Dunk Contest

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was one of the most intriguing books I read as a child. 

If you are unfamiliar with the plot, here is my summary: 

Man sees Mr. Hyde killing a woman. Man discovers that his friend, Dr. Jekyll had made Mr. Hyde the beneficiary of his fortune and asks “you serious, man?!” Dr. Jekyll then starts acting weird. Man discovers that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person, and that Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde via a serum. Dr. Jekyll then commits suicide after realizing that he cannot control Mr. Hyde. The End.

Oh, yeah…spoiler alert. 

One of the main allegorical elements of this book by Robert Louis Stevenson explores the duality of human nature–appearing composed on the outside, while using alter egos to indulge in some of our worst vices and impulses. 

The book’s symbolism became more prevalent throughout last year as I spent more time on Twitter. I became more aware of harassment, trolling, and many of the nasty dynamics enabled by social media. I’ve read far too many interactions where I imagined the person behind them foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, scarlet-faced. I imagine this being the same person that cuts you in traffic and flips you off because you are going only 40 in a 35 mph zone. 

I was on the receiving end of this trolling recently. While tweeting about machismo and how it’s holding Latin America back, I was ambushed by a troll army who felt compelled to remind me that machismo was the only thing stopping me from castration and “that I wasn’t going to get any” among other comments.

Thanks for the eloquence, fellas.

At the same time, I began to observe another set of behaviors. People quipping about someone’s poorly thought out remarks or mishaps, retweeting the most clever comebacks, sharing affirmative gifs in celebration of the latest verbal takedown. I observed these behaviors in myself as well. 

I realized that social media, and sites like Twitter, have become Madison Square Garden. And this mecca of basketball hosts daily dunk contests. How well can you dunk on someone? Can you do a verbal 360, windmill that gets someone ratioed? The crowd is ready for you to wow them, and shower you in likes/retweets. No thought given to the atmosphere it creates. 

When we accept dunking on people and participate in the crowd, we expand the circle of the toxic discourse we allow. This makes more harmful behaviors seem less extreme in contrast. By lowering the bar of our discourse, we become more tolerant to intolerable behaviors. It’s a game of limbo that will eventually break our backs. 

Every time we encourage or participate in this dunk contest we are saying, my desire for the dopamine hit, the serum, that I get from the reactions to my tweets, overrides any civility that I otherwise may display to you in person. As a result, we live in a dissonance in which our online personas indulge in our worst vices, partake in vitriol, and find canceling people a productive activity. 

We become Mr. Hyde. 

I get the allure. I’ve participated in it! The rush of brandishing wit to draw applause is very seductive. But if you pause and reflect, you will realize that a few more dunks and soon enough you will cease to communicate to seek understanding and instead communicate to seek validation. You become addicted to something you cannot control. 

If you pause and reflect, you also start seeing the second order effects. Our discourse will continue to erode, because we will be afraid to communicate out of fear of getting dunked on. Ideological breaches will widen beyond what Michael Jordan in his heyday could reach with his leaps. We will say more, but understand less. We will hear more, but fail to listen. By failing to show restraint and understand the consequences of speech, we fail to protect this right. 

Instead, try this heuristic next time. If you feel inclined to dunk on someone on Twitter, whether you know them or not, ask yourself this: “Would you say this to their face?” If the answer is yes, then record yourself with what you would say instead of writing a tweet.

It’s up to us to be accountable for what we say and showing restraint and not taking the serum. Dr. Jekyll realized too late that he could not control Mr. Hyde.

But it’s not too late for us.