Pardon me while I allow my alter ego, Mr. Perspective, to say a few words about the war in Ukraine…
The following all qualify as meaningless gestures:
- changing your Twitter/Facebook avatar to the blue/yellow flag of Ukraine;
- during your acceptance speech of a showbiz award, including supporting thoughts for the people of Ukraine, thus guaranteeing an applause break (we’ll see a lot of that at the Oscars next weekend);
- having someone sing Ukraine’s national anthem at an NHL game.
Well-meaning acts like these do nothing except make the users/speakers feel better, particularly when accompanied by them patting their own backs — as if they’d made a personal sacrifice or achieved something heroic. None of them will shorten the war one minute or save the lives of civilians being ruthlessly murdered by a madman.
It’s akin to articles telling us Ukraine President Zelensky is “winning the social media war.” It’s good to know he’s engaged and engaging, with a Churchill-like measure of popularity to a receptive audience in the US and elsewhere. But that didn’t stop Putin from blowing up a maternity hospital or bombing a caravan of Ukrainians trying to escape to Poland.
If you’re gauging a world leader by his social media appeal, remember that Rowan Atkinson’s fictitious character Mr. Bean has the fourth-most popular page on Facebook, with 129 million followers.
Previously on Harris Online…
- Mr. Perspective on the Taliban’s impact on Biden’s presidency (8/19/21).
- Mr. Perspective on Volkswagen announcing its name change to Voltswagen (4/7/21).
- Mr. Perspective on 2020 election predictions that never came to be (11/24/20).
- Mr. Perspective on calling Howard Stern the “King Of All Media” (10/22/19).
- Mr. Perspective on liberals being too effusive in their praise of John McCain (8/26/18).
- Mr. Perspective on cellphone radiation warnings (10/20/17).