The Dopamine Dance
My wife has this theory …
She tells me social media was designed primarily to keep tabs on your exes and make yourself look happier than you really are.
“Politics,” she says … “is off-label usage.”
Personally, I think she might be onto something. But I do understand all the political ranting, particularly right now.
The stakes are high. We have real differences. And we all want to be heard. That’s why I’m never shocked when one of my friends loses their mind the moment their fingers touch a keyboard.
It get it. It’s a hell of a rush putting something provocative out there and watching people react. It drops all kinds of dopamine into those goofy primate brains of ours.
THEY LOVE YOU! … wait … NOW THEY HATE YOU!
What’s the difference, really? It’s like your first kiss, or being a Cleveland Browns fan. The euphoria has almost nothing to do with the eventual outcome.
I got my first fix almost 20 year ago, when I penned my first actual newspaper column. I swallowed a half-decade of low wages, bad hours and angry readers just to keep that fix going.
Today of course, anybody with a big mouth and a smartphone is a political pundit. Which is fine. But let’s be honest, we’ve got some major quality control issues here.
Even if you despise the writer, reading a well-crafted vintage Op/Ed can make you feel like Don Draper at a three-martini lunch … all boozy and confident.
So why do my friend’s Facebook rants always leave me feeling clapped out like some skid row street preacher just fed me meth?
Maybe it’s because we’re not even trying to make original arguments anymore. We’re just picking up junk we find lying around and throwing it in one another’s general direction … punctuated with those annoying little self-satisfied non-sequiturs.
“Nuff said!!” … “U get it yet??” … “🤔🤔🤔”
I mean, c’mon man.
But you know what? I still read every word. God help me, I’ve been classically trained to capture and process the thoughts of every human being I’ve ever deemed worthy of friendship on the internet. And I refuse to be the one who revokes said friendship once offered.
It feels really good to be so tolerant! 😎
Also, I think it might be killing me inside.
To be fair, roughly 75 percent of my Facebook friends show only a passing interest in flaming each other over politics. Another 15 percent are definitely party-faithful, but they can still be reasoned with and are generally open to challenging ideas.
But that last 10 percent. What a dumpster fire.
As I type, I’ve got a whole mess of right wingers running wild like Hulkamania all over my feed. The amateur Confederate flag historians are mixing it up with the freelance anti-immigration activists while the anti-vaxxers cozy up to the evangelicals. That small fraternity of random dudes over by the keg? They’re just here to “own the libs.” Everybody used to talk a lot more about fiscal responsibility at these parties, but today it’s mostly COVID fatigue and QAnon conspiracy theories.
Some of the hard lefties have come out to play too. They’re ACTUALLY very well informed (just ask them), very diverse (some of them even went to public school) and their ideology is only slightly left of Leon Trotsky. I admit, this used to be my kind of scene, but I can tell they think I’m a sellout for admitting Capitalism has some redeeming qualities. Plus, they used to be WAY more into free speech. Also, I guess we’re reevaluating George W. Bush now? Not into it.
Anyway, this 10-percent sticks mostly to carpet bombing my feed from high above. But if they smell blood or sense fear, buddy IT. IS. ON. in the comments!
The right wingers are always my favorite in a fight because they’ve got this amazing (totally unearned) swagger … “Bro, just bust right in on that thread about Keynesian economics with your Ben Shapiro videos and start throwing hand grenades!”
For some reason, being harangued from the left flank isn’t as exciting for me. It’s like the time I got a C- from my substitute Lit teacher, then realized she’d never actually finished the book we were talking about.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Funny thing is, neither of these factions seem to notice how they use the exact same approach to reasoning and rhetoric.
That’s because the political spectrum isn’t actually a straight line. It’s more of a horseshoe … wait you know what, never mind. That’s really boring. Just read this one-act play instead. It’s based on a true story:
- Nick’s Right-Wing Friend: “Look at this pretty picture of Donald Trump holding a Bible. Jesus has his hand on his shoulder because he’s trying really hard to lead this country to greatness.”
- Nick’s Lefty Friend: “Look at this ridiculous picture of Donald Trump holding a Bible. It has a swastika on it because he’s trying really hard to lead this country to fascism.”
- Nick’s Right-Wing Friend: “Democrats are so disgusting!” (picture of Epstein with Clinton).
- Nick’s Lefty Friend: “Republicans so disgust me!” (picture of Epstein with Trump.)
- Nick’s Right-Wing Friend: “WAKE UP DUMMY! A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to destroy America.”
- Nick’s Lefty Friend: “At this point, voting for Donald Trump is an act of Treason. WAKE UP DUMMY!”
… and CUT!
See what I mean. Mirror. Images.
This is pure uncut American zealotry, folks. The good stuff. And all you have to do to get your fix is openly fear and loath 48–52 percent of the nation.
Unfortunately, that’s always going to be a problem for me because most of these weirdos are my actual friends … even when they try to take a flamethrower to my face.
And honestly, I can’t really blame them for just throwing this stuff out there like litter in the 60’s. I mean it took me two hours to write this and you’ll forget about it in two minutes … if you even made it this far.
It’s going to be a long fall, you guys. That’s why I’ve decided to just stop worrying about it. Grab my absentee ballot, make a drink and start enjoying the circus.
Sure, sometimes I still think about the puppet masters who are actually creating all this garbage. You know, the 15-year-olds in Guy Fawkes masks and the foreign leaders who love seeing us rip ourselves to shreds.
Maybe someday I’ll let hard-right Harry from high school know his latest anti-BLM rant might have come from Sergei in St. Petersburg (not the one in Florida). Punk rock anarchy girl from College would totally ❤️ that; until she found out her new “America is a gun-infested hillbilly hellscape!” monologue came from the same guy.
But honestly, would either of them even care at this point? Theres’ no way I can prove to them my research wasn’t funded by George Soros and the Koch Foundation.
They’re just going to end up telling me to unfriend them. Then I’m going to say something back … and it’s going to turn into a whole thing.
Like I said, Dopamine is a hell of a drug.
