Early on I started calling it antisocial media, seeing tribalism and groupthink as a natural extension to herd mentality… especially prevalent in (un)higher indoctrination. The ability to swipe left/right and unfriend securely from afar with a single motion, a harbinger of what was to come…
Thanks Kevin for this great analysis! Laura, your "the nail that sticks up gets the hammer" made me think of this illustration, of heads with a motor mower, by Pawel Kuczynski, which I think concerns the mechanisms of groupthink:
Social media certainly does greatly enable policing of thought and expression by members of one's own tribe. One of the dynamics of mailing lists discussions, web-based discussion forums, social media with public or workplace / friends / family primary participants which differs from those of ordinary conversation is that if person AA writes something, with people BB to ZZ likely to read it sometime soon, and person GG writes something critical about what AA wrote, AA is likely to read what GG wrote *after* it has been read, and perhaps added to (a pile-on), by many of the others in the group. So one can be tarred and feathered, or at least helpfully reminded if what is right-think and wrong-think, by one or more people in one's social group, while asleep or attending to other matters.
perhaps we should all go back to other communication platforms... phone calls. emails. letters...
Early on I started calling it antisocial media, seeing tribalism and groupthink as a natural extension to herd mentality… especially prevalent in (un)higher indoctrination. The ability to swipe left/right and unfriend securely from afar with a single motion, a harbinger of what was to come…
I appreciate this. Social media is about dunking on people and getting attention instead of sharing, contributing, or adding one's voice.
God help us all.
This 'the nail that sticks up gets the hammer' mentality may be our natural human state.
see: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/the-gossip-trap
Thanks Kevin for this great analysis! Laura, your "the nail that sticks up gets the hammer" made me think of this illustration, of heads with a motor mower, by Pawel Kuczynski, which I think concerns the mechanisms of groupthink:
https://www.pictorem.com/106761/perfect%20garden.html
Social media certainly does greatly enable policing of thought and expression by members of one's own tribe. One of the dynamics of mailing lists discussions, web-based discussion forums, social media with public or workplace / friends / family primary participants which differs from those of ordinary conversation is that if person AA writes something, with people BB to ZZ likely to read it sometime soon, and person GG writes something critical about what AA wrote, AA is likely to read what GG wrote *after* it has been read, and perhaps added to (a pile-on), by many of the others in the group. So one can be tarred and feathered, or at least helpfully reminded if what is right-think and wrong-think, by one or more people in one's social group, while asleep or attending to other matters.
I was afraid to even like this post after reading it, but I did anyway, which surely must make me especially mediocre.
In sincerity, this was a very thought provoking piece. Thank you for your work and your voice.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you!