I’ll bring up the Megan Markel investigation again. When all was said and done the “Twitter mob” that everyone was sure existed was only a few dozen people.
The lack of agency thing comes up all the time now and I do think it's becoming a huge issue. The internet has seemingly convinced a large swath of the world that literally nothing they do matters so fuck it, why bother. You see this with merciless dunking, climate change (people posting about the climate emergency while driving your SUV to go grab a steak), politics, and literally everything else. When people feel like their decisions don't actually matter in any way they are almost always going to make stupid and destructive decisions, and this is made all the worse by the fact that their decisions still very much matter!
I agree with much of what you're saying here, but I think you're overlooking the fact that the Main Character often isn't someone that people simply don't like, but a person who says something truly ridiculous. People do indeed say some stupid shit on Twitter, and I think sometimes it's good for them to be bullied about it, to let them know that what they said isn't acceptable. I'm thinking of an incident a few weeks ago when an actual therapist posted a video complaining about when her patients "trauma dump" on her. That's an appalling sentiment for a therapist to have, and it's right for people to call her out for it. Did such a pile on accomplish anything? I don't know. Maybe? Maybe not? But if no one had reacted to it at all then that therapist might have continued to believe that such a thought is normal.
"Also - and this will endear me to no one - writing tends to appeal to the shy, the quiet, the lonely."
It endeared You to ME. Two other things wrong.
Bernie Sanders and Socialism are a fantasy.
Take the advice from someone who didn't about smoking. Also applies to ALL social media:
"The best Way not to get addicted is to never start." I lucked out and took that advice about social media. Not on purpose, tho. Just wasn't on the computer when.. I was gonna say "it blossomed." TOTALLY wrong. ".. when it was spawned." Much better.
I have an anon account and I have perhaps three times looked at people within my specialty who engage in Med Twitter. Each time I have lost respect for people who I like and respect in real life so I stopped looking at accounts of people I know and just follow politics and the media.
Not related to my medical specialty, I recently had a Twitter interaction with a full professor who does NIH virology work at a *very well respected* academic department.
Him and some buddies were piling on a grad student who is skeptical of the natural origin narrative of COVID 19. (The virologists on Twitter are making a show of their OJ-style 'looking for the real killer' bit to dispel the lab leak hypothesis, if you are wondering.)
The pile on included of course lots of well funded full and associate professors with their academic affiliations in their bios.
It was embarrassing and made them look mean and petty, and I asked the guy, 'Don't you have something better to do with your time? Do you think this makes you, a professor, an adult, look good in any way?'
What he said, without apparent shame, is that he'd been doing in for 30 years going back to early internet bulletin boards and that it was just good fun.
Imagine being a 45 year old basic science professor and having no shame about acting publicly like a mean 15 year old.
I got permanently banned from Twitter for repeatedly calling Trump a “retard”. Some Q follower reporter me. And while the irony of being kicked off of Twitter by a right wing extremist using a left wing extremist language rules isn’t lost on me, I’m actually thankful. I still read Twitter but I’m mute. Best thing that ever happened to me.
You know how we all laughed at the smoking on Mad Men? “Those people had no clue back in the day.” The next generation will look at our obsession with social media the same way.
I agree about adults behaving like adults. I also try to push certain norms, like not calling out some random commenter or something by name (but I'm not opposed to poking fun of an especially silly comment's substance) and I certainly would not personally do what you describe; I always appreciate criticism, especially if it's pointing out some obvious detail I've missed and doing so in private so as not to embarrass me!
But I do admit to engaging in this kind of thing. I even admit to doing so with no small degree of cynicism: it's clear that a "well executed" dunk is good marketing for the dunker, and therefore it's one of the ways I try to grow my little publication. Again I try to be ethical about it, to not get nasty or particularly personal, and to focus on deserving targets (like conservatives rationalizing this year's changes in local election laws and things like that). But I also admit to the selfishness of this, and that I am not necessarily the best person to judge whether or not I myself have crossed a line in a particular case.
On the flipside, however, I have made more friends than I can count through Twitter. And when I recently wrote an essay about institutional reform, I received very high quality criticisms in that venue. I'm not saying the latter is the typical interaction on there. But the friendships are a common story, and most of my very closest ones these days began there. But your point isn't about social networks per se, it's about the behavior, so perhaps this is besides the point.
As a last remark in this too-long comment, I do wonder about how much the politics of any group is actually hurt by this stuff. To go with the flow on Twitter is a very low energy thing, it's just exceedingly easy. Is it really a substitute for the hard work of organizing and acting to take power? How many of these jokers would really be attending meetings and such, if not for social media? More to the point, in as much as there is a negative influence of social media, *every* ideological group struggles with it, not just the left.
Reddit has this tone too and it's anonymous. One of the most compelling counterarguments is to put "muh" in front of something. Let me destroy this article for a second: muh acting like an adult.
I think the irony obsession partially stems from people have low confidence in their beliefs. I mean, look at the things people argue for. For example, this blog has discussed the heritability of intelligence. It's hard to argue against in the reason/science/thinking sphere, but it's much easier to defeat in the smugness/mockery/irony one.
I quit Twitter just a few weeks after joining, a looooooooong time ago. When social media started to gain steam as a professional necessity, that was kind of the final straw that kept me from seriously pursuing a career as a writer (there were plenty of other reasons, but that was so distasteful to me, I preferred to just opt out).
What you advise here is humane and reasonable. And I deeply feel your assessment is true. There's a certain contentious Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose Twitter handle is both a reference to a woman journalist of historical importance AND a reference to pop culture slang all in one. To me, that says it all: use it to advance in your profession and inflate your sense of personal importance, but with "plausible" deniability about the seriousness of the medium.
I should also point out that the amount of mockery you see on twitter to a great extent depends on who you follow. Half the people I follow are entomologists who post pictures of cool moths. I highly recommend Moth Twitter.
Thank you. That's all.
I’ll bring up the Megan Markel investigation again. When all was said and done the “Twitter mob” that everyone was sure existed was only a few dozen people.
The lack of agency thing comes up all the time now and I do think it's becoming a huge issue. The internet has seemingly convinced a large swath of the world that literally nothing they do matters so fuck it, why bother. You see this with merciless dunking, climate change (people posting about the climate emergency while driving your SUV to go grab a steak), politics, and literally everything else. When people feel like their decisions don't actually matter in any way they are almost always going to make stupid and destructive decisions, and this is made all the worse by the fact that their decisions still very much matter!
I agree with much of what you're saying here, but I think you're overlooking the fact that the Main Character often isn't someone that people simply don't like, but a person who says something truly ridiculous. People do indeed say some stupid shit on Twitter, and I think sometimes it's good for them to be bullied about it, to let them know that what they said isn't acceptable. I'm thinking of an incident a few weeks ago when an actual therapist posted a video complaining about when her patients "trauma dump" on her. That's an appalling sentiment for a therapist to have, and it's right for people to call her out for it. Did such a pile on accomplish anything? I don't know. Maybe? Maybe not? But if no one had reacted to it at all then that therapist might have continued to believe that such a thought is normal.
"Also - and this will endear me to no one - writing tends to appeal to the shy, the quiet, the lonely."
It endeared You to ME. Two other things wrong.
Bernie Sanders and Socialism are a fantasy.
Take the advice from someone who didn't about smoking. Also applies to ALL social media:
"The best Way not to get addicted is to never start." I lucked out and took that advice about social media. Not on purpose, tho. Just wasn't on the computer when.. I was gonna say "it blossomed." TOTALLY wrong. ".. when it was spawned." Much better.
TYTY, Sir Freddie.
Ah, good stuff. Thank you.
I am continuously astounded by Twitter.
I have an anon account and I have perhaps three times looked at people within my specialty who engage in Med Twitter. Each time I have lost respect for people who I like and respect in real life so I stopped looking at accounts of people I know and just follow politics and the media.
Not related to my medical specialty, I recently had a Twitter interaction with a full professor who does NIH virology work at a *very well respected* academic department.
Him and some buddies were piling on a grad student who is skeptical of the natural origin narrative of COVID 19. (The virologists on Twitter are making a show of their OJ-style 'looking for the real killer' bit to dispel the lab leak hypothesis, if you are wondering.)
The pile on included of course lots of well funded full and associate professors with their academic affiliations in their bios.
It was embarrassing and made them look mean and petty, and I asked the guy, 'Don't you have something better to do with your time? Do you think this makes you, a professor, an adult, look good in any way?'
What he said, without apparent shame, is that he'd been doing in for 30 years going back to early internet bulletin boards and that it was just good fun.
Imagine being a 45 year old basic science professor and having no shame about acting publicly like a mean 15 year old.
I got permanently banned from Twitter for repeatedly calling Trump a “retard”. Some Q follower reporter me. And while the irony of being kicked off of Twitter by a right wing extremist using a left wing extremist language rules isn’t lost on me, I’m actually thankful. I still read Twitter but I’m mute. Best thing that ever happened to me.
You know how we all laughed at the smoking on Mad Men? “Those people had no clue back in the day.” The next generation will look at our obsession with social media the same way.
Our phones are today’s pack of Lucky Strikes.
I agree about adults behaving like adults. I also try to push certain norms, like not calling out some random commenter or something by name (but I'm not opposed to poking fun of an especially silly comment's substance) and I certainly would not personally do what you describe; I always appreciate criticism, especially if it's pointing out some obvious detail I've missed and doing so in private so as not to embarrass me!
But I do admit to engaging in this kind of thing. I even admit to doing so with no small degree of cynicism: it's clear that a "well executed" dunk is good marketing for the dunker, and therefore it's one of the ways I try to grow my little publication. Again I try to be ethical about it, to not get nasty or particularly personal, and to focus on deserving targets (like conservatives rationalizing this year's changes in local election laws and things like that). But I also admit to the selfishness of this, and that I am not necessarily the best person to judge whether or not I myself have crossed a line in a particular case.
On the flipside, however, I have made more friends than I can count through Twitter. And when I recently wrote an essay about institutional reform, I received very high quality criticisms in that venue. I'm not saying the latter is the typical interaction on there. But the friendships are a common story, and most of my very closest ones these days began there. But your point isn't about social networks per se, it's about the behavior, so perhaps this is besides the point.
As a last remark in this too-long comment, I do wonder about how much the politics of any group is actually hurt by this stuff. To go with the flow on Twitter is a very low energy thing, it's just exceedingly easy. Is it really a substitute for the hard work of organizing and acting to take power? How many of these jokers would really be attending meetings and such, if not for social media? More to the point, in as much as there is a negative influence of social media, *every* ideological group struggles with it, not just the left.
Reddit has this tone too and it's anonymous. One of the most compelling counterarguments is to put "muh" in front of something. Let me destroy this article for a second: muh acting like an adult.
I think the irony obsession partially stems from people have low confidence in their beliefs. I mean, look at the things people argue for. For example, this blog has discussed the heritability of intelligence. It's hard to argue against in the reason/science/thinking sphere, but it's much easier to defeat in the smugness/mockery/irony one.
Oh, I'm not sure if social media distributes responsibility.
This is an mean girls behavior, scaled up.
People that form clicks and exclude others for being "bad" or "weird" or "old" or whatever, think they are the most morally upstanding people.
I quit Twitter just a few weeks after joining, a looooooooong time ago. When social media started to gain steam as a professional necessity, that was kind of the final straw that kept me from seriously pursuing a career as a writer (there were plenty of other reasons, but that was so distasteful to me, I preferred to just opt out).
What you advise here is humane and reasonable. And I deeply feel your assessment is true. There's a certain contentious Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose Twitter handle is both a reference to a woman journalist of historical importance AND a reference to pop culture slang all in one. To me, that says it all: use it to advance in your profession and inflate your sense of personal importance, but with "plausible" deniability about the seriousness of the medium.
I should also point out that the amount of mockery you see on twitter to a great extent depends on who you follow. Half the people I follow are entomologists who post pictures of cool moths. I highly recommend Moth Twitter.