Micro values - quick judgements - The New Intolerance

A month ago Stephanie Rice was officially slaughted after tweeting "Suck on that f--gots.Probs the best game I've ever seen!! Well done boys." She had been on a rugby game and was excited. She is 22. She is gen Y and use a language to come with it, but her comment was considered "anti-gay".

Hmm. I went to a gay soccer game on the weekend, honoring the first soccer player who came out of the closet, and I must say the language wasn´t very nice there either... :)

Anyway, sometimes we say things that when taken out of their context and put into another, sound bad. People have different ways of expressing themselves. Depending on age, cultural background and gender we have different "accents" - vocabulary, and energy changes when moving between groups. But this is no longer tolerated...

We live in a society that has become harsh. On one hand more people can blurb out whatever negativity they are thinking at the moment - in a tweet, a blog post or a comment on YoutTube. On the other hand we are so scared of each other because of this, that we dismiss people based on tiny incidences. We are quick to both react, act and judge. We kick them first, before they kick us!

I think it is a result of the world coming sort of closer together and us losing our sense of community and humanity. Through "social" networking like Twitter, Facebook and through urbanization, we are now in each others faces all the time and the pool of potential friends, work colleagues and lovers seem endless. It´s all anonymous, as we were replaceable items on a supermarket shelf.

You can ditch guys on dating sites like they were annoying flies, based on them wearing the wrong shirt or misspelling a word. You can say no to a job seeker based on a micro event a year ago because you think you have millions of others to choose from. You can officially slaughter a swimmer making an innocent comment, just because the value of every human being seem to decrease the more people we connect with.

This is what it all comes down to. The value of a single individual is decreasing. We think we can treat each other however, hiding behind our computers and text messages. We are unprotected against others, writing about us, posting things on our blogs, tagging us in unflattering photos on Facebook, and at the same time protected against eye contact, digging into our conscience, when we do the same to them.

I´m no saint either. We are all in this together, in the trend towards intolerance and an increased level of fear. Who can you trust? Who do you love? Who are you?

In this terrified world is where brands find their consumers. Protect them against the world of anger, make them look like they are safely photoshopped, and give them a voice - and you get their love.