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i feel like "it's bad on purpose to make you click" is still the most important fact about social media that people do not, on a gut level, understand, and i would like us to attempt to explain it in as many ways as possible until the point is clear
here's one: hatred is a form of worship https://t.co/QPXlxXL82R
hatred is a form of worship and there are entities out there that exploit this fact to suck away as much of your energy as possible https://t.co/qR7UwGJaIl
this is a slightly more direct version of where i was trying to go with the vibe transmission thread. what i did not quite get around to saying there was: it matters what vibes you spread, it matters which tiny gods you make more real through worship https://t.co/Mx5l1QCgTS
so to be clear, i definitely don't intend to be heading towards "good vibes only," or at least it depends a lot on what "good" means. i talk about sad stuff like 30-70% of the time and i think it's basically been net positive and i'd stop if it wasn't https://t.co/crKj3rxv3Z
if i wanted to [naval voice] it i might say vibe is much less about content and much more about intent. you can share a really sad thing with an incredibly "positive" vibe if the intent is to give people hope that things can get better, help them feel less alone, etc.
one of the many tricky things here is that intent means your *real, actual* intent, much of which is subconscious by default. if your actual intent is e.g. manipulation that often comes through, possibly subconsciously, possibly even through a single tweet
this bit from visa elsewhere in the thread is a good example re: intent (click through for more context) https://t.co/ZdQe553hE0
@QiaochuYuan but the point is that my first impulse was to use a person, or the idea of a person, as a sort of prop in my little theatre act. I was startled, a little sickened, and it made me re-evaluate and rethink everything. still jars. how naturally it came to me https://t.co/G11z1qWv0F
@QiaochuYuan Therefore "subtweeting", screenshooting, and generalised claims and attacks are the way to go. You get a chance to sway people's minds with your opposing ideas without linking to the original source that you despise.
@QiaochuYuan mm- I think it's even more of a wicked problem than just "people don't understand it". lots of people don't understand it intellectually, yea... and they'll also openly share things they hate, with captions like "i fucking hate this", then be evasive when you ask why they did it
@QiaochuYuan it often strikes me as a kind of a dark pattern, an unintegrated shadow behavior. some people will put "good vibes only" in the bio and then be shitting on things all day, and, importantly, not seem to realize or recognize the contradiction, and avoid facing up to it
@QiaochuYuan some will construct post-hoc explanations, of various degrees of flimsiness, to justify the behavior. some will say they just need to vent, jeez, who are you, the internet police?? others will say it's "to raise awareness", which takes a while longer to pick apart
@QiaochuYuan I think the reality of it is often something closer to... it's part of a long legacy of ritual flogging / scapegoating that people have inherited socially. people get very uncomfortable acknowledging their personal share of responsibility in the broader social phenomenon
@QiaochuYuan random story: when I used to post on Quora, there was a question about Jay-Z's accomplishments. I thought it would be entertaining to answer with a list, where every 2nd, 4th, 6th answer etc was "he's banging Beyonce!!". Lots of people laughed, one person said it was dehumanizing
@QiaochuYuan I got whiplash from that comment, because when I re-read my answer, I realized they were right. it somehow completely didn't occur to me that Beyonce is a human being. I could justify it with something like "well she's a celebrity, she's never gonna see this, what's the harm..."
@QiaochuYuan but the point is that my first impulse was to use a person, or the idea of a person, as a sort of prop in my little theatre act. I was startled, a little sickened, and it made me re-evaluate and rethink everything. still jars. how naturally it came to me https://t.co/G11z1qWv0F
it's really quite funny how the common theme in a lot of my thoughts and works seems to converge on something like "people are like, you know, people". could write a book that's like chapter 1: celebs are people chapter 2: women are people chapter 3: the outgroup are people
@QiaochuYuan I could go all day with this, I have lots and lots of stories and anecdotes about social behavior (my own and others') that reveal this kind of weird, jarring dehumanization upon closer examination. i'm sure everyone has them, if they reflect on it. bullying, peer pressure, etc
@QiaochuYuan @visakanv An interesting one is "people are animals" and all that implies. You wouldn't get deeply personally upset by a dog that shit on your floor, why are you holding a hairless monkey in clothes to such a high made-up standard?