Social Media – Life as I know it

The last few weeks have been nothing short of a psychological study for me on twitter. I did not set out to do one, but psychology found me, swept me up in this whirlwind of human need, and I simply could not just watch it all happen and ignore it.

Throughout this whole process, I have screamed, I have ached and cried inconsolably. I have laughed, felt overjoyed, been loved and rejected all at once within the same day. I have despaired and felt waves of stormy anger and frustration engulf me whole. I have been reminded by well-intended friends that social media is a tricky and ferocious animal to handle; that none of it is real and nothing is what it seems, and yet, this advice came at the hands of those who breathe in social media the moment they wake up and do not stop to exhale its poisonous, dubious air until their head hits that pillow. Any advice is rendered ineffective if those giving it conduct themselves in a way that disproves their own wisdom. Of course Social Media is real; a parallel reality it may be, but a reality nevertheless. Its deceitful, pantomime-like and bordering on sinister dark corners, often remind me of a Venetian Carnival where people hide behind the most alluring and exquisite of masks to reinvent themselves and step beyond the boundaries of what they would never contemplate doing or saying in real life. The mask however does not alter the person behind it, not really. It may appear so for a while, but eventually one can truly see the gaze behind the glamour and the glitter; the cracks seeping out past traumas, deep hurts and weakening fears that though deeply hidden, betray our newly found identity & automatically exclude us from the romanticism and Utopian mirage of the Masquerade Ball.

There is much that remains a mystery to me about human behaviour, but I have been able to draw some conclusions from my interaction with a number of people on twitter. Most of all, I have been able to find truth as we often do, by simply stepping away and like a fly on a wall, watch it all unfold; letting individuals show their true character and betray their own perceived integrity when they thought no one was really paying any attention.

I have learnt that at an age when we have all the gadgets and the gizmos, when we can be on the other side of the world on the same day and social media dominates and dictates the lives of so very many, never has our need to feel included and loved been greater. There is an impossibly achy loneliness abounding in the secret chambers of the virtual world. Society, even pre-Covid, has been bleeding out and failing to live up to its definition, because the social element has been abducted from right under our feet and a poor substitute has made islands of each and everyone of us trying to find ourselves and each other. The most alarming element of this phenomenon is the fact that most of us have loving families around us and a network of friends or support of one kind or another and yet, we are the lost faces in a multitudinous crowd crying out for acknowledgement, begging to be heard and understood. There is a desperate need to matter at a time when circumstances have made us finally acknowledge that in the scale of things, between the now and the beyond, we truly matter very, very little, and so we gasp desperately trying to hold on to some sort of significance. The more we realise we are but a grain of sand on the beach, the more egotistical and self-centered we become; the more we veer towards mob mentality instead of accepting each person on their own merit and essence. And of course, the power of social media is boundless and so trends that dominate on the virtual world, irremediably feed into our daily lives, our homes, and ultimately our surroundings. Before we know it, we are turning our society into the most inhospitable place there ever was; an Eden made into a hell, and it is all of our own making.

I have also learnt that at a time when we have more resources than ever; when we are potentially more powerful than ever; we are the weakest beings we have ever been. We lack backbone and deeply rooted convictions. We would rather be a Judas than a Peter; we need to be all things to all people in order to find worth, instead of remembering that it is our uniqueness and not our tribal ancestry that defines us and sets us aside to pursue our own purpose; to make that small difference that no one else can make. We have become cowards that hide behind the group instead of standing on our own two feet when we see injustice, lies and witch-hunts. Our morality and creed blow whichever way the wind takes them. We are chameleons that change colour depending on who is watching. We take a side in an argument with our words but then our actions discredit the very point we have just made. We are in essence regressing to a herd mentality where the blind is leading the blind; where leadership stems from popularity as opposed to integrity tested in the furnace of adversity and going it alone.

I have learnt, and this is the one that has broken me the most, that there are individuals who are indeed beyond rescue. I had two uncles who committed suicide, but I have always believed that what led them to such an unthinkable tragic end was probably a lack of a supportive network or adverse circumstances. Well, I have encountered on twitter individuals who by their own admission are rotten apples, messed up and broken; they hurt others because they simply do not know how to be any other way; they carry deep scars from the past and open wounds that are beyond healing. They look up to people who are no longer around, and they live their lives through their eyes instead of their own. I have learnt that no matter how much light you see still shining within that person; no matter how clear you see the path that they need to follow, nothing will change until they make a decision themselves to break loose from their ghosts and their demons. I have learnt that being rejected by such individuals is not a reflection of my inability to be loved or accepted by them but rather their dismal failure to love, accept and forgive themselves.

The world is suffering from a hopeless case of unaccountability. For such an ancient world, there is today more than ever a distinct reluctance to grow up, both on an individual and collective basis, it seems.

I started noticing this years ago, when I first joined social media and expressed my views on various subjects. The onslaught that often followed every time I expressed a personal view on a given subject, was sinister to say the least, utterly unjustified, and frankly terrifying. Not being able to express an opinion on a controversial subject is regrettable, but to not be able to say what you honestly think in a democratic country which by definition prides itself in freedom of expression amongst other rights, is clearly the symptom of grave maladies sending our world into a spiral of self destruction: egotism, greed, deception, manipulation, to name but a few.

Our obsession with self drives us blindly to focus all our negativity, self loathing and feelings of failure towards another, based on a difference of opinion. We are willing to vilify a human being and put their character and integrity into question, even though we have never met that person ever; even though we know nothing about that person other than what we glean from their digital print. It’s hardly consistent evidence to base a person’s epitaph on or even dictate their death sentence, digitally speaking.

I have asked myself this same question over and over. What is so very dark in a human heart that when another person’s argument touches a raw nerve, they’d rather destroy that person’s credibility without giving their argument a moment’s thought, than actually have the courage to engage in self-introspection and get to the bottom of why their argument has unnerved them. It seems obvious to me on a personal as well as global level that nearly always, those viciously attacking another as a result of an opinion expressed, are cowardly ‘shooting’ the messenger rather than having the maturity to heed the message, or at least consider it. They are terrified of looking in the mirror to acknowledge flaws; they love themselves too much or as it turns out not enough to face head on their demons, to question their deeply rooted convictions. To do so would mean rocking the boat of their own credibility, self-assuredness; in essence questioning the very essence of who they are and how they live. Life is tough enough as it is, right, so why rock the boat? Much quicker, easier and less effort to trample on anyone who wants to make me accountable for my choices, even when those choices have dire consequences on others who were never given a choice.

Personal growth has reached a new stalemate in this ‘modern’ era of tribalism. ‘Think as I do or be destroyed’ is the new motto for so many today. Character assassination on social media is the new ‘terrorism’. ‘Say as I say or disappear’ is the new standard of righteousness. The defining lines of ethics and morality are at an all time high of blurriness.

Now, take this increasingly common behavioral pattern on social media and scale it up worldwide and to other areas of society such as religion, politics, the natural world. What do you have? An existential crisis of biblical proportions; the end of our world as we know it.

Take for example Greta Thunberg. Thousands of people around the world, mostly scientists, meteorologists, environmentalists, experts in all the relevant subjects have agreed for a long time now that global warming exists and that we are on a path of self-destruction. Even though there is no agreement as to when this may happen, there is consensus in the fact that to continue living as we do is not sustainable in the long-term. What do we do? Anyone and everyone who feels challenged by the argument put forward by Greta and the fact that finally, she has got us all talking and thinking about global warming and the risks involved, feels entitled to embark personally on her character assassination, on discrediting her, shaming her, insulting her. Some are prepared to do anything and I mean anything, in order to divert the focus away from a vital message and focus instead solely on the credibility of the messenger.

We shouldn’t care how old she is. We shouldn’t care whether her parents or anyone else is manipulating her or not, and most certainly, we should be ashamed of ourselves for putting into question her worth as a human being or her potential as a catalyst for urgently needed change, based on the fact that she has Asperger’s. I have read some horrendous attacks directed at her because of her disorder. I have a son with Asperger’s and I can tell you that what he lacks in certain aspects, he more than makes up for in others. He is an exceptional human being and his outlook on things often blows my mind. Like any other human being, he is deficient in certain areas but excels in others. Asperger’s individuals are no worse than anyone else. They are simply different, and being different has to be celebrated and not vilified. Otherwise, our world will stagnate and eventually everything in it will perish. We step on very shaky ground when we dismiss another human being and what they have to say because of their health, creed, sexual orientation, political affiliation or race. But more alarmingly, we lose ourselves and our humanity when we make it our life’s goal to destroy another human being because they think different than we do. The real tragedy here is that in denying the validity of a message by shooting its messenger, we are denying ourselves room for growth, personal fulfillment and we are shooting ourselves in the head also by obsessing with always being right, instead of humbling ourselves and accepting that this world’s only chance of survival is changing our motto from ‘them and us’ to ‘together we can’.