Take a deep look inside and ask yourself: do you sound like the type of person described in this poem?

The Internet can come with a thrilling sense of no consequences, and so we can be more cavalier with our comments than we might be in person. But what if your lack of care with how you comment means you’re secretly hated by your own community? One active Twitter user in the real-life survival game scene, @dynamite1105, posted his observations about the potentially toxic atmosphere of places like Twitter by posting wisdom from a popular social media poet.

The tweet, which has since been deleted, reads:

“I saw this somewhere and it struck a real chord with me. I feel like I’ve been acting like one of these people in my local Twitter survival game circles… I’ll make sure to mind myself from now on.”

Accompanying the tweet was a short poem by a popular Instagram poet, Chisato Taguchi. Taguchi has over 13,000 followers on Instagram and writes poems about resonant themes such as family, work and daily life.

https://twitter.com/flute_mogumogu/status/1013647855112806400

The poem, titled “Those We Resent” reads:

“Without even attempting to listen, we feel secure to say whatever we want
Without a care for our peers’ thoughts, we speak whatever comes to mind
We push our opinions onto others, and complain when those opinions are not recognized
With nothing good to say about others, we still fail to see our own faults
And don’t notice when we cause problems around ourselves
One who thinks only of themselves is fated
To be endlessly hated
One who can consider their neighbor’s thoughts
Can be loved by anyone”

▼ The original poster of the tweet deleted the original after it got over 90,000 likes

It seems like this searing call-out didn’t just affect the Japanese airsoft gun community. Comments poured in one after another:

“Oh… this is me…”
“(´;ω;`) Shut up… Sh-shut uppppp!”
“This kind of person is all over Twitter. Seems like we’re getting an outbreak of that nasty disease where sufferers can understand plain text but refuse to read it properly.”
“So it’s just saying “let’s all talk while respecting one another~”, yeah? Even elementary school kids know that.”

It might seem obvious, but it’s very easy to lapse into the mindset that your own opinions are the most important and deserve the most airspace – especially in validation-heavy spheres like in social media. It’s always good to take a step back to check in that everyone’s getting heard, and that you aren’t missing out on real communication by needing to talk the most about what makes you happy.

Source: Twitter/@dynamite1105, JIN
Featured image: Pakutaso