I

t was, by all accounts, an 
unenviable afternoon at the 
Jersey Shore. The usually 

crowded beach was sparsely 
populated, thanks in 
large part to heavy 
gray clouds, rough 
waves and a chill 
uncharacteristic 
of 

early 
August. 
My 

family and I were 
perfectly 
content, 

though. None of us 
were 
particularly 

invested in our tans 
that day. 

Several 
yards 

behind 
us 
were 

other patrons who also seemed 
to be perfectly content: A 
young couple, maybe recent 
high school graduates, was 
engaged in some heavy petting, 
to put it lightly. They were so 
affectionate that at one point 
my grandmother, who could see 
the display in her peripheral, 
commented that she had to 
keep 
reminding 
herself 
to 

look elsewhere. We shrugged 
our shoulders, chalked it up 
to young love and minded our 
own business.

A few hours later, a middle-

aged woman came over to the 
young couple from about 50 
yards away. She up-ended a bag 
of potato chips and emptied its 
contents in a circle around their 
blanket, attracting around 30 
hungry seagulls. “You want to 
hook up on the beach, this is 
what you get!”

The couple, understandably, 

was horrified. I was too, and not 
just because my grandmother is 
terrified of birds and was now 
caught in the crossfire of this 
woman’s 
misguided 
vigilante 

justice. A grown woman had 
chosen the least mature, most 
antagonistic way to handle the 
situation. What was more, some 
others were offering her mild 
applause for it.

That is why, I suppose, this 

otherwise unspectacular beach 
day stands out to me. I realize 
now that calling her a vigilante 
is a misnomer. What I saw 
from that woman and those 
who supported her stance was 
something else entirely. It was 
a real-world demonstration of a 
new, ugly category of mob justice 
— one I’d seen before, dispensed 
from the Facebook pulpit.

Before expanding on this new 

platform for populist retribution, 
one must first recognize how 
it fits into the already-worn 
commentary on the need for 

immediacy in today’s 
society. “We want X 
and we want it as fast 
as humanly possible!” 
This 
sentiment 
is 

often 
attributed 

exclusively 
to 

millennials, as if the 
only people who order 
from Amazon Prime 
and 
watch 
Netflix 

were born after 1980, 
and 
its 
discussion 

usually 
strikes 
me 

as nonsensical. But one doesn’t 
have to look far to see how our 
culture has placed a premium on 
expedited justice.

“Law & Order” never needs 

more than 45 minutes to reach a 
resolution, and “Judge Judy” gets 
it done in just 22. Not to mention 
judging panels on singing shows, 
how the “tribe has spoken” and 
the host of programs that cover 
real crime (á la “Dateline”). Even 
cooking shows are obsessed with 
the idea of a verdict.

The woman on the beach was 

no different. She felt as though 
she (or perhaps the beachgoers 
as a group) had been wronged 
and immediately sought out a 
judge, jury and executioner — 
a dramatic conclusion. Paying 
no mind to the innocence of the 
teenagers, nor to the fact that 
she had presumably completed 
elementary school and could 
therefore use her words to 
communicate, she needed to 
see the situation rectified now 
and saw herself as the only one 
fit to do so.

She was proud of her behavior, 

and likely relayed her juicy, 
dramatic story of putting those 
kids in their place to friends 
and family the next chance she 
had (she’d already reiterated 
her reasoning to half the groups 
around her). Social media users 
see and engage in this behavior 
constantly. 
Someone 
posts 

about their negative experience 
at a restaurant, a conversation 
that went south, email or text 
responses that bothered them 
(with screenshots for evidence) 
and waits for the validation in 
the comment section that what 
they did was right. As if that will 
right the wrong. As soon as a like-
minded family member, friend or 

co-worker offers a like or a few 
words of agreement, the poster 
moves on, thoroughly pleased 
with themselves.

The 
internet, 
however, 
is 

rarely (if ever) a place where 
justice is served and is much more 
prone to the obfuscation of facts, 
intense bias and echo chambers. 
Those who post do so without a 
second thought, as they did in the 
wake of the infamous “Unite the 
Right” rally in Charlottesville, 
Va., last month with Kyle Quinn. 
Mistaken for one of the neo-Nazi 
sympathizers in a picture (based 
mostly, it seems, on the fact that 
he has a beard), the assistant 
professor of engineering at the 
University of Arkansas’s face was 
plastered across the internet.

He 
was 
labeled 
a 
white 

supremacist, 
subjected 
to 

death 
threats, 
widespread 

demonization across Facebook 
and 
Twitter 
and 
ultimately 

feared for his family’s safety. 
Quinn was about 1,000 miles 
away from the protests and is not 
(to my knowledge) a racist.

Similar 
casualties 
of 
the 

Facebook pulpit can be found 
prominently in the wake of the 
Boston Marathon bombing, when 
Reddit identified not one, but 
four innocent men as the culprits 
because no one could wait for 
the authorities to do their work. 
We can see this same societal 
reflex on display when bad things 
happen to bad people and social 
media users celebrate the fact 
that cosmic justice has been 
dealt. It makes us feel as though 
the real world is a television 
series, and the villain has finally 
gotten their comeuppance.

The question that arises from 

her actions on that overcast 
afternoon in New Jersey is not 
about whether making out on a 
public beach is appropriate, nor 
is it about intervention versus 
nonintervention. The question is 
what personal sense of authority 
made that woman get up from 
her chair? What made her think 
that her actions were justified? 
And if my thesis is correct — if 
this incident was representative 
of a new brand of immediate, 
punitive and public mob justice 
that lives on and festers in social 
media — who puts the monster 
back in its box?

D

avid Foster Wallace’s 
short story anthology, 
“Girl 
with 
Curious 

Hair,” 
rested 
beneath 
my 

sunburnt face as I lay belly-
down 
beneath 
a 
volleyball 

net at the School for Field 
Studies in Rhotia, Tanzania. 
Here, even amid the shrieks 
emitted from the students-
versus-staff soccer game the 
next field over, I was met with 
a rather unfamiliar sensation: 
the ability to effortlessly follow 
a storyline. A usually slow 
reader with the tendency to 
zone out and backtrack mid-
story, I found myself whipping 
through 
Wallace’s 
satirical 

prose in personal record time, 
particularly 
enjoying 
the 

cohesiveness of his words as 
they circled my brain.

Maybe 
I 
was 
especially 

enthralled by these stories, my 
enhanced focus a product of 
elevated interest. My actual 
hypothesis, however, lies within 
the cultural manifestations of 
the Swahili phrase pole pole.

Closely translating to the 

English word “slowly,” pole pole 
is a cornerstone of Tanzanian 
lifestyle 
and, 
likewise, 
a 

breath of fresh air from the 
undying bustle of American 
culture. Mealtimes in Rhotia 
were lengthy and regarded as 
crucial, 
community-building 

social hours. Class start times 
listed on daily schedules were 
treated only as loose estimates. 
Assignment 
deadlines 
were 

spaced out evenly and fairly. 
And though almost every day 
was filled with some sort of field 
exercise or research protocol, I 
couldn’t help but feel as though 
the free time allotted to me was 
being utilized in this productive 
and streamlined way I’d never 
experienced before.

I 
avoided 
procrastination 

on homework and studying. 
I read (and finished!) books 
that held a nuanced clarity to 
me. I exercised each morning, 
indulged in every morsel of 
food on my plate (this is my 
default setting) and practiced 
slow, mindful eating while 
conversing with friends (this is 
not). I slept seven to eight hours 
per night and was attentive 
and 
engaged 
during 
field 

activities and lectures, despite 
my rash decision to test the 
waters of coffee sobriety while 
abroad. I felt both mentally and 
physically healthier than I had 
in a long while and wondered 

how my own shifting definition 
of productivity would affect the 
usual fast pace of my life back 
home.

Fast forward a couple of 

weeks to yesterday morning.

Jack Johnson’s “Inaudible 

Melodies” blared increasingly 
louder in my eardrums as I 
pumped up the volume on 
my headphones with every 
escaped ounce of focus. Slow 
down everybody, you’re moving 
too 
fast, 
Johnson 
crooned 

into my pounding ears, which 
had been forced to accept his 
“inaudible melody” as a highly 
audible one. I’ve been playing 
this song frequently since my 
arrival home from Tanzania 
as a reminder to myself to slow 
down and live a little more pole 
pole and, quite frankly, it has 
not been working.

As I pattered away on my 

laptop keys at an overpriced 
coffee 
shop 
in 
Valparaiso, 

Indiana, 
pipe 
dreams 
of 

completing two job applications 
within 
the 
hour 
swarmed 

my 
caffeine-powered 
mind. 

I had a meeting with a local 
environmental 
nonprofit 

manager 
at 
noon, 
because 

apparently the disingenuous art 
of networking was something 
in which I was now proficient. 
I had to gather my belongings 
and put my (nonexistent) spatial 
intelligence to the ultimate test 
with the dreaded back-to-school 
car-packing. I had to make my 
rounds through town to bid 
goodbye to childhood friends 
in the area. These self-induced 
deadlines settled heavily in my 
gut, and I was met again with 
the chronic stress and panic 
that promptly enters my body 
in early September and doesn’t 
leave until late April.

I didn’t get the cover letters 

done within the hour, so I 
decided to pity myself with a 
painstaking, 
45-minute-long 

scroll through my Facebook 
newsfeed. After emerging from 
this mental abyss, I realized I 
was about to return to a default 
setting of laziness disguised 
as 
productivity. 
Panicked, 

sloppy, deadline-scraping work 
reunited me with an old friend: 
intermittent mindless activity.

Watching as a man in a navy 

business suit at the corner table 
slipped into a multi-tasking 
frenzy, 
speaking 
corporate 

jargon into his Bluetooth headset 
while ferociously typing on his 
MacBook Pro, I entertained 

the notion that perhaps we are 
always disguising something 
in attempting to keep up in the 
race that is American society.

Perhaps we aren’t disguising 

it, but running from it. Is the 
hunger to push on and up in 
such an urgent and exhausting 
manner 
actually 
inhibiting 

our ability to evade a default 
laziness? What would happen 
if we flipped the paradigm 
on 
productivity, 
gauging 

“productive” action based on 
how well-balanced it leaves the 
different facets of our health? 
Though the desire to achieve 
remains an innate aspect of the 
human state, there is something 
rather inorganic about the game 
of overworking we’ve societally 
constructed for ourselves.

And yes: It feels inappropriate 

to exclusively romanticize the 
workings of other cultures 
while 
exclusively 
degrading 

this 
one. 
I 
am 
frequently 

overwhelmed by the wealth of 
opportunities available to me, 
a privilege-loaded sentiment 
deserving of gratitude. Still, as 
that familiar sense of chronic 
urgency reared its ugly head 
yesterday, I couldn’t help but 
wonder 
about 
the 
possible 

positive effects of the pole pole 
lifestyle on overall health — 
and, more specifically, on the 
health of college students.

It is no secret that college 

students 
in 
the 
United 

States, more than many other 
leading academic countries, 
face sizable rates of mental 
illness. While a 2014 article 
dubbed University of Michigan 
freshmen among the top 28 
happiest college students in 
America, I can’t help but take 
issue with the fact that such 
studies are based primarily 
off freshmen retention rates 
rather than actual health and 
wellness considerations.

Though 
I 
feel 
inevitably 

bound to get at least semi-
sucked into the fast pace of 
college life this year, I hope to 
again, for health’s sake, strike 
some version of the balance 
fostered by a lifestyle to which 
I was lucky to gain exposure 
this summer. However, I’ll 
probably need to discover a 
more 
plausible 
mechanism 

of engaging with pole pole 
than simply listening to Jack 
Johnson songs on repeat.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, September 8, 2017

REBECCA LERNER

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

EMMA KINERY

Editor in Chief

ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY 

and REBECCA TARNOPOL 

Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

The Facebook pulpit

BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN

Hurry up and wait

JOSIE TOLIN | COLUMN

 Josie Tolin can be reached at 

jostolin@umich.edu.

Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Anurima Kumar

Max Lubell

Lucas Maiman

Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Ali Safawi

Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler

Ashley Zhang

 Brett Graham can be reached at 

btgraham@umich.edu.

MICHELLE SHENG | CONTACT MICHELLE AT SHENGMI@UMICH.EDU

BRETT 

GRAHAM

— Section of former president Barack Obama’s inauguration day 

letter to President Trump.

“

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

We’ve both been blessed, in 

different ways, with great good 
fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. 

It’s up to us to do everything we can 

(to) build more ladders of success 
for every child and family that’s 

willing to work hard. ”

