Why are people so adversarial on social media? Why do I keep seeing people setting traps, or baiting people?
Why are people so adversarial on social media? Why do I keep seeing people setting traps, or baiting people?
Social media is one hell of a drug. It'd have you swallowing giant gummy worms whole at the back of a sip'n'strut. Oh sure, the catharsis is nice, but at some point you'll need to ask yourself "why are we like this?"
Lately I've been noticing how some comments make me want to exclaim "IT'S A TRAP!". Obvious, open and quite frankly kinda basic baiting, like some disgruntled parent at a PTA, smacking his chest with his bare hand, telling another parent "cash me outside bro how bout dat?"
Like okay, this one comment was doing a set up where the intention was to either get someone to A) depose Hamas or B) defend Hamas, with the intent of jumping down someone's throat.
Why are people like this, mommy? And why am I calling someone "mommy" on social media? Can't we just make homemade cookies like we used to do on rainy nights, and be happy? And why is daddy always drinking the unhappy juice? I think I probably already answered that question...
Mommy, I want McDonald's!!!
Because many people on social media are not here to experience a new perspective, they are here to lecture everyone else on how the world really works.
The reason for the bait replies are they want to be able to deliver the gotcha talking point they have heard somewhere else.
Why are people like this, mommy?
Often it is because the people involved have been shut down trying to lecture those around them on the same topics in real life but they still want to do it. They are not looking for conversation, they are looking for an audience to lecture at.
And why is daddy always drinking the unhappy juice?
Serious reply. Many people use alcohol to mask anxiety, especially men in societies that still hold on to the "Man must be stoic and strong at all times" horseshit.
Anxiety focused inward often manifests as depression.
Anxiety focused outward often manifests as aggression.
You're speaking to an ex-alcoholic ^^ used to use it a social crutch, because I never really felt well in social situations. It became so bad that all my money went into bar hopping, and you're definitely right: it was to "treat my anxiety".
Anxiety really is one of the greatest issues of our times, isn't it?
Anxiety really is one of the greatest issues of our times, isn’t it?
It always has been. I honestly think everyone (outside actual psychopaths) suffers from it to some degree at some point in their lives.
I, like you, used it to manage my own. I couldn't be social without drinking...a lot. So glad those days a long gone.
...why did OP ask a real question, and then...just...devolve????
I'm not sure, but it was pretty amusing and I'm very much a fan
It was my attempt at writing a sub position from a place of a child, hopefully making the reader aware that "hey wait a minute... there might be kids on this platform?!?!
But I will admit, I did feel a little bit of deevolved when I called the entire comment section mommy.
It's 6th grade all over again.
They are an extreme minority. Nearly all traffic is lurkers, tiny % engage. Of that small group a vast majority can communicate normally while a small part trolls for fun or spread their opinions. Kinda like society IRL.
Keep in mind too that people have different views on communication. Some people just want confirmation, others want people to just be honest. Then there are those that just want to explore all sides and will take the opposite side just to explore or at least to be more balanced. Then there are those that just want to troll.
For someone what just wants confirmation then all other points of view will appear to be confrontational. On the other hand there are real trolls too. So some of this is perspective and degree.
I don't know bitch, you tell me!
Here's a fantastic video on the topic of spreading ideas. It's from CGP Grey and it's about 6 minutes long.
Now keep one key thing in mind: social media algorithms feed on engagement (if people engage, it gets boosted) so the more engagement something gets the more it gets pushed to other's feed. And as the video talks about, different emotions get different levels of engagement and levels of sharing.
Anger is the one that comes out on top, so anger is what gets the feedback loop really churning.
And if all you see on the Internet is enraging things, you start getting enraged faster and easier. For every idea there is, there's another person out there who will get angry at the mention of it.
He does a great job explaining it in his video.
Oh dear that comment really gets me angry. How can you be so sensible on social media!!
/s
/s
People being anonymous on the internet is probably one big factor.
Do you know of a study that have confirmed anonymity as a cause of hate or agressive speech online?
It may not be that simple, even if that sounds plausible. But there's the argument that anonymity is helpful to protect against some agressive behaviors.
While there are many examples of people using anonymous social media accounts to abuse others online, it’s equally clear that anonymity can be a lifeline to many users and communities. Posting anonymously can allow people to protect themselves – to openly discuss and deal with complex topics safely. It can allow people to speak out about abuse, and seek information.
From: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer, by Harry T Dyer
Anonymity provides protection to LGBTQ+ people. Yes, of course it does!
And it also provides protection for bigots who would probably face consequences if they try 4chan talk in real life.
Posting anonymously can allow people to protect themselves
There it is. A knife can be used to prepare dinner as easily as it can kill a man.
Anonymity doesn't cause hate or aggression, it enables it by removing consequences. The hate and aggression has always been there, it now has an outlet where the aggressor can be offensive without repercussion and still see the reaction from others.
I used to think that was the case. But Twitter and Facebook show that people can be awful with their full name, address, place of employment up front and center.
We are social creatures and there's also loneliness epidemics popping everywhere, people are interacting less with people and interacting more with their opinion on the ideas of others.
While opinions are important to develop your own character and critical thinking skills, there's an inherent competitive nature on social platforms, where having a winning argument has become the main goal, and opinions that others identify with, lead to further divisions, instead of making like-minded people gather.
Things do look grim for the future now that you'll have AI running your echo chambers, distancing you from objective reality and just further isolating you into a self indulging solipsism.
So you ask, why are we like this? The truth is that it's more economical and rewarding to find self validation by dismissing others. It requires less effort as you only establish a connection to hurt and mock. You don't have to go through the effort of learning, teaching, helping and being helped.
Coming back to your example, we usually have a set of values, whether found through life or imposed by others, that we identify with, if we see something going against them we get frustrated and we want to do something about it, since most of us realistically cannot do shit about things then we go on and rant, but when others do the exact same, we fight them, it's cheap, it's easy it's perfect to fulfil our need for action.
What can we do to fight this?
To be honest, I'm not sure.
I just try to help others around me by listening to them and being interested in what they want to say.
You can get off social media. People were better off before it.
There is a positive-feedback-loop of culture-polarization, prejudice, ideology-addiction, and identity-formation, that is getting activated more & more & more, now, globally...
I'm using amazon.com links so you can read the reviews, not to recommend them as where you buy books from. ( Bookwyrm isn't populated enough to default to them, yet )
https://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Leadership-Revised-Leveraging-Organization-ebook/dp/B006IDG1K6/
identifies the 5 culture-levels/modes.
Once you've read that, you'll realize that humankind is being pushed lower & lower on the scale.
Level-2 breeds conspiracism, because it is beneath Level-3's narcissism-culture ( and narcissistic sociopathic authority has become a cultural-addiction to the point of being social-status ).
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/
is a book on the 2 mind-functions/categories, which he calls System-1 & System-2.
System-1 is ( in my opinion ) Limbic mind ( herdbeasts have it ), whereas System-2 is deliberate & considered thinking...
The lower in the 5 culture-processes a person is, the less System-2 they exercise.
Throw-in an ocean of economically-enforced Attachment Disorder, saturating entire-generations ( parents couldn't afford to be present & to parent their kids, consequences implacably grow ),
and you've got the feedback-loop to guarantee the nonviability of humankind.
Escalation will continue, and the Dark Pentad, as I call it ( the professionals don't accept that it is 5D )
Narcissism/Machiavellianism/Sociopathy-Psychopathy/Nihilism/Sadism continues grabbing more power, as the System-1's pseudo-thinking enforces more reacting, and Dark Pentad capitalizes on that...
It's quite elegant, when you consider how efficient it is at guaranteeing The Great Filter's extinguishing of our kind...
Frustrating & depressing, but elegant as hell.
Notice that Russia's Learned Helplessness culture "gets even" through nihilism & sadism, as the myriad torture-operations strewn throughout Wagner territory & Ukraine both demonstrate...
Putting the harm on others is, for people oppressed long-enough ( like the Russian people deformed in Leninism & beneath the oligarchy/dictatorship ) a survival mechanism, psychologically.
So, as multiple forces/factions work at breaking human-worth/values from having any say in the rule/operation of our world, .. the lashing-out ( mass-shootings are now at more than 2x per day, in the US ), the nihilism ( common in Level 1 culture ), the sadism, all multiply themselves AND multiply each-other...
Think of it as multiple "bulls" battering heads, to see who gets to be the "god bull"...
Legalism is one of them, materialism/moneyarchy is another, class-based-validity is another, authority worship is another...
Notice that humanitarianism isn't one of the contenders fighting for planetary dominion...
Another thing, is to be able to switch between the apparent view, the political view, and the system view...
Islamist totalitarian authoritarianism & Zionist totalitarian authoritarianism both are totalitarian authoritarianism.
So, politically they are enemies, but they both are committed to breaking the world to their totalitarian authoritarianism.
Every country has such .. puppets .. of the 4 false-religions.
( legalism, materialism/moneyarchy, class-based-"validity", and authority-worship, are the 4 false religions )
When the economy collapses, you're going to see a sudden & immense tilt from the current careful-thinking/considered world, that we live in in fall 2023, into a deranged, aggressive, polarized & violent System-1 world, & fascism will be gaining supremacy pretty-much everywhere, globally.
"Big Think" on yt has a good vid on the 10 behaviours of fascism.
This, too, is expressing PunctuatedEquilibrium, the Pattern which expresses at all scales throughout Universe...
E.g. of PunctuatedEquilibrium
{ Big Bang, itself; CMB; stages in a star's life, like ignition, red-giant, collapse, & detonation/nova; our planet's oxygenation, termination of dinosaurs, other mass extinctions, the creation of our Moon, much of human history's battles & treaties, birth, graduation, marrying, employment, injury, death, electron-shell energy-states, atomic-decay, galaxy-collision, ... }
We're simply unconsciously enforcing that our toddler-nature get to be the only controller of our world's fate/viability/"vehicle", and ratcheting ourselves into the Tantrum of Tantrums, jacked with & backed by all the military, industrial, propaganda/Leninism/Murdochism ( he remapped Leninism from left to right, used TV instead of "education", and we call it "populist dictatorship" instead of "proletariat dictatorship", but it's fundamentally identical in method ), and every other enforcement-of-non-reasoning/enforcement-of-non-consideration/enforcing-of-non-objectivity.
Species-puberty, iow.
It'll be interesting to see if any survive this century.
So, the nonthinking automatic aggression, the narcissistic System-1, and the machiavellianism, that you're seeing now, should be significantly eclipsed by what it turns into, as soon as the context gets worse.
How about you go fuck yourself, ever thought about that?
Internet culture is a weird thing. There are people who will point to civil golden ages of the internet when things were nicer before modern social media like facebook and twitter, but even the message board days were loaded with trolls.
I think some of the problem is that trolling is ingrained in the culture of the internet. I think it comes down to a few things:
1.A lot of trolls are edgelords who are just trying to get a rise out of people because they think its funny. Theyre pranking a community. Sometimes it's harmless like getting a rise out of nintendo fanboys, sometimes admittedly it can be funny if its over something stupid, but a lot of trolls will get desperate and try anything to get a rise out of people and not care about what lines they cross.
2.Theres a phenomenon caused by anonymity or even perceived anonymity that can cause people to be a little more unfiltered and nasty than they otherwise would be. Its a phenomenon noticed prominently in drivers. Normally reasonable nice people can turn into road raging foul mouthed idiots because theyre in a big metal box and despite the many windows it feels like a private space. Obviously anonymous message boards encourage behavior, but even when your name and face is plastered on something the person posting is likely replying from their bedroom or even the toilet so there is an air of privacy even when they are in fact airing something in a public forum.
- There is an encouragement from social media to engage even if you shouldnt. If you dont like or care for something and it's harmless you can and should just scroll by. The world isnt waiting for you to come down from the heavens and give your opinion on how the thing they like sucks, and we sure as hell dont need you to be a jerk about it on top of that. A lot of social media encourages engagement though.
4.Internet users are young. Less so these days than it was in the 90s and 00s, but even so who do you think has all this free time to be terminally online? I mean yeah plenty of adults do, but its largely a lot of teens and college students. People who are more likely to find the edgy bullshit funny and get into trouble. People who are likely to get really opinionated on stupid stuff that doesnt matter, and people who's personalities arent yet fully formed(granted I dont think we ever finish growing and changing and maturing but its definitely more rapid 14-24 vs 30-40). Theyre also likely to be influenced by the nasty internet culture thats been a norm for decades.
I think years of all this together have just encouraged a nasty place to be. Trolls feeding trolls, feeding outrage , feeding normal people who are empowered by being faceless, feeding people who could just not participate and save themselves and everyone else a big headache and it distills into something mean.
It's funny with no real consequences or repercussions other than those who take the word of anonymous internet strangers seriously
Yes, but without the funny part
