I, for the most part, have a strong dislike for social media. Because of that I am regularly ranting about the depths of this dislike to friends and strangers and sometimes small animals (I KID). Instead of keeping up with this usual practice, on today, I decided to spew my thoughts here.
So fasten your ergonomic home-office chair seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, I’m about to go on a hopefully coherent and probably full of rage rant-list about how social media harvests human emotion for its own good.
Doesn’t Actually Facilitate Connection: I recently learned that when sugar was introduced to the public as something one ought to add to their diet, many advertisements claimed that it would help children have more energy. Probably at the time it was introduced, things were becoming more industrial and so going outside and playing was less likely to, for example, watching TV. Now, of course we know that this is wrong and that it’s probably very bad for children or adults to consume too much sugar.
Similarly, social media has been presented to us as something that will help us stay more “connected.” Probably because around the time it was introduced lots of people were feeling hella lonely and disconnected — this was the beginning of the millennium, after all, and a whole batch of young people whose grew up in isolated suburbs and whose parents perhaps worked too damn much were going into their adult years yearning for a sense of community. Behold, social media. Now, it’s almost laughable to think that social media helps us stay connected, though it might be what many folks say when extolling its qualities.
But, like, how? The rate at which people scroll and like, and retweet and post is swift and mechanic. Have you ever watched someone just like scrolling and liking? It can appear a very quick and automated process. It’s passive and unthinking almost, whereas true connection requires intentional action by all parties. Further, when people are posting or engaging, many times there is a preoccupation with how it will be received. Not in terms of who will learn from what they have posted or in terms of who will be helped. But interms of how many likes or follows they will acquire.
And the most ludicrous thing of all, is that social media actually makes true connection that much harder. (Much like how sugar, ultimately and in the long run, depletes energy rather than creates it.)
How many people do you know are “bad at texting” or “hate talking on the phone” but spend a shit load of time passively interacting with strangers on social media? How many people claim to hardly be on their phones but seem to be up to date on all of the social media circulated gossip and drama of the day? How many people have a lot of followers who they’ve never spoken to in life, much less had a conversation with online or elsewhere? What in the fuck is actually going on?
The reality is that though initially and continually touted as like a way to “connect” it actually bastardizes connection and turns into something akin to, perhaps, plastic. Or sugar! As in, seemingly super helpful and good to have around, but actually not giving you or the environment what it truly needs.
So, creators of social media have taken the human desire to connect and experience pleasure through connecting and used it to, well, maintain a business.
Fuck!!
Sacrifices Connection for Consumerism: So if you’re over there scrolling away being lulled into a sense of being connected with others, but actually not being connected with others, then what the fuck are you actually doing?!?? Well, you’re being primed to buy shit, is what you are actually doing. The people who made the social mediaz know that if you’re if there are ads everywhere (and if they know what will appeal to you because they know everything about you), and if you’re on social media a lot of your waking hours, then you’ll eventually see something that you want to buy. Or you’ll see something that reminds you of something you want to buy. Or you’ll see someone who makes you feel like you need to buy something to look like them. Or you’ll see a tweet about someone going to Spain and you’ll suddenly want to go to Spain (gulp, speaking from experience here). Or you’ll see another tweet about a wine club and really want to get a subscription.
Do you see? Some of these are regular old ads. But some of these are posts of others. But the problem is YOU DONT KNOW WHICH IS WHICH. You don’t know whether an account was created to NOT look like an ad when it really is an ad. Think about it — anyone who you regularly follow could be any fucking person pretending to be any other person. And if you trust or respect this person enough what they are promoting could inspire you to buy something and IT COULD ACTUALLY JUST BE AN ACCOUNT THAT EXISTS TO SELL SHIT. And I don’t mean like small business owner type shit. I mean like giant corporations having fake accounts pretending to be people that they are not in order to sell shit. There are probably teams created for PRECISELY THIS THING THIS IS NOT THAT PROFOUND ARE YOU WITH ME STAY WOKE.
Keeps Us in a Steady Feedback Loop of Anger and Fear That Isn’t Really Being Processed: When I used to go on Twitter more often, I noticed that a lot of the suggested Tweets or things that were recommended for me were issues that I really cared about and that really, really upset me. And I would click away and go down this rabbit hole of fear, anger, and anxiety. You know, like root chakra shit. Survival level shit.
And it happens so often. We hear something upsetting happening in the news, and then just like re-traumatize ourselves over and over again by learning all of the minute details of this or that and discussing it endlessly. But let’s be honest for a second. Fear and righteous anger can be addicting. It can feel really good like, probably, a hit of some drug feels good, to like hear about something racist or otherwise fucked up and like join together with a group of righteously angry people and just like champion being on the “right” side of things and feeling better than the other people who are “wrong.”
But then, you are getting these “hits” but in the end you still feel terrible because you HAVENT ACTUALLY PROCESSED ANYTHING.
Spending time on your phone, liking and retweeting, or tweeting sarcastic, witty one-or-two liners in response to something that happened that is upsetting to you is NOT, I REPEAT NOT processing. Processing takes going inward. It takes time and space from what has upset you. I think. I don’t know. Ask your therapist!! (First step, get a therapist.)
But know that the people behind the social media game know that anger and fear can be addicting and exhilarating. They know that it will keep people on their screens always looking for another hit, something else to be upset about. And the people behind the social media game are not the only ones who know this ( I KNOW YOU HEAR ME). And they know that the more people are on their screens. The more they are buying shit (SEE #2); the less they are truly connecting (SEE #1) and the more someone, somewhere gets richer (WHICH IS ALWAYS THE GOAL WITH GREED-BASED CAPITALIZM DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?).
So what we are talking about is a harvesting of human emotion to eventually produce more money for some folk that already have too damn much. Do you see?!?! A whole farm of people’s anger, fear, and desire to connect (to love!) that is collected and turned into profit. SO DO YOUR ACTIVISM IN A SOCIALLY DISTANCED PARK MEET UP OR LIKE BASEMENT OR CAFE WHY NOT YOLO.
Disincentivizes individuality: A friend once showed me their Instagram feed and I looked at all the pictures and I thought they were the same person. Like it was just rows and rows of women who looked pretty much the same, making similar postures, with similar body shapes and similar styles of dress. Like the canned good aisle at a grocery store. Or, rows of rows of corn on a farm (ARE YOU GETTING THE METAPHOR NOW KEEP UP) It was pretty jarring. But if your main objective is to get followers and likes or what have you, then you’re going to do what has worked for others who have a lot of followers or likes or what have you. And if a lot of people have that same strategy, if you will, then a lot of people are just going to be doing the same thing that works for others. What that leads to is, of course, people being wary of being themselves. The discouragement of individuality for fear of not receiving those sweet sweet ego-rewards. And what that also leads to, of course, is more people buying shit to look like the “ideal.” Because this is what it all boils down to. And again, who knows if the others are real people or what. Obviously by “real people” I mean like people who are who they say they are and not like “real people” meaning non-humans. But, all bets are off, so who truly knows they could also be people created by some computer YOU DONT KNOW AND DONT TRY TO TELL ME YOU DO.
Encourages stealing: Related to the above point, because things posted on social media, or say Medium, are apparently not really protected by much in the way of laws, it basically gives human and corporate people the ability to mine for new ideas or approaches and use those to — you guessed it — profit. I remember a while back there was a new show on one of the streaming services and there was a lot of criticism that it seemed like a lot of the dialogue was lifted from social media sites. And yeah that’s really sort of despicable and says a lot about the people who decide to go that route, but it’s also an example of social media acting exactly as it was intended. To harvest human emotion, brilliance, and spirit for profit. People need to express, connect, and share after all, and if you can get them to do that on a platform that constantly being monitored then you can just let them do what they were born to do and then sweep in like a vulture and take it for your own financial needs.
Beyond this, it also encourages people with larger “platforms” and greater access to resources to prey on those with less by taking from them in some way. I remember there was this model, or something, that was like ridiculed a while back for pretending to be black when she wasn’t. She basically just like mimicked the style and dress of the black women she saw on instagram to create hers. Kinda weird right? You can see something you like on social media take it, and pretend to be a whole new person. Like the make-believe you used to play as a kid. Except sometimes people don’t really see that it’s make-believe. There was always that kid that really thought they were a wizard.
BONUS: Increases movement of the mind while suppressing movement of the body: I don’t know about y’all, but like being on social media for too long like starts to make my head spin. There’s just like so much going on. Bright colors, various information tickers, pictures, words, little pictures (emojis), sounds, links, usernames, handles, threads, fights, sad stories, more fights, theories, polls, puzzles, hashtags, fitbits, tiddlywinks.
It’s a lot!!! Though one could be desensitized to it, your mind is probably moving quite fast to process all of this information. It’s working very hard, I’m telling you!!! It’s just kind enough to keep you from that and let you focus on crafting the perfect post while it processes all that’s going on in the background. So at the end of some time on it, your mind has gotten quite a workout. You might even feel drained, for a reason you can’t identify. And then of course you don’t want to move your body around!!! You just want to rest. Or something. But then you rest and something else bad happens that you just have to read all about and go to Twitter to see what’s happening.
And then you go maybe the whole day with not really moving your body (other than walking from one room to another) but your mind has literally done a marathon and you’re only prepping it for more with each ping, each notification, pitter patter of the heart that is your smartphone. DO U HEAR ME??
When I was younger I used to sometimes play EA sports games on sega genesis. Now that I think about it, it’s sort of odd that I spent so much time playing soccer, or basketball, or track and field on a computer instead of just going and doing those things in the real world, outside. But then again, who has energy to play soccer when your thumbs are sore from all the controller handling? And of course, giving my attention to the video game instead of the outside world only served to encourage me to buy more shit and make someone else richer.
Shit!!!
OK, whew!!! That’s it. Stay tuned for parts 2–47. I really think that in some years we’ll look back on this time and social media will be the “sugar” of the new generation.
Of course, I could be wrong. I only have two followers, after all.
Besos!
