What do a South Carolina police deputy, Michael Vick, a dress and a Starbucks cup all have in common? These subjects all have caused social media users to overreact without really considering the issue.

Recently, a viral video depicted a South Carolina Police Deputy tackling a female student in the middle of a classroom. The video was viewed over 100,000 times on YouTube alone. The video also has a very hefty comment section. With nearly 2,000 comments, internet users went crazy.

The problem with the comments and rants posted was that they were all opinion based and without any knowledge of actual facts. Immediately after watching the video, people jumped to conclusions based on what they thought they witnessed without bothering to look fully into all of the aspects of the story. Investigations began to determine the cause of the physical matters taken against this teen.

“I think [the media] does affect the actual truth because the media only shows you the side that they want to show, which causes people to make up untrue facts to fill the missing pieces that the media leaves out,” Senior Madison Kopac said.

On Oct. 27, Federal Authorities opened a civil rights investigation. In their investigation, the forces uncovered a video taken from a different angle. The different angle showed the girl hitting the police officer and the problems that occurred beforehand. No matter what the actual truth was, the media blew this video out of proportion.

Another instance where overreaction occurred was when the Pittsburgh Steelers signed a one year contract with Michael Vick on Aug. 25, 2015. This caused many problems because in 2007, Vick was arrested and sentenced to 23 months in prison after being found guilty of financing dogfighting. Vick only spent 18 of those months actually in prison.

After the draft, a Facebook group was made in protest of the Steelers drafting Vick. Protests were organized, candlelight vigils were scheduled and the Pittsburgh area went crazy.

One of the most famous social media crazes is the “colored dress.” All over the internet, people were tweeting, posting and sharing this single picture of a dress. Arguments and actual fights were started because of this little dress. Statuses everywhere label the dress as gold and white or blue and black. But the dress ended up being an optical illusion to the eye that everyone saw differently.

“Because people were seeing two different colors on the dress they were becoming frustrated with each other causing everyone to disagree about it when really, both were right,” Kopac said.

Just recently, Starbucks rolled out their newest holiday cups. These cups are plain red without any symbols or words. In previous years, the cups had cute decorations symbolizing Christmas. The decorations included ornaments, snow and reindeer. People are protesting this plain new cup. The vice president of Starbucks said the company “wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”

This mindset wasn’t welcomed to former Christian pastor Joshua Feuerstein. Feuerstein spoke out against Sarbucks by posting a video via twitter. In the caption, he said “Starbucks removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus.” In the video, he talks about starting a movement with the hashtag #MerryChristmasStarbucks.

This shouldn’t even be an issue to create an uproar. In previous years, the starbucks holiday cup never said “Merry Christmas” and it never had any symbolization of a Christian Christmas. Therefore, no one can make the claim “Starbucks hates Jesus.”

“To often people jump to conclusion and say things without thinking or looking at all sides,” Mrs. Beth Majors said.

As users of media, we need to stop reacting without knowing. Before sharing a post, ranting about an issue, commenting on a post or publicly stating an opinion, make sure you know all sides and facts about the subject.