This feels like prurient interest to me. IMHO you need to stop paying so much attention to this trash and giving it so much free publicity. Twitter itself is toxic and there's a good reason why I don't look at it or subscribe to it, and hence I really don't want to get emails that bash me with the noxious dregs of social media I avoid like the plague. At this point, why say you're off social media? You're still reading it and repeating it and distributing it. Break that addiction, it's not healthy and all it does is feed the outrage machine.
I'll admit that it is hardly my favorite topic. In fact, I'd completely ignore it if were not deeply relevant to the manuscript I'm writing on Woke Ideology, since its formation is fueled precisely by this kind of "definition by extremes."
Would it help for readers who don't have to interact with social media for research on a book (as I unfortunately do) to have a way of knowing ahead of time that the essay will discuss social media?
"a way of knowing ahead of time that the essay will discuss social media?"
i think just reading the headline of the essay and deciding if it's something i'm interested in or not works pretty well. no need for trigger warnings or giving in to a heckler's veto.
Whether or not we like it, social media is real and and real social force. While I agree with avoiding social media, I think we would be counterproductive to pretend that it is not an active recruiting and radicalizing ground for extremists of all political groupings and that it has real life effects. We can't just ignore it any more than we can just ignore other social groupings that radicalize people to be assholes. For example, just because I don't attend services at First Baptist Church of Anytown does not mean their teachings on abortion or women's rights or homosexuality do not effect my world. I have to engage with the narratives popular in Twitter, or Facebook, or Reddit, or Baptist churches because I live in a world shaped by them. If nothing else, I need to know my enemy. Lack of thoughtful critique of memes is a part of the problem of social media. People repeatedly indoctrinated themselves with endless repetitions of "Kill the (gays, Jews, TERFs, cucks, etc)" that are "jokes". Real world people who don't spend hours on social media risk grossly underestimating the influence such propaganda has on people . Think about the Crusades- people went to fight and die to bring power to their overlords and they were in church being preached at maybe a few times a week. Invested social media types spend hours daily being propagandized. I do want to know what is going on and how this is affecting my world.
That last point is super important. Religious indoctrination back then was only once or twice a week. People now spend an average of 2 hours on social media daily.
This whole thing is fucking vile: From the videos themselves, to the Libs of TikTok account for cynically and exploitatively showcasing the vidoes, and to the right-wing now using the videos for a wholesale assault on liberals and gay people in education--by labeling them as "groomers" and/or outright pedophiles. We are now just one small step away from all gay men being considered suspected pedophiles--and judging by recent and, sadly, too predictable history this is probably where this is headed. And again, becasue this is America, this will probably get innocent people hurt or killed.
Yes we are already seeing this. Especially with the conflation of new gender ideology with homosexuality (they're not related except in the LGBT acronym), I think this will lead to more attacks on gay people.
We've allowed and cheered for a class to be publicly vilified, the trumpists, the karens, the christians, etc. This same weapon is now targeted to LGBT teachers and caretakers.
How is it that now it becomes vile?
We might argue that LGBT are a vulnerable class that need protection, but these generalizations created the problem. One should not deserve compassion measured with a scale of prejudice.
Where did I say that only just NOW this has become vile? However, I was speaking to this WHOLE situation, everyone involved, as being gross. I think ALL of it should be trashed: the MAGA trumpist bullshit, the Woke virus, social media, all of it.
I suspect the commenter was reacting more to a general sense that trashing one group was okay, rather than accusing you of thinking this way. It can be hard to tell on internet comments (if we were all talking in person around a dinner table we could better guess intent), but my own way of approaching such things is to assume both good faith and also that the format often leads to misunderstandings.
You can kind of see that interplay here, between the people who make the videos that end up on "libs of TikTok", the person who runs the account, and the Washington Post reporter that did the story people are discussing. Plenty of grandiose, aggressive, and manipulative behavior to go around.
My sense as a psychotherapist is that narcissism is indeed on the rise, but the conditions for the creation of this start pretty early in development (2-3 years old). Social media amplifies already inherent narcissistic tendencies, which are really the result of a deep sense of worthlessness or a disconnection from one's own self in order to be who other's what us to be. So social media is not the cause, but definitely a huge contributor to the perpetuation and amplification of a core wound.
You can tell there's a certain malicious intent behind this account, or else they would contextualise and offer a bigger diversity (no pun intended) of content, especially all that racialist shit some "white" Wokes say. Stuff that would shout out "this is a left-wing page" to all those indulging rightwingers and seem more honestly concerned from a critical perspective.
Omg the uterus in a Jar is amazing tho 🤣💕 Do you even know how hard it is to get one of those taken out?? Not even for a trans person, which is probably even harder but just for freaking anyone. So many women try so hard to get doctors to agree and ahahah in what world would we have control over a little thing like our bodies. Cause NOPE. If you have say endometriosis, debilitating period pain, no desire for children, suicidal period related depression every month, endless bleeding, endless pain, a family history of a related cancer...! Good fucking luck. No doctor is going to agree. You want the whole thing out? So that say your endometriosis can stop gluing your insides together? Nope, sorry you need to live in pain until you're past childrearing age JUST in case you decide you wanted a baby after all. Meanwhile men wanting a vasectomy it's like yeah no problem ur choice dude. Uteruses do cause a lot of health problems for some people.
Anyway I've never seen a uterus and fallopian tubes, that's wild and I am kind of delighted. It's so small! Fascinating. I 100% understand wanting to see it and even keeping it as a trophy 🤣 it probably represents a major achievement over many doctors who think your main reason for existing is to have one and use it to pump out babies
(unless you're say Indigenous or visibly disabled in which case lbr they'll probably be falling over themselves to tie your tubes cause eugenics is so fun am I right 🙃😩)
This feels like prurient interest to me. IMHO you need to stop paying so much attention to this trash and giving it so much free publicity. Twitter itself is toxic and there's a good reason why I don't look at it or subscribe to it, and hence I really don't want to get emails that bash me with the noxious dregs of social media I avoid like the plague. At this point, why say you're off social media? You're still reading it and repeating it and distributing it. Break that addiction, it's not healthy and all it does is feed the outrage machine.
I'll admit that it is hardly my favorite topic. In fact, I'd completely ignore it if were not deeply relevant to the manuscript I'm writing on Woke Ideology, since its formation is fueled precisely by this kind of "definition by extremes."
Would it help for readers who don't have to interact with social media for research on a book (as I unfortunately do) to have a way of knowing ahead of time that the essay will discuss social media?
"a way of knowing ahead of time that the essay will discuss social media?"
i think just reading the headline of the essay and deciding if it's something i'm interested in or not works pretty well. no need for trigger warnings or giving in to a heckler's veto.
Whether or not we like it, social media is real and and real social force. While I agree with avoiding social media, I think we would be counterproductive to pretend that it is not an active recruiting and radicalizing ground for extremists of all political groupings and that it has real life effects. We can't just ignore it any more than we can just ignore other social groupings that radicalize people to be assholes. For example, just because I don't attend services at First Baptist Church of Anytown does not mean their teachings on abortion or women's rights or homosexuality do not effect my world. I have to engage with the narratives popular in Twitter, or Facebook, or Reddit, or Baptist churches because I live in a world shaped by them. If nothing else, I need to know my enemy. Lack of thoughtful critique of memes is a part of the problem of social media. People repeatedly indoctrinated themselves with endless repetitions of "Kill the (gays, Jews, TERFs, cucks, etc)" that are "jokes". Real world people who don't spend hours on social media risk grossly underestimating the influence such propaganda has on people . Think about the Crusades- people went to fight and die to bring power to their overlords and they were in church being preached at maybe a few times a week. Invested social media types spend hours daily being propagandized. I do want to know what is going on and how this is affecting my world.
That last point is super important. Religious indoctrination back then was only once or twice a week. People now spend an average of 2 hours on social media daily.
This whole thing is fucking vile: From the videos themselves, to the Libs of TikTok account for cynically and exploitatively showcasing the vidoes, and to the right-wing now using the videos for a wholesale assault on liberals and gay people in education--by labeling them as "groomers" and/or outright pedophiles. We are now just one small step away from all gay men being considered suspected pedophiles--and judging by recent and, sadly, too predictable history this is probably where this is headed. And again, becasue this is America, this will probably get innocent people hurt or killed.
Yes we are already seeing this. Especially with the conflation of new gender ideology with homosexuality (they're not related except in the LGBT acronym), I think this will lead to more attacks on gay people.
We've allowed and cheered for a class to be publicly vilified, the trumpists, the karens, the christians, etc. This same weapon is now targeted to LGBT teachers and caretakers.
How is it that now it becomes vile?
We might argue that LGBT are a vulnerable class that need protection, but these generalizations created the problem. One should not deserve compassion measured with a scale of prejudice.
Where did I say that only just NOW this has become vile? However, I was speaking to this WHOLE situation, everyone involved, as being gross. I think ALL of it should be trashed: the MAGA trumpist bullshit, the Woke virus, social media, all of it.
I suspect the commenter was reacting more to a general sense that trashing one group was okay, rather than accusing you of thinking this way. It can be hard to tell on internet comments (if we were all talking in person around a dinner table we could better guess intent), but my own way of approaching such things is to assume both good faith and also that the format often leads to misunderstandings.
One layer of interest in all of this is that there's a fair amount of troubling research about social media and narcissism (for example, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/digital-world-real-world/201909/narcissism-and-social-media-should-we-be-afraid). This is, of course, on top of the general trend that society has been becoming more narcissistic for the last 40-50 years (not just in the US), as tracked by psychologists.
You can kind of see that interplay here, between the people who make the videos that end up on "libs of TikTok", the person who runs the account, and the Washington Post reporter that did the story people are discussing. Plenty of grandiose, aggressive, and manipulative behavior to go around.
My sense as a psychotherapist is that narcissism is indeed on the rise, but the conditions for the creation of this start pretty early in development (2-3 years old). Social media amplifies already inherent narcissistic tendencies, which are really the result of a deep sense of worthlessness or a disconnection from one's own self in order to be who other's what us to be. So social media is not the cause, but definitely a huge contributor to the perpetuation and amplification of a core wound.
Regarding Libs of TikTok...this made me laugh:
https://babylonbee.com/news/leftists-worried-libs-of-tiktok-account-making-them-look-bad-by-just-sharing-their-actual-words
You can tell there's a certain malicious intent behind this account, or else they would contextualise and offer a bigger diversity (no pun intended) of content, especially all that racialist shit some "white" Wokes say. Stuff that would shout out "this is a left-wing page" to all those indulging rightwingers and seem more honestly concerned from a critical perspective.
Omg the uterus in a Jar is amazing tho 🤣💕 Do you even know how hard it is to get one of those taken out?? Not even for a trans person, which is probably even harder but just for freaking anyone. So many women try so hard to get doctors to agree and ahahah in what world would we have control over a little thing like our bodies. Cause NOPE. If you have say endometriosis, debilitating period pain, no desire for children, suicidal period related depression every month, endless bleeding, endless pain, a family history of a related cancer...! Good fucking luck. No doctor is going to agree. You want the whole thing out? So that say your endometriosis can stop gluing your insides together? Nope, sorry you need to live in pain until you're past childrearing age JUST in case you decide you wanted a baby after all. Meanwhile men wanting a vasectomy it's like yeah no problem ur choice dude. Uteruses do cause a lot of health problems for some people.
Anyway I've never seen a uterus and fallopian tubes, that's wild and I am kind of delighted. It's so small! Fascinating. I 100% understand wanting to see it and even keeping it as a trophy 🤣 it probably represents a major achievement over many doctors who think your main reason for existing is to have one and use it to pump out babies
(unless you're say Indigenous or visibly disabled in which case lbr they'll probably be falling over themselves to tie your tubes cause eugenics is so fun am I right 🙃😩)