Even if social media were to fade from use, we would still cling to our reductionism. Remember that before social media spread it, gossip permeated every culture. It’s in our nature to reduce the personalities and actions of others to a statement or two and to see others as caricatures.
Our personal affinities, hormones, dislikes, and egos drive us toward simplification in a complex world with even more complex people. So, Einstein becomes the reduced version of a scientist, Marilyn Monroe, the version of a Hollywood actress, and Jack Kennedy the version of a politician. Sure, there are other representatives of those life choices, but I’m doing what we all do: Reducing. It really doesn’t matter whom we reduce. What matters is that we reduce, and the moment we do and regardless of the individual, we demonstrate our laziness, our insecurities, and our affinities.
Yes, now we are in the midst of a particularly vitriolic period because of social media’s reach and availability. We are witnessing the worst side of gossip, but if we lived in some small medieval village, in a convent, in a court, we would do the same, only with a smaller—but just as socially lethal—radius of effect.
The backyard fence of social media has now made the world a neighborhood of petty gossipers. That’s a reduction, of course, but as a human, I can’t seem to avoid reducing.
Our personal affinities, hormones, dislikes, and egos drive us toward simplification in a complex world with even more complex people. So, Einstein becomes the reduced version of a scientist, Marilyn Monroe, the version of a Hollywood actress, and Jack Kennedy the version of a politician. Sure, there are other representatives of those life choices, but I’m doing what we all do: Reducing. It really doesn’t matter whom we reduce. What matters is that we reduce, and the moment we do and regardless of the individual, we demonstrate our laziness, our insecurities, and our affinities.
Yes, now we are in the midst of a particularly vitriolic period because of social media’s reach and availability. We are witnessing the worst side of gossip, but if we lived in some small medieval village, in a convent, in a court, we would do the same, only with a smaller—but just as socially lethal—radius of effect.
The backyard fence of social media has now made the world a neighborhood of petty gossipers. That’s a reduction, of course, but as a human, I can’t seem to avoid reducing.
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