Wish I had something more insightful to contribute other than well-done piece. I've been reading your writing for nearly a decade now and still excited to read every new post.
Oh gosh, I remember when talking about this was feeding it. I suppose enough time has passed that it's not irresponsible anymore. :/ Also, pretty clinical view.
Ah heck, I should have read this post before commenting on the last one. You said the things I was trying to say!
But also, right? It's colonization, we are political animals and most of us treat (easily ignored) identity encroachments the same way we'd treat colonization.
The Thanksgiving Trump Uncles are like the gamers, and for very similar reasons.
Made up wars for internet points feel real because whatever points we politick for *are* the real points as far as we can tell.
("The revolution of our times has worked out, in the end, to have been a great headline and a fascinating story, and a great way to get a book out or start a career in activism – but because it fell in love with itself, because it fell prey to the delusions of social media, like a guy narcissistically looking at his own Instagram feed and going “damn I have a lot of followers” and then spending the night inside waiting for more, it was always going to end like this.")
Wish I had something more insightful to contribute other than well-done piece. I've been reading your writing for nearly a decade now and still excited to read every new post.
Thanks for the shot of encouragement! Even if I'm (usually) flakey about replying to comments, it means a lot.
Oh gosh, I remember when talking about this was feeding it. I suppose enough time has passed that it's not irresponsible anymore. :/ Also, pretty clinical view.
There's nothing to feed anymore. The Wikipedia entry has been written by the victors, and soon we'll start getting the ten-year retrospectives.
Ah heck, I should have read this post before commenting on the last one. You said the things I was trying to say!
But also, right? It's colonization, we are political animals and most of us treat (easily ignored) identity encroachments the same way we'd treat colonization.
The Thanksgiving Trump Uncles are like the gamers, and for very similar reasons.
Made up wars for internet points feel real because whatever points we politick for *are* the real points as far as we can tell.
Right—which is interesting (and/or terrifying) because it means a great deal of our political behavior becomes shaped up by upvote feedback.
Food for thought: https://lateralthinkingtechnology.wordpress.com/2020/08/16/the-revolution-will-not-be-trending-hong-kong-social-media-and-the-failure-of-attention-politics/
("The revolution of our times has worked out, in the end, to have been a great headline and a fascinating story, and a great way to get a book out or start a career in activism – but because it fell in love with itself, because it fell prey to the delusions of social media, like a guy narcissistically looking at his own Instagram feed and going “damn I have a lot of followers” and then spending the night inside waiting for more, it was always going to end like this.")
*Ouch*. Yeah.