I find it exhausting to do the weekly family face chat with my 2 adult daughters and elderly mom. Just hearing about my daughters jobs makes me tired and glad I am retired.

We were pretty new here when this started so I have no friends yet. I was just starting to meet others but hadn't got to the point in my classes of a phone number yet.

There is going to be a lot of people with phobias after this, afraid to go out.

[maxsolomon]

8. Aim my anger at "the people and systems that put us in this position in the first place"?

Yeah, anger at Trump and his incompetent minions does exactly nothing. They walked away scot free, as is usual for GOP government malfeasance.

Just like war criminal Bush Jr. & Cheney did.

[Maraya1969]

9. I was hoping to move before another hot summer in Florida. I've had a realtor

here telling me a rediculous amount of things that I should do if I want to get the best price on my house, (and workers are coming tomorrow to start peeling that stupid popcorn shit that's on the ceiling.) I'm overwhelmed about the whole process AND about going through everything, getting rid of most of it and packing and then I realized last week.

I don't even have a frigging place to move to!


I haven't been able to travel in a year so I can't check out the places that I thought I wanted to go.

And yea, I've been cranky and bitching at people. And of course I don't have anyone around because everyone has been housebound for so long and before that I spent so much time taking care of my mom that I've lost contact with so many people.
I think I'm most mad that my mom died a year ago because I really want her to be here.

[Solly Mack]

10. Well, sure. I can use that for an excuse for a few more months but after that?

I dunno. I might just have to admit to being an asshole.

I jest. A little.

[Sherman A1]

12. Obviously the author of this piece

Hasn’t been paying attention for the last 5 decades. Anyone who had worked in Retail will tell you that this has been getting worse for a very long time.

[Klaralven]

14. Middle class incomes fall further behind upper-tier incomes

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/12/09/4-middle-class-incomes-fall-further-behind-upper-tier-incomes/

[Sherman A1]

16. Precisely

Working in the Retail Sector, I noticed people becoming more angry starting in the 1980s or the beginning of our new Gilded Age. Folks were and are pissed off, often they don’t know why they they are angry, but they have been and continue to be so. It boils down to people working harder and longer for less results in their paychecks.

[FlyingPiggy]

13. We were just talking about this. Too many people running around jacked up on hate and anger

It's awful and even though things are opening up and we have both our covid vaccines, we have zero intention of going out and interacting with people.