In the age of endless scrolls and knee-jerk reactions, Barbados may have found itself a new national pastime: posting before processing. Whether it’s a viral video from Grand Kadooment, a controversial lyric in a Crop Over tune, or someone’s private pain suddenly made public, outrage on social media often comes faster than understanding—faster, even, than facts.
Barbadians have always been people who talk things out, who congregate at the rum shop, on the block, or under the mango tree to reason and reflect. But somewhere between the rise of reels and the rush to be first—not necessarily right—we’ve lost something vital: our pause.
During this Crop Over season, we saw this play out in real time. A dancer slips on stage? Cue the flood of memes before concern. A band gets criticised for costume choices? Forget context—just click ‘share’ and pile on. A young woman vents about her Kadooment experience? Her face and words are everywhere, dissected by strangers who don’t know her whole story, only her soundbite. What used to be private moments of joy, mistake, or vulnerability are now content.
And it’s not just during Crop Over. Young people, especially, are feeling the effects of a culture where clout often trumps compassion (and adults too). Every day, they’re bombarded with pressure to perform, to curate their lives for likes, and to respond to complex issues with 15-second hot takes. There’s little room left for grace, or growth, or simply saying: “I don’t know enough about this yet.”
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t speak out about injustice or hold each other accountable. But there’s a difference between accountability and ambush, between digital dialogue and digital dogpiling. When we lead with outrage instead of curiosity, we lose opportunities for learning, healing, and honest connection.
It also chips away at something deeper: trust. When everyone’s scared their worst moment might be tomorrow’s trending clip, we stop being real. We start curating our emotions, flattening our opinions, and staying on the surface. We stop reaching out. Vulnerability becomes risky.
And it’s not just about fear of embarrassment. It’s the quiet calculation people start making before they speak, share, or show up. Will this be misunderstood? Will someone twist it, clip it, repost it with a snide caption? That kind of second-guessing makes us hold back—not just online, but in real life too. We start filtering ourselves even in safe spaces, unsure of who’s listening or recording, unsure of what might be used against us.
The irony is, in a world more connected than ever, many of us feel more alone—guarded, self-conscious, and quietly exhausted from keeping up a version of ourselves we think is acceptable.
When people are bottled up, it bursts in other ways—through anxiety, burnout, and depression. And we wonder why so many of our young people—and adults too—feel unseen, unsupported, and afraid to speak their truth.
What we post matters. But so does how and why we post. Are we uplifting or just amplifying noise? Are we calling out or calling in? Are we creating space for growth, or are we crowding it with judgement? Are we genuinely trying to raise awareness, or are we riding the wave of attention? Are we posting because something moved us—or because we know it’ll move numbers?
It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re “just sharing” or “just reacting”, but digital footprints leave real-world impact. The how and why shape the message more than we think.
It helps to remember that the Internet doesn’t always need our opinion right away. Sometimes it’s more powerful to pause, to listen, to learn. Sometimes grace is the most radical thing we can offer each other online.
As the Crop Over season winds down in a few days, maybe it’s time for a digital detox—to process before posting, to hold our tongues (and fingers) before we tweet, to practice empathy that lasts longer than a comment thread. The question isn’t whether we’ll go viral. It’s whether we’ll go deeper.
The post Our unfortunate new pastime: Posting before processing appeared first on Barbados Today.
