Eating Ice-Cream with your Forehead… or why I gave up caring about quality and now love Sh*t Content on Social Media.
I once read a book that stuck with me for quite some time and I never really could put my finger on why it was so powerful (this, unfortunately tends to happen way more than I’d like to admit).
The book frames an obsessive and selfish paranoid fantasy of a former writer’s first love as something to strive for, no matter the consequences to the second party— a feeling that all of us inherently have at some point inside of us— and… while he is talking about something else with his friend, he distorts the conversation into his self-centered reality (to which I totally connected to) and says:
“… indeed, now I come to think of it, nearly everything in the world is relevant to my situation.”.
This feeling. This self-entitlement. This type of destructive and self-obsessive behavior was what stuck with me — the thought that my own self, like the character, was extremely self-entitled by thinking the whole World only existed because of one’s self.
In reading the book — I was consumed by my thoughts about it (and at the time) it was just a 3 way “conversation”: the writer (the great Iris Murdoch) was in my room talking “through the character” and mixing my interpretation of the “character in my mind” with hers.
I wanted to talk to everyone about how important what I had just read was (delusions of grandeur anyone?) but at the time the internet wasn’t a place for topical conversations, rants, verbal diarrhea so… I shut the book’s final pages, put it down and started reading another simpler book, without much fanfare.
I know what you’re thinking at this point (oh the arrogance a keyboard gives) — what the hell is Diogo talking about?! … bear with me… hopefully it’ll make sense at the end (and if it doesn’t you always have the comments to call me out on it).
I was 15 at the time, full of ideas, full of spunk (spark — you naughty minds), full of misguided interpretations of the World. One of the thoughts that stuck with me after I read the book was simple — a lot of the stupid things I think about, should never leave my mind (and people, I do mean — A LOT!).
No matter if these thoughts make sense or not, while we’re constructing our way of thinking/reading/reacting to our World, some things are better left in the shadows of our minds.
This is where Social Media enters the stage of this “conversation”.
I could have posted my thoughts (coherent or not) onto a blog, a platform (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, what-have-you) or even transformed it into another art-form while posting it online afterwards, waiting of course, to see my thoughts justified by other people’s positive feedback loop — satisfying my inner demons into thinking:
“Yeah! My thoughts are awesome, I’m always right, I must be onto something!”
Can you imagine the amount of narcissism that would exist in the techno-World if everyone that had the same thought as I did — started to post on Social Media? Oh… wait… that was almost 20 years ago…
Can you then, alternatively imagine, a system where for every stupid thing that you’d say, write, post, video, muse, scream — a Positive/Negative feedback looped system of evaluation would be inserted into “our code” to then determine if your thoughts were actually valid — throwing nuance, the possibility of holding contrary thoughts concurrently (something all humans do, all the time) and un-centered interpretation out the window and the idea of neutrality (or balanced thought) into a passé cliché?
Yeah, I know… Imagine!
Myself, like everyone else in 2019, doesn’t have the time to think things through to their bone — You read a head-line, you skim a tweet, you hear 5mins of a podcast and a mindset or opinion is formed.
There’s no time to read an article and then to leave it be.
To see something we find disgusting in reality or Social Media and not respond or give our point-of-view.
At 15, the self-restraint that I had (in not talking to anyone about a possibly stupid idea), is gone.
And before you say I’m going to say it was because of Social Media — it wasn’t.
It was because of “Valuable Social Media Content”.
It was because my narcissism got the better of me for the past (now almost) decade in thinking I was making & reading/watching amazing pieces of art/conversation with the brainf*rts I consumed/created(much like this one).
It was also because I (like many others) have been in a self-reinforcing feedback loop that for every stupid or crazy thing I watched — 2 more algorithmically surfaced pieces of content popped up to tell me that what I thought was right … that it was valid— that we’re on the right path — that we should keep posting and watching and feeling what we’re feeling because a lot of other people around us feel the same way.
For every time our brain told us “maybe you shouldn’t really say that” or “have you thought through the consequences of writing something you’ll regret in a couple of years?”, a couple of likes here and there, a dozen comments and shares on my wall, with a dash of dopamine in between and… the content just drove the message home that:
“Yeah… my thoughts really are awesome!” or “Who cares about the consequences, if it doesn’t land, no one will ever read it…”.
We’ve been told/programmed/educated that Digitally Written Content, Video Content & Social Media Content should have some inherent value to it (or even “grander still” have something to stand for — remember Kony2012 or… if you weren’t into the internet back then, let’s talk more recently… did you see the local kerfuffle last year in Singapore when kids talked about inequality?! or better yet, the latest Gillette ad?) but… if nothing…
I do. not. agree. with. that. programming.
(wanted to do a 👏.👏.👏. sequence of words/statements but this really is a teeerible way of writing/presenting your point)
I’ve long left behind watching “important pieces of media” on Social and now am all for Sh*t Content — I had the pleasure of not consuming that much news through Social Media in 2018 and started relying more into what I’ve been programmed to think is more reputable news (oh print media, my God, what will the Digital Gods say because I read on paper!).
Before we advance, what is Sh*t Content? Simple. If it is made just to pass the time and not to “make you feel something”, it’s Sh*t Content — I know it’s a gross generalization but I’m driving at something here…
I lately find more interesting perspectives and educated/coherent thinking in content that is solely made to entertain, rather than what the “ viral internet was built on” — and leave the majority of my opinions to more “verbalized IRL conversations” — who knew authentic human to human conversations IRL could ever make a comeback (try to read this the most dry and wry sarcastic tone you can muster in your head).
The moment I feel a post/conversation/piece of content is going in a direction that can be seen as pushing me or someone into thinking in a “bipolar comms” perspective — I jump off of it.
Virtue Signaling?
Inciting of violence as response?
Faux arguments of infringement of free speech?
Gender, Identity, Emotional issues that not even career scientists, philosophers, politicians or artists can even express let alone comprehend that are distilled into 140 characters or 1 image or 1 4min Buzzfeed style videos?
Stuff like that is just made to activate your limbic system.
Jump off of it — click away — read the instructional panphlet of your shampoo bottle instead.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder has been studied for years (or road rage if you’d prefer) — but in my mind someone should study it solely through the prism & effects of Twitter & Social Media. It would probably solve the recurrent issue of why there’s so much “hate” or (if you prefer trendier words” online bullying. This unfortunately seems to be everyone’s default mode when browsing the interwebs…
This necessity of an immediate response to every piece of content that exists (driven by the feedback loop), if the content by itself is supposed to inherently stand for something or to trigger your most inner defensive self — it will immediately just obviously be a reactive situation, regardless if you’re agreeing with the content or if you’re diametrically opposed to it.
Sh*t Content at least is just Sh*t Content — when algorithms are mathematically calibrated to surface engaging and enticing content over anything else — that is a problem. A problem of manipulation on the top but mostly… a problem of curation.
This is why Social Media is going down such a strange dark path.
We all have our own blind biases, central incoherent behaviors and most of the content that makes people reactive just tends to trigger one of those biases the wrong way — an itch in a scab you can’t really pinpoint…
They’re either written through, thought of, or manipulated into, juicy vessels of double think/speak (and forget the 1984 narrative of existence — it was far too simplistic for the World we really live in).
If a drug dealer keeps giving you drugs while reinforcing your behavior of consumption and that drug dealer doesn’t have some sort of regulation pushed over him — eventually those consuming said drugs distributed by him, will overdose on them… so… if I’m to overdose, at least I’ll do it with a smile on my face while I try to watch as much incoherent, creatively crazy and sometimes totally pointless content I can find (while in between I practice some paused thinking).
To each is own i guess — and with Social Media the way it was built, at least I’ll trust that my feedback loop of stupidity will give me comfort.
I’ll jump off of the tribalism vs individualism debate and watch a couple of Family Guy GIFs until my cheek bones hurt from smirking.
It at least is always a better use of my time rather than having thoughts that aren’t made for an open platform shared into other people’s streams(especially ones that have the potential of sparking, into a frenzy, the outrage culture of today, while someone calls for my “doxing” or to “punch me in the face”).
Don’t trust me on Sh*t Content?
Let me then “trigger you” for a little bit with an example of “Valuable Content” and then tell me that it wouldn’t have been easier to just watch the above GIF on a loop… (and take this triggering with a bit of salt BTW — as you can take it as both a criticism of original thought as well as a collection of platitudes that were just written to waste your time and drive my point home).
You are not original. You are not a unique snowflake.
The thoughts you are having are set by a pre-disposed evolutionary sequencing of ribonucleic acids, proteins, lipids & complex carbohydrates and their interactions with the World that surrounds them — so what was sequenced to make you, is a part of a bigger whole and we’re all bound to be a homogeneous collection of brain cells re-activated by machines & algorithms that will make all the messiness of different cultural exchanges disappear into an all knowing, all powerful = Space Spaghetti Monster!
Now that was stupid wasn’t it? But a different kind of stupid right? Like it was made just for a response but not for real thought?
Yeah… that’s the majority of Social Media.
It’s all fun and games but I digress.
Let me then pose a thought this time leaving it for debate rather than having myself negate or conflate it into something logical:
Social Media should be a Public Utility.
A Human Utility that is to be used for and by each one of us to see themselves as individuals and not to be identified as homogeneous/invisible parts of a whole by those who “monitor it”. Everyone should be a part of it but, an algorithm for monetization/surfacing of “better content” or “personas” shouldn’t be the curator of said existence.
That’s a strange thought… a very “internet of 2013” thought.
It might be regressive but if you think about it — not all paths, even the ones we’ve worked all our lives for, lead to greatness (as am sure those that saw the “revolutionary way of writing branching narratives” in Bandersnatch will attest to).
Some paths just drive you off a cliff.
What the above debatable statement means is, if Social Media involves any form of primal capitalist/socialist thinking to drive the utility into a “viral reaction”, then it’d be rotten to its core so, we should keep it outside of the influence of single regulative forces but rather have all the individuals have their own strength and not be downplayed by their value to the sharing of said content (anarchy, I know, but how would that anarchy be any different from what we have now? The blockchain seems like a viable theoretical alternative, but we’re still to see the real impact of the technology and its decentralization of curation & creation of information).
If Social Media keeps being seen as a tool to manipulate, monetize, orchestrate, weaponize or influence “others”— then we’re not talking about myself thinking that the world revolves around me… but… that maybe it actually should.
Wait… hold on! Let me rephrase.
If Social Media is broken, it might at least benefit me, and just me, because it will technically never be able to help or hurt anyone else.
Ha! there we go. Now isn’t that a frightening thought to have?
One would probably compare it to the ones a 15 year old kid looking at a book he doesn’t understand would have, wouldn't’ they?
So… let’s keep to Sh*t Content until someone really finds a solution to our Social Media issue. Seems like a solution. Provisional one, sure, but a solution nonetheless.
Let me end with what probably made you click on this article in the first place— that title. The title is an adulteration of a Portuguese verbal meme. The saying goes — This opinion is as valid for someone as it is for those that like to eat ice-creams with their forehead.
As in… maybe sometimes not all opinions/thoughts/content you see on Social Media (or IRL for that matter) should be taken so seriously (like the one written/presented in this article for example) and, if when all is said and done, you believe that everything and anything that is made/posted/created on Social Media should have value or should STAND FOR SOMETHING!!! Then my friend:
You might be eating your ice-cream with your forehead…
Check out some of our previous Bloomr.SG articles on Social Media & Content Development below:
1- Why Social Media Matters
2 - The Art of Social Listening For Personalization
3 - “Hello, I will be your personal server this morning!” — iPad in a café
4 - Understanding Community Management
5 - 5 Tips to growing your Instagram account
6 - New to Influencer Marketing? Read On
