That Day I Broke The Internet
There’s little delusion in the narcissistic mind that is yours truly…which may be contrary to the classic definition of narcissist. Make no mistake though; there is a level of self-involvement with anyone that spends a disproportionate amount of time sharing ideas, opinions and even personal thoughts on social media.
That would be me.
A time passed where denial used to rule these actions but, over time I learned to accept that my propensity to be a know it all , always needing to be right and to usurp that rightness on willing and at time, not so willing audience - was something I needed to own.
Gaining an audience is no small feat. It requires sheer determination, arrogance, confidence and most importantly — luck. That latter is out of our control so if investing a substantial amount of time to whatever cause (whether financial or idealistic) you choose, you should make sure that your opinion can survive not only scrutiny but that your skin is as thick as a gnarled piece of weathered leather.
I’m three paragraphs in and already have come to the conclusion that it’s all bullshit. Who cares? Really. Writing is a selfish endeavor and nothing more than practice for that upcoming novel I keep telling myself will get completed one of these days.
6 days ago I unwittingly shared a meme that broke the internet. As of this moment, there are literally thousands of people sharing and weighing in on what can only be described as a bit of tom foolery. A blip on the radar. But one that made me pull back and question the validity of social media as a forum to share.
It sounds weird, yes, considering that social media is all about sharing. Whether it’s ideas, recipes, cute animal videos, politically charged memes or any number of things that will grab someone’s attention for a nano second — social media is a sharing platform.
Are we actually sharing?
The conclusion drawn from this week’s musings is yes and, no. We are sharing. What we’re actually sharing however is much more nefarious and leads me to believe everyone has become a unfortunate by-product of a social experiment gone horribly wrong.
Before I go any further, it’s prudent to share the meme in order to give you context:
I can’t take credit for the design of above meme. What I can tell you about it is there is a profound take away for me. If you’ve seen this meme, you probably made your best guess — with or without having all the information. This meme, when posted to facebook gives you a partial glimpse. The 8 does not show up on a feed. Some smart son of a bitch figured this little trick out and created one of what is perhaps the most sinister memes ever made.
You present the meme to your audience and let the games commence. There is literally one notification popping up every 3–5 minutes from the various postings made by me, and this is 5 days later.
The take away here is that while we’re all connected, we’re barely connected. Bias leads our decision making and everyone (me included) is guilty. However we came to have those biases which ultimately define our decision making — it is the prevalent and unmistakable paradigm driving trends and ultimately controlling whether your post takes off or falls flat. Luck? Yes. Probability is far less than you may think, however.
If any of you remember the Erin Simmons story, it was a knee jerk reaction to a stranger that took a stab at a new found sport I was immersed in. She went on a tirade against Crossfit which kool-aid had taken a firm hold on me. I would have none of it and, felt the need to tell her so. It went viral, one of the few that have gone viral since I started throwing shit out there. Back then, I felt righteous. Vindicated. Today? I’m just another asshole that thought I was right and I found 378 thousand people that were going to give me a shot at being right with 55 ultimately deciding my point of view matched theirs. It’s possible some of the 100k plus that read the whole rant agreed with me in whole or in part but not enough to make those thoughts their own by sharing.
How many times have you thrown your hands up in the air at the kitty video that has 100 million views on facebook yet, a movement like #metoo has a three day shelf life before it fades into relative obscurity. But you watched the kitty video in its entirety. Sure, you may have been mildly annoyed that it showed up in your feed…
The two things everyone on social media is looking for: Confirmation bias and, to be entertained. Perhaps not in that order. In fact, if everyone was honest — entertainment is paramount. A cute animal, a unpredictable response to an action, a stunt gone wrong, people being generally stupid enough so you can laugh at them.
Is there room for political and social justice? A little. Small doses. That’s why the captions are always capitalized and as much information as possible is squeezed into the feed that pops up. You can view it and extrapolate, based on your bias or, you can actually click on the thread, reading (gasp) the narrative in its entirety. We already know that if we spent the time to read every article that had a catchy heading — we would never get off the internet. So we pick. How do we pick? Confirmation bias.
Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s years of programming and conditioning. Like I said; we all do it. For me, anything that smells like a conspiracy — I’m in! There are many rabbit holes inadvertently trans-versed in the hopes of learning something unique and exclusive. The narcissist…
What I took away from everything this week however was compelling enough to get me sitting at the keyboard, warrior mode in full gear, so that I could share thoughts to page.
Nobody wants the truth, they just want to be right.
5 days of watching everyone’s replies on “which cup fill firstly” and 5 days of watching everyone attempting to put a stamp on the conversation. For some strange reason, people no longer click on the conversation — they jump in and make their mark. I’m sure if enough time was taken, a correlation between status, education and maybe even gender would tell a story about all the answers and who agreed with whom. Out of the hundreds of replies I took the time to read, only a few were original. I would say 1 out of every 20 or so clicked on the picture to see that there was another cup and beyond that, a lot of the same answers duplicated time and time again from people who weren’t connected in any way.
Another day wiser…my take. Not that I wish to be cynical but a simple meme clearly demonstrated how disconnected we all are in this connected world. We’ll take the time to listen to a celebrity weigh in giving less time for our friends. Sadly, our friends are only interesting when they’re dying. You’re only interesting when you agree with me. I’m interesting because I’m me.
How’s that for being a cynical, narcissistic SOB?
