The Golden Rule of the Internet?

Look, you don't have to be credulous or naive...in fact, you don't have to believe pro football player Golden Tate's denials of some of the sordid reports about him that have appeared on the Internet.

But his words in this article are right on in an era when gossip has gone viral and when a favorite hobby of many is to drag others down on the Internet, celebrities and even ordinary people whose only "crime" is that someone, for some reason, finds them mockable. (Think of the young woman that dozens of web wags thought had been caught on national TV stepping out during Ohio State's recent Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama. The video with scandalous inferences burned up the Internet. But very few people with whom I've spoken know that the inferences were wrong and the man whose head she had touched was not a side interest, but her boyfriend.)

Tate begins by writing of himself as pro player in the public eye:

You don’t know me.

Sure, by watching the NFL and playing fantasy football, you are aware of me as No. 15 on the Detroit Lions. You saw me win a Super Bowl last season with the Seattle Seahawks. You comment on my on-field celebrations and my perceived brashness. You frame what you think of me based on that, and how I perform, and what’s said and written about me by newspapers and magazines and blogs and talking heads. 

But you don’t know me, Golden Tate, the person. What I’m all about. You don’t know how much I care about my relationships with the fans and city in which I play.

Later, Tate suggests that people try to abide by the Golden Rule:

The false rumors about me served to open my eyes and sensitize me to what I read or hear in the media. Imagine, for a moment, walking in my shoes — having malicious and damaging accusations flying fast and furious, only you had no way of stemming the tide; no one person to call out and demand a retraction and an apology from. Now, imagine yourself squarely in the public eye, facing thousands of people lambasting you for something you didn’t say or do.

DeAngelo Williams was right. In the Internet era, stories like these live on — in search engines, in archives, and in the minds of fans watching the game. They will never fully go away, regardless of how I address them and how others debunk them. I actually learned something through all of this, it’s my Golden Rule, so to speak: “Treat others as you would like to be treated — especially on social media.”

Good idea! Read the whole thing.

In Martin Luther's Small Catechism, the Reformer explains the meaning of the Eighth Commandment, first given by God to the human race through Moses at Mount Sinai:

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

In other words, we human beings are called to strive to find to think and say the best about others whenever possible. 

Knowing that this is God's will for us should stop everyone in our tracks to confess our sins to God and turn to Him for the forgiveness and renewal He offers to us through Jesus Christ.

For Christians to know that this is God's will for us should motivate us, out of simple gratitude for Christ's cross and empty tomb and the grace that saves from sin and death all who believe in Christ, to ask God to help us always strive to "put the best construction on everything" done by our neighbors, whether they live next door, serve in the White House or Congress, or play in the NFL.

Who's Entitled?

Leonard Pitts, Jr. talks about the worst question a celebrity can ask.

It reminded me of this story I first heard recounted by John Maxwell, retold here by Paw Prints Anecdotes:

Entering a crowded restaurant with a companion, Gregory Peck found no table available. "Tell them who you are," murmured the friend. "If you have to tell them who you are, you aren't anybody," said Peck.

[From eight years ago: The Effects of Fame on the Famous.]



UPDATE, 5/3/2013: Discussing the incident involving Reese Witherspoon on CNN the other evening, Jeffery Toobin, a legal scholar and journalist, said that while the officer who arrested Witherspoon was within his bounds, in his judgment, he cuffed her too quickly. In looking at the video that went viral yesterday, I understand what he means. But, along with Toobin, I think that Witherspoon's apparent claim of entitlement to special treatment because of her celebrity status was unconscionable. It was also a taunt to the officer.

By the way, was her husband leaving Reese out there twisting slowly, slowly in the wind when he told the officer of her behavior, "I had nothing to do with that"?

Who Are These "Celebrities"?

Saw this magazine cover while shopping today at Costco.

The cover says it has the scoop on, "What Tore Them Apart."

My first thought? "Who are they?"

I wasn't interested enough in learning who they are to do a Google search.

It just struck me what our celebrity culture has come to. Once upon a time, there were a few people who were celebrities: leaders in government and other institutions, a handful of entertainers, writers, and artists, and that was about it.

But with the explosion of the Internet, which came after the advent of five-million channels on cable and satellite TV, a media machine that eats and spits out "celebrities" at roughly the same rate at which your Toro cuts and discharges blades of grass, almost anyone can be a celebrity.

And Andy Warhol turns out to have grossly overestimated the shelf lives of instant celebrities; fifteen minutes takes many way past their expiration dates.

The consequence is, of course, that people's stars go by so quickly that many in this celebrity-craving culture miss them altogether.

I'm sorry that this couple experienced some sort of split.

But, if they're fortunate, they won't be celebrities much longer and they both can focus on being the one thing we should most want to be, actual human beings.

 [See also here.]