I am offended by you being offended

Offended is the new black; everybody loves it, wants it and wears it with pride. Better still, it doesn't cost much to be offended. A person, persons, cult or even a chunk of misinformed society as a whole can be offended in one easy-to-feel hurt at no cost to their own life or activities.

Being offended mutates swiftly and seamlessly into being outraged, too, for added bonus points in the human emotion stakes.

However while it is free to be offended (and outraged), there is a cost in terms of your offender-seeking effort. You have to be on the continual lookout for some small thing that offends you. Should you drop your guard and aren't searching for offence then some terribly offending statement or action may slip past you. Fortunately, social media can help here: you can log on to your Facebook account or Twitter and scroll back to see what wretched offence is being handed out.

In terms of our exciting new world, it is so easy to see a broad swathe of offence-giving material every night on your TV or radio and especially on your internet-linked device of choice. It's never been easier, and you can use social media to rally others as equally offended as you to your shared passion.

A simple message will get people hot under the collar, especially if you say something like: 'If you aren't as outraged as I am by the injustice of (insert company or product here) then you aren't human.'

Sadly, popular though it is to be offended, there is a flaw. While you can be freely offended over a wide variety of things from what you think was meant when a person said something to what you think they did or even what goes into the product, it seems it isn't valid to be offended by those doughty souls being offended.

To be honest, no one is interested in what we might call a rebound offence here. Echo-outrage is just not interesting.

Don't be outraged that the outraged are marching and burning buildings, before going home to watch their favourite programme on TV or do some shopping. You are exhorted to feel their pain, share their eagerness to throw things and be abusive in a crowd, but keep quiet about not liking it. Who cares that you are offended that society has become a home for the loudmouthed, scruffy and unintelligent to be offended?

We want what we want and we want you to do it or we'll be offended.

When do we want it? We want it now or we'll be really, really outraged.

Behind all this there are millions of people who aren't anywhere near as outraged and are quietly offended that this outrage business is going on in the first place, but their feelings of being offended by it are of no interest. Of course this may be simply because your being offended isn't as organised, or as troublesome to society, or as well supported by our soft-headed media. Perhaps the initial anger and outrage -- no matter how empty-headed -- is newsworthy, so the news gets to be full of it.

All this can be broadcast to lots of people who are offended this crap is making the news, but their own outrage probably goes no further than turning the TV off.