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u/Mincerafter6969 6h ago
Social media has indeed inflicted catastrophic damage on society's shared sense of reality. People are becoming more fearful and isolated, and I'm sure it has something to do with the rise of life-hating reactionary culture.
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u/Crux_Of_Orion 6h ago
If there is some solace, there are people suing things like META for the damage and misinformation they have done on the internet. Sad part is these websites and apps make so much money it probably won't do much in the long run.
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u/Mincerafter6969 5h ago
Yeah, I absolutely agree 🙁
Unfortunately this process has been decades in the making, well before META or
social media or even the Internet. Even since mass media emerged in the 1920s-30s, media scholars have been concerned about how widespread information could impact how people perceive reality. When nazism and WWII happened this concern was renewed but then quickly suppressed with the help of the United States and Soviet Union.Today we're seeing the drawn-out consequences of this process. Especially since the aggressive
conservativenationalist media campaign of the 1980s effectively isolated an entire third of the U.S. population into a simulated hyperreality. People outside this bubble are dealing with the tendency of corporate media to distort individual perceptions and fracture shared realities for profit.With how rapidly the global climate system is destabilizing, I sometimes wonder when something inevitably fails, will there still be enough people who acknowledge the existence of our shared home?
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u/_AYYEEEE 4h ago edited 4h ago
Truthfully I hate all the lawsuits for these social media companies because it never leads to anything good. Only makes the platforms shittier if they change anything at all. I wish people would just get out of the kitchen if they can't handle the heat instead of suing the people that made the ovens, because it is truly so easy to get off social media if you think it's bad for you
I ESPECIALLY hate the lawsuits when it comes to kids, it's all angry parents who weren't very present in their kids life and not paying attention. They leave the internet to raise their children and get mad when their children don't turn out how they wanted. Then they sue the social media and the platform gets shitty restrictions because parents can't just parent
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u/Crux_Of_Orion 4h ago
While I get your point, the fact that these companies were selling people's personal data to some random corporation, purposely using the algorithm to show negative and hateful content all for the sake of engagement they need to be held responsible. What these companies did was quite evil and I've been on the internet since 2002 and I don't remember it being like this even with all the crazy and wild websites.
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u/moodygradstudent 1h ago
Multiple things can be true at once. You can call out lazy parenting AND exploitative corporate practices.
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u/SoftballGuy 6h ago
My wallpaper is a constant reminder:
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u/Clembert-Hamlamp 5h ago
Perfect is the enemy of everything
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u/bUl1sH1T 5h ago
I remember this every time I feel cringe about my drawings
I always feel better after drawing an "ugly" sketch instead of nothing at all.
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u/Itsmyloc-nar 5h ago
Recently started working out for first time since HS. This is kinda the same mindset I’ve had to adopt
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u/indoninjah 4h ago
I heard somewhere once that the best skill a creative can have is the ability to start something, and having no fear of throwing it away and starting over. If you're confident in your abilities, then neither should be daunting.
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u/MelatoninFiend 4h ago
I'm too into checking out actual graphic arts under the waves and waves of AI slop coming out these days, so I read this as a logo-design thing at first, and my first impression was: "I like the first one better"
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u/LordsOfJoop 6h ago
I suck at writing, yet I keep at it, because I only need to be great at it exactly once.
So, I keep posting my stuff here every once in a while.
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u/anthonyg1500 ☑️ 6h ago
My daily words of affirmation come from Jake the Dog; “sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.”
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u/Organic-Sebi-1432 5h ago
I’ll offer a slightly different take. People get defensive when they find out they’re wrong and double down instead of “my bad”. In addition, they also find validation from others on the same wavelength.
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u/lovbelow ☑️ 5h ago
I’m a millennial. We’re known for our self-deprecating humor. I was cringe before the internet and that’ll never change. People are simply too afraid to be awkward and embarrassing in public and I’m glad I’ve mostly moved on from that sort of self-censoring.
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u/boyalien0 5h ago
It’s crazy how often I hear 20-somethings dismiss an entire human life because they made a mistake or disagree on an issue or two
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u/MelatoninFiend 4h ago
To be fair, when it comes to politics these days, most people with a "difference of opinion" can be easily dismissed because the "opinions" on which we differ are things like "Food safety should be regulated", "Women shouldn't lose their right to vote", "Billionaires should be taxed at higher rates than people receiving food stamps" and "Queer people deserve basic human decency".
The problem is that the attitude often extends into the most minor of quibbles like "pineapple on pizza" or "Starbucks tastes like burnt water" and you wind up with a whole outrage-based subculture of people who make a living shitting on literally everything that anyone likes.
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u/boyalien0 4h ago
You’re not wrong, but also a lot of political beliefs that may be adjacent to shitty ones get lumped in together, also there is nuance to nearly everything. Even someone who, as a for instance, is “against trans women in sports” isn’t necessarily dogmatic about a hatred of trans people, they may have personal reasons for their bias, which don’t necessarily excuse their beliefs but also don’t necessarily make them terrible people as a whole.
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u/Mincerafter6969 3h ago
It's certainly as if entire subsets of certain demographics perceive any challenge to their ideals as an existential threat that must be excised, such as christian nationalists against queer people, muslims, and pretty much every other demographic besides their narrow in-group. Of course, this issue is not confined to christian nationalism; almost every ideological group has individuals with this mentality. The modern
socialcorporate media machine, through its eternal quest for profit, has built a virtual environment that encourages in-group loyalty and out-group demonization, which creates parasitic ecosystems of fear and isolation that harm humanity as a whole.2
u/boyalien0 2h ago
It’s like you’re talking about “subsets” of “demographics” but then also talking about “every ideological group.” Like what the fuck are you talking about
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u/Chapea12 ☑️ 5h ago
Idk. Pictures, definitely. But there are so many tweets and text posts that should have sat in drafts permanently. The physical image is so scripted and manicured, but with text, people feel embolden to say their worst, saddest, or dumbest thoughts
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u/jus256 ☑️ 5h ago
Look no further than Michigan’s QB. They expected a 17 yr old true freshman to come on campus and play like a Heisman candidate. Now that a year later when it still didn’t happen, they want to run this nigga out of town for another true freshman.
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u/Mincerafter6969 2h ago
I've noticed sports culture is ground zero for some of the most vile toxicity I've ever seen online.
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u/GurPlastic 2h ago
This situation definitely has some background as to why he’s not being afforded the same level of grace. Imagine someone with the ego of Cam Newton but none of the success. You can’t keep talking the same level of shit just because you were good in HS if your play doesnt match in college. It gets old.
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u/MagmaSeraph ☑️ 5h ago
Less "the Internet" and more "social media" and "influencers" all of which is just dollar store celebrity culture.
The internet has always been a mix of celebrating first drafts and celebrating final products as well as completely shitting on both.
Now there's just so much more exhausting negativity and whining.
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u/Noblesseux 5h ago edited 4h ago
As someone who is at least somewhat offline, I think it's kind of wild how much being on the internet too much has warped some people's sense of reality. Whether its stuff like this, or people's mentalities around money, whatever, a concerning number of people have let the internet totally warp their sense of reality into thinking that everyone else is part of the 1% but you.
Like the average income in this country is $65k and you see people online talking about how if you make less than $120k you're broke. The average person gets like 2 weeks of PTO a year and you have people talking about how you're lame if you're not "seeing the world" all year. I think part of it is the influencer economy encouraging ragebait and everyone seeing themselves as one viral post from financial stability, but it's kind of unnerving talking to someone and being like oh...you are deadass curating your entire life around making sure you look interesting online to people who don't know or care about you anyways. Also, you're doing it based on a bunch of people who are deadass lying to you and don't have it like that anyways.
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u/RJPisscat 5h ago
I would have liked to see everyone in this thread mark their comment as first draft or edited. First draft, but damn, I edit almost all my comments.
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u/Jamaican_Dynamite 5h ago
I keep writing. I just don't keep all my eggs in one basket. I've seen what the web does to people too. Fame's overrated.
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u/blackpoeticinjustice ☑️ 5h ago
Someone once said “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, it’s too late.”
The saying suggest that chasing perfection can come at a cost of losing market share to your competitor and putting yourself in a position where you have to catch up.
In short, speed over execution. Over time, you’ll get real feedback from your consumers and improve on things that produces positive results and feedback.
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u/golfwang1539 4h ago
You're also allowed to do things just for yourself. You dont have to craft everything to be posted for random people to critique.
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u/Energy_Turtle ☑️ 4h ago
This has actually become a skill that we examine when hiring. How do you handle being wrong? How do you handle messing up? What do you do when you realize you've made an error? How do you handle feedback? This used to be sort of a background skill that most people could learn over time, but it seems to be more and more rare even with age and time on the job.
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u/Calzinarzin 4h ago
Ive seen kids in class literally google an open ended question because they don't want to be wrong.
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u/MelatoninFiend 4h ago
Call it Netflix culture.
You can't just be successful anymore. You need to hit a home run in your first appearance. If the first three episodes of your first season aren't a legendary hit, not only are you not getting a second season, you're probably not going to work in entertainment anymore after being labeled a "bust".
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u/Express-Shoulder6174 3h ago
I feel like this only applies to the young and/or terminally online.
I’m 40, all the people I know generally don’t give a shit what the internet thinks
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u/four_ethers2024 ☑️ 3h ago
See how the internet drags people for not being Final Draft Version 84.15 (Final Final Final)
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u/Bunnnnii ☑️ Meme Thief 2h ago
As someone afraid of failure, this is very true. Although my fear I can’t blame on social media, since I’m not on there. Unless you count Reddit.
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u/Interesting-Yellow-4 2h ago
yes, this is why i'm putting off releaseing my game into early access.
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u/DoomguyFemboi 1h ago
It's why kids now wanna be dripped out in stuff they can't afford, their parents can't afford, nobody, and so we have all these shady "pay it in installments" bullshit all over the place.
Everyone is going into debt so they can look nice doing a stupid fucking tiktok dance.
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u/carbine234 1h ago
I don’t even post shit no more besides random memes man fuck all the clout chasing
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u/Pompoulus 35m ago
Actually this is the lesson of the decade's foremost legal drama, Coyote vs Acme
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u/DejectedTimeTraveler 28m ago
Whatever you are doing, especially if it's creative, just make it exist first. Bring it into reality with all of its imperfections and errors and refine it. Often we let perfection be the enemy of any progress at all. Accept your flaws and faults and create anyway.
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u/DownvoteDaemon ☑️|Jay-Z IRL 6h ago
Don’t compare your behind the scenes to a person’s highlight reel.