Social media has provided a venue in where anyone can celebrate the failure of others.

We are gluttons for goofs and gaffs. We lust for mistakes of others, especially those of high stature and public figures. During the prestigious Miss Universe this year celebrity host Steve Harvey made a mistake at a critical moment. He read the name of the first runner up as if she had won the crown. However like any responsible professional host he quickly corrected the mistake and took responsibility.

However people’s obsession for failures of others will not allow it to stop there. Social media were quick to post memes, jokes, and pictures that were quickly done in photoshop just to be the first to crack the big joke of someone else’s failure. Television shows and radio programs (including mine) soon followed. Everyone needed to mention Steve and his failure on their show one way or another.

This is what experts call the “Failure Culture”. We feel better to watch others fail specially public figures. We feel better that someone else will be condemned for life instead of us. It is much easier to laugh at others’ mistakes and it somehow makes us feel good. Steve Harvey messed up at a pageant on the big stage in an important moment and this was a perfect opportunity for us to laugh and urge others to join in the laughter and make fun of him in all sort of ways completely disregarding the fact that Steve Harvey is as human as we are.

This culture has been a part of us for so long. I do not think it is a cultural issue because everyone in the world is doing it. We have seen humans mock at others since the time of our Lord until today, which drives me to the conclusion that this is part of human nature. Having said this we can now deduce that this is the bad side of our nature. Social media and mainstream media is either a tool that we can use to further express the bad and ugly side of our nature or a useful tool to remind the rest of humanity that we are not perfect, we have our good and bad side and that we are given free will and a heart to use either of those.

#y101fm #alwaysfirst #hitlist