Batman was a cynic, and he’s pretty okay.

I mean ‘pretty okay’ in a more-than-generous sense.

If you’re tuned in with the world at all, and in this activism endorsement day in age, it’s really hard not to be, you’ve heard of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan causing a rather destructive tsunami and the death tolls in the thousands from earliest morning’s reports.

Within probably an hour, I’m guessing, the blogosphere and social networking sites acted simultaneously with major news outlets with spreading the word. Probably later, the floods of status update-condolences and call to online action began taking place. Activism really does spread like wildfire, which is a pretty neat comparison considering the nature of this disaster.

But anyways, personally I didn’t hear about it until I started reading the status updates on my Facebook news feed, because I woke up at noon today and didn’t turn on the television, because staying informed about the world is overrated. So you know, when I see all the compassionate and caring people posting their prayers I immediately felt like an uncultured and isolated jerk, not like anyone noticed. My feed kept growing with it all.

In actually analyzing my train-of-thought when it came to gaining more knowledge about this whole ordeal, it stuck me that there wasn’t really an emotional impact I was feeling with this whole thing. Did that scare me? Nah. Just made me wonder.

I checked lazily checked Wikipedia, and when I found out its magnitude, I was like, ‘Oh, wow that sucks’. And then I clicked on the related links and went to a list of largest and deadliest earthquakes in history. By that time my attention wasn’t on Japan’s crisis anymore.

I wondered if anyone else reacted like I did that I knew, and then it evolved into if everyone who posted those status update prayers were actually praying for those unfortunate Japanese? I mean, after seeing the response to the Haiti earthquake it dawned on me that there was some sort of marketing advantage that many famous people knew about.

Then again, it also dawned on me that I know nothing about the severity of Haiti’s earthquake, and only from what the news tells me, so I convince myself I don’t really have a place to say anything as a valid opinion.
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If there’s a point I’m trying to make—one I obviously haven’t yet—it’s that this kind of celebrity endorsement ‘trend’ you could even call it, the call to action that the actors, musicians, and famous people we look up to plead to use, and we take it proudly and give our donations with good intentions and full hearts—it’s spread down to us through social media, through online interconnectivity and cooperation, we all feel responsible, or even entitled, to display our awareness.

Maybe in fear of not seeming compassionate, maybe some redeeming quality of effect we get, maybe those who send out those prayers really are praying.

I may be making a case out of something greatly trivial. The fact that after seeing these status updates I don’t really fall into the idea that everyone actually cares as much as they say they do, and it’s been the same for me for a lot of disasters that have gained international attention.

To me, it’s all good taste and personal precaution, because we don’t want to seem like, or think we are, bad people. I don't think indifference means a bad person. Indifference is indifference. The whole ‘shit happens’ mantra.

But that’s just me. I hope those caught in it all try their best to make it out alive, and if they don’t I hope they go by quickly and painlessly, because that would suck if they don’t. I want to get away from the ‘pray for them / my wishes go out to them’ stock, greeting-card generalized statement. I don't think it seems earnest.

So, for those worrying about friends and family over there, I wont tell them to stop worrying, and that it’s going to be alright, because they probably thinking it’s not anyways. But you know, hope is the deepest consolation you can get from these kinds of things, at least that’s what we’re lead to believe.

To Japan, stay strong, stay brave, and maybe mother nature will have some mercy. I certainly hope so, because it hasn’t been friendly lately.

You’ve been through worse.