i have personally watched individuals use the internet to fuel their personal vendettas into world crusades, to validate some weaknesses into full blown failures. But to state that the internet is to blame for kids going OTD when it is known to anyone in the field that 7-9 of every 10 OTD kids has been sexually abused is just a very convinient way for us to wash our hands of a very serious problem. It is also a complete digression of the topic of this thread.
The topic of OTD has been hashed and rehashed on many threads, talking about chumros is important because when it is used as a yardstick for how frum or holy or special you are (as happens frequently in shidduchim or school sriteria) then it is very damaging and some posters here are speaking to that.
Chumros were not made because people felt they had mastered the halacha and want to bring it to a new level. I understand chumros to be a way of keeping yourself safe from a cliff. A way of keeping yourself on your toes in recognition of the importance of staying away from the edge of the cliff. A way of developing sensitivity to the holiness of a mitzvah and guarding yourself from getting too close to temptation.
It is sad that so many people were not taught about chumros in this light. Slamming those people for their attitude instead of taking a step back to understand where it came from just reinforces the fallacy. We keep chumros out of love, or fear, or reverance. Most people don’t know that. And MANY people who DO know that forget to pass it on to their children.
If the sunglasses thing was a fool or rashas idea, their would not have been so much support for it from posters here. Can we listen to people who speak badly of chumros and explain how they express our love for mitzvos? Can we use it as an opportunity to look at our own selves and wonder if we are, Gd forbid, using it as a yardstick to measure our own or our neighbors holiness?
If you explain it, and express your love and reasoning, the people who “don’t accept” the process can continue to do so, but it would give them an opportunity to see evidence of the real purpose of them instead of going on to perpetuate the negative thoughts or reasoning they grew up with.
And to those who develop their distate (r”l) thru altered hashkafos, that is their cheshbon. Counter their claims with facts and you have done what you can.