The Internet is Worse Than Ever

If you’re not familiar with Kurzgesagt, they’re a Youtube channel that does well researched, informative videos about a broad range of topics. In this case, it’s about the impact of social media on society, and clarifies some information about social filter bubbles and social sorting.

I suppose it’s unsurprising to say that I agree with their thoughts on how to improve the situation – move out of the “digital town square” and get back to smaller communities. It’s healthier for society, it’s healthier for you. This also all puts me in mind of a recent article in Garbage Day, which was discussing that the internet has actually gotten smaller, with a subset of creators making an outsized portion of the content you see day-to-day. In short, social consolidation leads to a reversion to the same sort of “broadcasting” mentality of older media. Social media serves as a channel for this sort of broadcasted content, and if you want to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of content, the answer is to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of online communities.

That’s a trade-off, economically speaking: if you make it big in a centralized outlet, you stand to make a lot of money – smaller communities inherently have less money to offer. But, that presumes you’ll manage to rise to the top of the creator heap – it’s far more likely that you’ll fall somewhere in the long tail of a pareto distribution. In a more distributed, fractured internet, the peak is lower, but you have more opportunity to get a slice of that sum, so you might actually end up making about the same (or more). It’s hard to say.

That’s a bit of a digression, though. Go watch the video, it’s only ~11 minutes long, and let me know what you think.

Engagement is Not Engagement

John Green’s latest vlogbrothers video touches on something worth thinking about:

He’s talking about the low-calorie social media debates that drive what we call “engagement” – namely, more comments and likes or dislikes – which leads to increased view counts, and higher priority in algorithms (whether on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere). I’m calling it low-calorie social media because these sorts of debates are easy to have an opinion on, but they’re not substantive (and I’d argue, often not nutritious either).

Actual engagement – something more lasting and impactful than just a like or a passing comment – is hard. It’s hard to build, it’s hard to sustain, it’s often messy. But it’s more fulfilling. Even when it leads to challenging questions or work to be done, you can at least feel like you’re making some sort of progress on something that is meaningful, whether that’s some form of volunteering, philanthropy, or do-gooding, or if it’s just deepening connections with either individuals or a community.

I think John is right that there is a place for those “instantly debatable” questions and topics. But I think it’s a lot like junk food: it’s fine as a snack, but if that’s all you’re eating, it’s just going to make you sick.

Hank Green on Seeing Both

Not much to add that wasn’t covered in the video. The world (and life) is a complex mishmash of feelings and motivations and struggles, and to see it through just one lens does both ourselves and others a disservice. Yes, there are plenty of examples of overt harm and things driven by hate, or malice, or ignorance, or sociopathic disinterest and apathy. But it’s not all of what’s happening out there, nor even most of it. It’s worth stepping back occasionally, and appreciating what there is to appreciate, even if it’s not perfect.

Hank’s Guide to the Cold

Hank Explains Living in Cold Climates

I’ve talked about this with a number of people, about why I’m perfectly happy to live somewhere that is grey and rainy but almost never drops below 40 degrees (F), and a lot of the winter is spent right around 50. Hank is dropping some truth bombs here, on how to make the most of living in a cold climate.

He’s right though: try to enjoy it. Gotta find the good parts while you can.

More Social Media Diets

I mentioned John Green’s decision to take a year off (most) social media before. Well, he’s posted an update, a month in, and I think he sums up my own feelings pretty well:

In a similar vein, I also recently bumped into this video by the folks at Veritasium, and I think also touches on some really valid views of what’s so bad about social media as it stands:

Not going to bother adding a lot of meta-commentary, here. I think they make their points well enough on their own.

Death of the Author

I’m not sure the hows or whys that discussion about the literary theory of the “death of the author” cropped up recently, but it did. Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video essay about it (and really, go watch the rest of her stuff while you’re at it). It covers a lot of ground, and also some of the impact that our current culture’s shift towards personal brand (and subsequent association of any work done with that brand) has on how we think about creators and their creations. Go watch:

This prompted a follow-up response by John Scalzi, which I think is also worth reading. In process of discussing how the author is not the book and the book is not the author, he noted:

One side effect of this is that you should expect that at one point or another the authors whose work you admire will disappoint you, across a spectrum of behaviors or opinions. Because they’re human, you see. Think of all the humans you know, who have never disappointed you in one way or another. Having difficulty coming up with very many? Funny, that.

(Don’t worry, you’ve disappointed a whole bunch of people, too.)

John Scalzi

I think that’s a pretty salient point to remember these days. That’s not to excuse people who do terrible things, nor to say there isn’t merit in boycotting the work of someone who did terrible things. But if you treat every gaff or slight as unconscionable, you’re setting yourself to be constantly outraged and constantly disappointed. Everyone’s line is going to be different, though, and it’s your call on whether any particular occasion crosses that line. Relatedly:

A shitty human can write great books (or make lovely paintings, or fantastic food, or amazing music, etc), and absolutely lovely humans can be aggressively mediocre to bad artists. There is very little correlation between decency and artistic talent. You don’t need to be a good human in order to understand human behavior well enough to write movingly about it; remember that con men are very good judges of character.

With that said, if you discover that the writer of one of your favorite novels (or whatever) doesn’t live up to your moral or ethical standards, you’re not obliged to give them any more of your time or attention, because life is too short to financially or intellectually support people you think are scumbags. Likewise, you and you alone get to decide where that line is, and how you apply it. Apply one standard for one author, and a different one for another? Okay! I’m sure you have your reasons, and your reasons can just be “because I feel like it.” Just like in real life, you might put up with more bullshit from one person than another, for reasons that are personal to you.

John Scalzi

Just more things to chew on.

Addendum: Neil Gaiman also touched on some of this topic (more specifically, the commingling of author and work, and people making assumptions about the author based on characters in their book), and makes a point I wanted to note:

Well, unless you are going to only write stories in which nice things happen to nice people, you are going to write stories in which people who do not believe what you believe show up, just like they do in the world. And in which bad things happen, just as they do in the world. And that’s hard.

And if you are going to write awful people, you are going to have to put yourself into their shoes and into their head, just as you do when you write the ones who believe what you believe. Which is also hard.

Neil Gaiman

John Taking a Year Off

How various social internet sites occupy our brains has been a recurring topic on here, and I think he summarizes it all pretty well. These sites are working as intended, but I don’t like that intention, and I don’t like how they work for me, personally.

My own experiences with taking time off have had limited success. I still find myself on Facebook or Tumblr or Instagram (or… or… or…) more than I would like, though I’m interacting with it less and have less expectation of interaction on them (which I think is still a net win, but not as much as I’d like). I’m not sure I’m at the point of going cold-turkey (and what shape that would take — where do I want to spend my time?) like John, but it definitely continues to be on my mind.

On Making Friends

This topic has been coming up a lot in a variety of locations for me (blog posts, tweets and toots, articles, videos): it seems like it’s pretty universally agreed upon that making friends (and really, relationships in general) as an adult is hard. It definitely feels pretty true, and there’s all sorts of reasons why it’s true (and while it’s easy to point at technology or society or all sorts of external reasons, those make up only a fraction of the reality).

I’ve got no easy answers, and it’s certainly something I continue to struggle with. The answers I’ve heard really boil down to one thing: Do The Work™.

What spawned this post is that I really appreciated John Green’s video about this (I find myself deeply empathizing with and appreciating a lot of his videos, seems like the sort of person I’d enjoy knowing):

This, in turn, was a response to Hank Green’s video:

Which I think makes a certain amount of sense (though I don’t entirely agree with the notion that we valued people more — I think the factor of having more shared experiences and enforced proximity while you build that value/appreciation for each other is a big contributor).

While I’m on the topic, one of the other pieces that popped up on my radar recently was a link to this Ask Polly letter, which I can sympathize with (being guilty of a lot of the same weird behavior when I uprooted to SF), and is also at least partly what John touched on in the above video.

Also, Shen did a comic also about this recently as well. Seems like it’s on a lot of peoples’ minds these days.

Tracy Ullman’s Woke Support Group

It’s true. It’s super easy to start overthinking everything. Being “woke” is a good thing, but like she says, it’s a slippery slope. (To be clear, intersectional awareness is valuable, as is being aware of the consequences of your actions. But you can take it too far, where you’re actually causing more harm than the thing you’re calling out. Don’t @-me.) It also reminds me of a CollegeHumor bit: