And he just said so on… Twitter!
There’s a lot to hate about social media — I’m thinking particularly of the word “bae” — but it’s cool that anybody with Internet access can find out what the Pope is thinking about at any given moment. Here he is earlier today, using Twitter to remind us that there’s more to life than Twitter:
Do not underestimate the value of example, for it is more powerful than a thousand words, a thousand “likes”, retweets or YouTube videos.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) February 23, 2017
So of course, he’s getting thousands of likes and retweets. D’oh!
He’s right, of course, and not just because the Pope is always right. Social media is like a funhouse mirror. It distorts reality. For example, a lot of people thought it was big news last year when Hillary Clinton got hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets for telling Trump, “Delete your account.” And yet it didn’t translate into enough votes in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Stuff like that just reaffirmed people’s biases — “Wow, Americans really do like her!” — which made it all the more shocking when she lost.
Every day, people say lots of silly things on social media and feel validated by the instant feedback. I mean, just look at this idiot:
Feminists think everything is rape, except a mob of Muslims sexually assaulting dozens of women.
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) January 7, 2016
Of course, all this proves is that hundreds of people online are racists and sexists. Go back to Germany, ya Nazis!
Anyway, everybody should get off the Internet. Except for the Daily Caller, of course. You should read us every day, multiple times a day. But otherwise, listen to Pope Francis.