“Eat the Rich” memes spread, but is it a political movement?

[superrific]

And im fine with (and agree with) this stance, but that is NOT what those survey results say to me and based on what I see on social media the survey is indicative of a more sinister view than that.

one downside of communication-by-meme, which is a dominant form of communication on social media, is that it rarely allows for any sort of nuance. the whole point of a meme -- or one of them -- is to avoid having to express any specific opinion. you can be all things to all people (or the opposite).

i'm not saying you are wrong, but i do think that you need to take your observations and the polls on this with a grain of salt. if everyone had exactly the view that paine expressed, i am not sure social media would be much different. the nuanced view is just not social media friendly.

i long ago predicted that twitter would be the demise of democracy. i didn't mean it 100% seriously -- and i certainly didn't predict that a right wing edgelord would buy it and turn it into a firehose of disinformation -- but i think the general intuition was right. nothing good can come from limiting expression to 240 characters. people accuse me of writing long posts. they certainly are long compared to tweets. they are not long compared to the history of written expression. it wasn't that long ago that advertisement -- one page advertisements in magazines and newspapers -- contained more text than all but my longest posts. what has happened is that americans, and maybe others as well, have lost the ability to express ideas coherently.

 

[wmheel1287]

one downside of communication-by-meme, which is a dominant form of communication on social media, is that it rarely allows for any sort of nuance. the whole point of a meme -- or one of them -- is to avoid having to express any specific opinion. you can be all things to all people (or the opposite).

i'm not saying you are wrong, but i do think that you need to take your observations and the polls on this with a grain of salt. if everyone had exactly the view that paine expressed, i am not sure social media would be much different. the nuanced view is just not social media friendly.

i long ago predicted that twitter would be the demise of democracy. i didn't mean it 100% seriously -- and i certainly didn't predict that a right wing edgelord would buy it and turn it into a firehose of disinformation -- but i think the general intuition was right. nothing good can come from limiting expression to 240 characters. people accuse me of writing long posts. they certainly are long compared to tweets. they are not long compared to the history of written expression. it wasn't that long ago that advertisement -- one page advertisements in magazines and newspapers -- contained more text than all but my longest posts. what has happened is that americans, and maybe others as well, have lost the ability to express ideas coherently.

This is all true, but it isnt just the memes themselves. It is the overall response to them. When someone does express the more nuanced view, people pile on with "that fucker got what he deserved"

You were very right about Twitter and I'm glad I never participated in it.

Here's my prediction....what we are seeing with the acceptance of such things by people is the natural offset to MAGA and it is just as dangerous.

We are rapidly cruising toward a society that places no value on human life itself and all value on being agreed with 100% of the time.

 

[Paine]

one downside of communication-by-meme, which is a dominant form of communication on social media, is that it rarely allows for any sort of nuance. the whole point of a meme -- or one of them -- is to avoid having to express any specific opinion. you can be all things to all people (or the opposite).

i'm not saying you are wrong, but i do think that you need to take your observations and the polls on this with a grain of salt. if everyone had exactly the view that paine expressed, i am not sure social media would be much different. the nuanced view is just not social media friendly.

i long ago predicted that twitter would be the demise of democracy. i didn't mean it 100% seriously -- and i certainly didn't predict that a right wing edgelord would buy it and turn it into a firehose of disinformation -- but i think the general intuition was right. nothing good can come from limiting expression to 240 characters. people accuse me of writing long posts. they certainly are long compared to tweets. they are not long compared to the history of written expression. it wasn't that long ago that advertisement -- one page advertisements in magazines and newspapers -- contained more text than all but my longest posts. what has happened is that americans, and maybe others as well, have lost the ability to express ideas coherently.

I’ve recently started watching YouTube Shorts. It’s probably the only social media I engage with, unless one considers this site social media.

I think short form video content has its flaws, but, IMO, it’s a stark improvement over the kind of content that dominates Twitter, even in its liberal heyday when I was active on it.

No social media alone is substantive enough for a healthy media diet though.

 

[Zoo_View]

How would you read that to say they are justifying the killing? If someone places a “moderate” amount of blame on Mangione and a “great deal” of blame on the for-profit health insurance industry, are they justifying the killing to you?

Yes. They are definitely justifying the murder.

 

[superrific]

Yes. They are definitely justifying the murder.

this is incorrect. you can have whatever opinion you like about the merits, but it is simply not true that contextualizing is justifying. it can be the case, but it isn't necessarily so.

what was the cause of world war one? in history class, they teach that the assassination of the archduke was merely a spark, and the real cause was the military buildup and hardening alliances in europe that made war almost inevitable. it only took a match. i have never interpreted that contention as a justification for the serbian assassin. that it only takes a match doesn't make it right to light the match. it is also ridiculous to ignore all the kindling. this incident isn't the same as that one; i am merely pointing out that justification and contextualization are clearly not the same thing.

 

[Zoo_View]

this is incorrect. you can have whatever opinion you like about the merits, but it is simply not true that contextualizing is justifying. it can be the case, but it isn't necessarily so.

what was the cause of world war one? in history class, they teach that the assassination of the archduke was merely a spark, and the real cause was the military buildup and hardening alliances in europe that made war almost inevitable. it only took a match. i have never interpreted that contention as a justification for the serbian assassin. that it only takes a match doesn't make it right to light the match. it is also ridiculous to ignore all the kindling. this incident isn't the same as that one; i am merely pointing out that justification and contextualization are clearly not the same thing.

Gee, thank you so much for pointing out that justification and contextualization are clearly not the same thing. Without you, I wouldn’t have a clue about that.

 

[wmheel1287]

For what it's worth, I would also say that Gavrilo Princip is more responsible for the murder of Archduke Ferdinand than anyone else. Just in case anyone was wondering!

 

[SnoopRob]

unless one considers this site social media.

Message boards are a form of social media, although they are almost all niche social media and quite archaic at this point.

But I think that super's point stands even with social media that doesn't have character limits. The movement of internet consumption/usage from computer to phone/tablet has overall created a very, very different social media experience. Folks typing on phones/tablets rarely contribute terribly long or nuanced posts, they tend to create short posts that focus on very limited, high-level points.

It takes a lot of characters to express why you think Biden's COVID policies were bad or why his efforts to curb inflation weren't successful with any nuance or intelligence, but it only takes a few seconds to say "Biden sucks!" or post a silly picture response or to simply post a link to someone else you agree with (but that doesn't force you to actually wrestle with the issues yourself).

And, as someone who is rapidly approaching his 30th anniversary of spending time on message boards, that doesn't even start to cover the changes from the internet being largely populated by reasonably educated folks (college students/professors and white collar workers) to the internet being fully available to nearly everyone via 24/7 connection. Over my time on various message boards, the level of interaction and discourse has fallen further than I could ever imagine.

 

[Icky Mettle]

Message boards are a form of social media, although they are almost all niche social media and quite archaic at this point.

But I think that super's point stands even with social media that doesn't have character limits. The movement of internet consumption/usage from computer to phone/tablet has overall created a very, very different social media experience. Folks typing on phones/tablets rarely contribute terribly long or nuanced posts, they tend to create short posts that focus on very limited, high-level points.

It takes a lot of characters to express why you think Biden's COVID policies were bad or why his efforts to curb inflation weren't successful with any nuance or intelligence, but it only takes a few seconds to say "Biden sucks!" or post a silly picture response or to simply post a link to someone else you agree with (but that doesn't force you to actually wrestle with the issues yourself).

And, as someone who is rapidly approaching his 30th anniversary of spending time on message boards, that doesn't even start to cover the changes from the internet being largely populated by reasonably educated folks (college students/professors and white collar workers) to the internet being fully available to nearly everyone via 24/7 connection. Over my time on various message boards, the level of interaction and discourse has fallen further than I could ever imagine.

Sorry to veer off the general topic for a moment, but this post made me think back to the old ACCBoards.com and how things were about 25 years ago. It’s funny to think that there were A LOT of college students— even high school students— on those boards at the time. At that time, I was a recent college grad in my mid-20s. Definitely a far cry from the demographics we see on these boards today.

 

[nycfan]

sorry to veer off the general topic for a moment, but this post made me think back to the old ACCBoards.com and how things were about 25 years ago. It’s funny to think that there were A LOT of college students— even high school students— on those boards at the time. At that time, I was a recent college grad in my mid-20s. Definitely a far cry from the demographics we see on these boards today.

As an of ACCBoards poster, a lot of us have aged like vinegar, I guess, and stuck with these sorts of boards as our social media forums even as they’ve become backwaters for dinosaurs. My son would probably die laughing at the idea of posting on a board like this, but there was an ACCBoards betting pool on when he would be born back in the day.

 

[Icky Mettle]

As an of ACCBoards poster, a lot of us have aged like vinegar, I guess, and stuck with these sorts of boards as our social media forums even as they’ve become backwaters for dinosaurs. My son would probably die laughing at the idea of posting on a board like this, but there was an ACCBoards betting pool on when he would be born back in the day.

I remember there was a poster back in the old ACCBoards with “1951” in his username (something like “1951 Tar Heel”). He was a 1951 UNC grad, which would put him in his early-70s during most of those ACCBoards days. I remember thinking at the time how surprised I was that he figured out how to get to and use internet message boards based on his age at the time we were in (most folks over 70 at the time didn’t have a lot of experience with computers or the internet). And now we have a number of posters in their 70s, many (all?) of whom were younger than I am now back in the ACCBoards days.

Anyway, sorry to continue taking this off topic.

 

[Zoo_View]

In the early days of the Internet, I remember people talking/writing about what a great tool for education, democracy, freedom, and peace it would be.

 

[lawtig02]

In the early days of the Internet, I remember people talking/writing about what a great tool for education, democracy, freedom, and peace it would be.

It is. And it can be. But it has an enormous dark side as well. I’m still not sure how it nets out, but the world would be an extremely different place without it.

 

[superrific]

Gee, thank you so much for pointing out that justification and contextualization are clearly not the same thing. Without you, I wouldn’t have a clue about that.

what do you want from me? you wrote something incorrect. the error was the confusion of justification and contextualization. i pointed out the error. now you lash out. i didn't write your post. i didn't force you to write it. you did that of your own volition. it is no crime to make a mistake. what gives?

 

[farce©]

I remember there was a poster back in the old ACCBoards with “1951” in his username (something like “1951 Tar Heel”). He was a 1951 UNC grad, which would put him in his early-70s during most of those ACCBoards days. I remember thinking at the time how surprised I was that he figured out how to get to and use internet message boards based on his age at the time we were in (most folks over 70 at the time didn’t have a lot of experience with computers or the internet). And now we have a number of posters in their 70s, many (all?) of whom were younger than I am now back in the ACCBoards days.

Anyway, sorry to continue taking this off topic.

Good point. There was a poster on Go Heels and later on ZZL with the username jacwyn who was 70+ before I was 50. I thought the same thing....how did he navigate the internet and find this board! Now I'm 70 and have an Instagram account but I've never figured out how people use it for obtaining or distributing information.

 

[finesse]

This is about as much sharing as I'm willing to do for the most part. I will add that ,especially in earlier days, I met and got to know a number of posters on various boards IRL.

 

[UNCatTech]

In the early days of the Internet, I remember people talking/writing about what a great tool for education, democracy, freedom, and peace it would be.

Yes, and look what it has become.

Google anything and the first 2 pages will be 500 ways to purchade, but fining actual information isn't as easy.

 

[UNCatTech]

It is. And it can be. But it has an enormous dark side as well. I’m still not sure how it nets out, but the world would be an extremely different place without it.

Yes, that dark side is something else.

 

[nycfan]

Yes, that dark side is something else.

The internet is just a mirror of humanity itself. We feed it, run it, use it, exploit it, abuse it.

Has it become a distorted, funhouse mirror or is it just reflecting back who we are, writ large? I believe it has become the former, distorted by a small but vocal minority of individual, collective and state actors exploiting it for misguided, self-interested, criminal, hateful and sometimes evil purposes, and the people who consume that dark feast and demand more.

 

[UNCatTech]

The internet is just a mirror of humanity itself. We feed it, run it, use it, exploit it, abuse it.

Has it become a distorted, funhouse mirror or is it just reflecting back who we are, writ large? I believe it has become the former, distorted by a small but vocal minority of individual, collective and state actors exploiting it for misguided, self-interested, criminal, hateful and sometimes evil purposes, and the people who consume that dark feast and demand more.

Finding people like yourself can be good and bad.

My oldest daughter felt alone because no one in her high school was into the things she was into. Cosplay, Anime, etc. She found groups of like people online and it helped her to know that there were other people like her.

My middle daughter, unfortunately, also found people like her, when she was suffering from body dysmorphia and self-harm. These groups didn't encourage getting help, they encouraged the behaviors that were hurting her.