Social Media's Favorite Sport Is Hating People

A couple of days ago, I watched a video of a fight inside of a sports bar. Nothing unusual there. Human beings have been arguing over alcohol, sports, and wounded pride since someone invented fermented fruit and competition.

But the video claimed the fight happened at a Walk-On's restaurant in Madison, Mississippi.

The people fighting were white.

The comment section immediately turned into what comment sections always become: a tribal war.

Some people used the video to criticize Madison. Others used it to defend Madison. 

Some tried to connect the behavior of two individuals to an entire city. Before long, people weren't discussing a fight anymore. They were discussing race, politics, morality, intelligence, crime, culture, and every other topic that social media can drag into a mud pit.

The funny thing is this: the video wasn't recorded at a Walk Ons restaurant in Madison. Heck, there isn't even a Walk Ons in Madison which leads me to believe this was originally posted by someone not even from the area. The video isn't even from Mississippi. It appears to be a two- or three-year-old video from a Buffalo Wild Wings in Hoover, AL. A fight that happened during March Madness years ago.

This seems to happen more and more every day.

Videos are constantly being shared with misleading locations, misleading dates, misleading context, or completely fabricated backstories. A fight in one state suddenly becomes proof of a social problem in another. An old video resurfaces as "breaking news." A random crime becomes evidence that an entire race, city, or political party is somehow defective.

And millions of people hit "share" without spending thirty seconds verifying any of it.

Why?

Because the truth is boring. The truth usually sounds something like this: "A small number of people behaved badly."

That's not exciting. What gets engagement is: "These people are all like this."

Social media rewards outrage the same way casinos reward gambling. The platform gets traffic. The creator gets clicks. The audience gets emotional stimulation. Everyone wins except society.

Around central Mississippi, there has long been tension between people in Madison and people in Jackson. Some residents of Madison point to crime and dysfunction in Jackson as evidence that Jackson is failing.

Some residents of Jackson point to examples of bad behavior in Madison and use them as evidence that Madison's self-image is undeserved.

Both groups spend enormous amounts of time collecting evidence against the other side. It's become less about solving problems and more about winning arguments. The internet has turned many people into amateur prosecutors. Nobody investigates their own side. Everyone investigates the opposition. 

A black person commits a crime. Someone posts it.

A white person gets arrested. Someone posts it.

A liberal says something foolish. Someone posts it.

A conservative says something foolish. Someone posts it.

Then thousands of people conclude that one example represents millions of people.

It's like seeing one bad driver in a Nissan Altima and deciding everyone who owns an Altima can't drive.

Yet people do it every day when race and politics are involved. Bad news grabs our attention. Negative information sticks in our memory.

We remember the insult more than the compliment. We remember the scandal more than the success story. We remember the fight more than the thousand ordinary interactions that happened peacefully that same day.

Social media algorithms understand this better than most psychologists. They know anger keeps people scrolling. They know resentment keeps people engaged. They know fear keeps people clicking. And they know that nothing spreads faster than content that tells people their enemies are worse than they imagined.

This is why your feed is full of outrage and rarely full of context. Most people don't want information.

They want confirmation. They want evidence that the people they already dislike are exactly as bad as they suspected.

A misleading video becomes useful because it reinforces an existing belief.

Once that happens, fact-checking becomes inconvenient.

The result is a society where everyone is carrying around a digital bag full of stories about how terrible the other side is.

Republicans. Democrats. Black Americans. White Americans. Men. Women. All have something.

Everyone is collecting grievances like Pokémon cards.

Meanwhile, millions of decent people from every race, political party, and neighborhood are living ordinary lives, going to work, raising children, helping neighbors, paying bills, and never appearing in a viral video.

But ordinary decency doesn't trend. Who wants to see that?

The Smartest Person in the Hotel Was Eight

There’s something almost disrespectful about the size of Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. You don’t stay there. You survive it. The place is so massive you half expect park rangers to hand out trail maps and emergency flares near the elevators. Human beings really saw a hotel and decided, “What if we also made it a rainforest, shopping center, riverboat attraction, and a small municipality?”

Still, I enjoyed every minute of it.

One of the standout attractions inside the resort was the fountain show. For about 12 to 15 minutes, water shot into the air in choreographed patterns while music played alongside a synchronized light display. The fountains moved almost like dancers. Every burst of water seemed timed to the rhythm and emotion of the songs. It was one of those moments where people stop walking, stop scrolling, and just watch. In modern society, that alone feels medically significant.

But the part that stuck with me wasn’t the technology or the production value.

It was a kid. 

A young boy, probably elementary school age, stood close to the fountain completely locked into the experience. While the music played, he started pretending to conduct the show like he was leading a full orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Every time his arms lifted into the air, the fountains erupted upward. Every motion he made seemed connected to the water. In his mind, he wasn’t watching the show. He was the show.

And honestly? He was having a better time than most adults in the building.

No phone in his hand. No stressed expression. No mental checklist running through his head. No worrying about deadlines, bills, obligations, politics, back pain, gas prices, email notifications, or whatever fresh disaster humanity had cooked up before breakfast.

He was just... happy.

Watching him reminded me of something simple that adults forget all the time: life cannot be only responsibility. Yes, the bills have to be paid. The work has to get done. Family matters demand attention. None of that disappears. But when those things finally quiet down for a moment, even briefly, you have to allow yourself to enjoy something.

Otherwise, life turns into one long maintenance shift.

Too many people treat joy like it’s irresponsible. They postpone fun until some mythical future where every problem is solved and every task is complete. That day never comes. There will always be another bill, another issue, another obligation waiting around the corner like an unpaid intern asking for guidance.

You still have to live.

That little boy reminded me of that in the middle of a fountain show inside a giant hotel in Nashville. For a few minutes, he conducted water, lights, and music like the happiest person on Earth. And maybe that’s the real trick to surviving adulthood: finding moments where you stop managing life and actually experience it.

Sometimes you need to laugh harder.
Sometimes you need to travel.
Sometimes you need to sit quietly.
Sometimes you need to eat something unhealthy while staring at dancing fountains in a building large enough to have its own weather system.

Whatever it is, do something that reminds you you’re alive before stress convinces you that existing and living are the same thing.

They aren’t.

Bad Restaurant Service Doesn’t Excuse Bad Behavior

I was in a restaurant recently and watched a lady act a whole donkey over her order being wrong. Like the server was supposed to pick her sandwich apart to make sure whatever she asked to be added was on it. And despite the server apologizing (and never blaming the cook for the error) the woman went HAM. I'm pretty sure that she left little-to-no tip for having to wait an extra two minutes for her tomatoes or whatever she wanted on her sandwich.

Restaurant service has changed. Pretending otherwise is just performance art at this point.

A lot of servers today seem distracted, undertrained, or overwhelmed. Some are glued to their phones between tables. Some spend more time talking to friends who stopped by than checking on customers. And in many cases, management throws people onto the floor with barely any training and expects everything to run smoothly. Humanity keeps trying to operate billion-dollar industries on “figure it out as you go.” Inspiring stuff.

So yes, customers notice the decline.

But here’s the part people conveniently skip: bad service does not give customers permission to treat servers like slaves.

Some customers walk into restaurants carrying the energy of a king returning to inspect his castle. Snapping fingers, talking down to staff, threatening tips over minor mistakes, acting personally offended because a tea refill took an extra two minutes.

That behavior is ridiculous.

A distracted or inexperienced server is still a human being. Maybe the service is slow because the restaurant is understaffed. Maybe the kitchen is behind. Maybe the server is new and trying not to drown during a dinner rush. None of that excuses terrible service, but it also doesn’t justify humiliation as a response.

The truth is both sides have gotten worse.

Service standards have slipped in a lot of places, while customer entitlement has skyrocketed. And now every restaurant visit feels tense before the food even hits the table.

People don’t just go out to eat anymore. They go out looking for something to complain about. And some can't wait to document it and go live on social media to make things worse.

And somewhere in the middle of all this chaos is a tired server carrying three plates, a frustrated customer waiting on refills, and a manager hiding in the back pretending the Yelp reviews are make-believe. "Civilization" at its finest.