MEDIA+CULTURE

Is Social Media Right For You?

In which I explore the pros and cons of being disagreeable on a platform that supposedly has no dog in the fight

Do you find yourself irritated by the world around you? Itching for a fight? Maybe you’ve discovered a newfound sensitivity towards uncomfortable subjects or an intolerance for open dissent. Are you looking for an outlet for your self-righteous indignation and outage, or even just a place where you can make believe you’re in the right? It might be time to ask your doctor if social media is right for you.

Lately, I have found myself wrestling with an uncomfortable idea, that is whether or not to curb my expression of thoughts and opinions in order to be more popular on social media. The question alone sounds like I’m trying to figure out how to be more popular with the cool kids in my new high school.

Since when do I care what people think? Traditionally, this would have been a non-starter for me, but times are changing, and sometimes the ground shifts under your feet without your knowledge. Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s complicated.

It’s different if you’re just killing time looking at cat memes while you wait for the doctor to see you. But when it’s part of your job, it’s something you have to consider. As a writer, growing your audience is not just important; it’s critical to your success. Publishers, editors, and other gatekeepers want to know what sort of audience you bring to them, not the other way around.

Do I pander to an audience, or do I challenge them? Do I say what they want to hear, or do I swim against the stream? I’ve never been a very good suck-up, so the former seems like a lost cause, but do I temper my rage to appeal to a broader audience? It’s a reasonable question, if not an easy answer.

Throughout my career as a branding consultant, I have always counseled against chasing an audience. Better to be the most authentic version of yourself and trust that an audience will find that compelling enough to grab their attention. You can’t please all the people all the time, and it’s foolish even to try. But typically, you don’t go out of your way to alienate an audience, unless that’s your intention.

The Reluctant Provocateur

For nearly my entire existence on social media, I’ve often been accused of intentionally stirring the turd, as the saying goes. I’ve been taken to task for being a contrarian, troublemaker, bomb-thrower, agitator, and instigator. While this has never been my intention, it’s hard to argue that my contribution has more often led to argument than agreement, so maybe the shoe fits.

But I also believe that this is inherently reductive and misleading, because my intent has never been to cause chaos or confusion but to shine a light on opposing viewpoints that all too often aren’t being considered either out of fear or conformity. This has always driven me to put myself in harm’s way.

It has been my persistent belief, therefore, that going with the flow and following the herd is rarely an enlightened approach, and has haunted me since I was a child. You don’t have to be a contrarian for the sake of being disagreeable, but you shouldn’t just walk off the cliff because everyone else is. I seem to have an acute allergy to bandwagons, crusades, and trends. If everyone is doing something, the first thing I want to know is, why?

While it’s true that if you maintain that something is either black or white, I will introduce gray, it’s not because I am unwilling to agree with you. It’s just that I don’t believe anyone has a lock on the truth, and experience tells me that the more we learn, the less we know. Too much blind confidence in any one position makes me suspicious.

The Unbearable Dullness Of Conformity

It’s a commonly held belief among social media pundits that conflict breeds engagement, which is why, of course, corporate platforms that rely on perpetual engagement push content that is contentious. Civil discourse doesn’t move the needle in quite the same way as a riotous row, which is why no one pays much attention to them.

You may dispute this, but then you must ask yourself why the same dynamic occurs on a platform with no algorithm, such as Mastodon. Why are we drawn to conflict and not agreement? Because if we’re being honest about our search for truth, we know there is nothing to be learned by surrounding ourselves with those who agree with us. If you have two people who believe exactly the same thing, one of them is superfluous in the search for knowledge.

I watched the Irish film “The Banshees of Inisherin” the other night, and I’m still thinking about it. While the film is a dark Irish comedy exploring the breakup of a platonic male friendship, it’s also an apt commentary on the conflict between the relative comfort of maintaining the status quo and the oppressive dullness of the same.

Your heart breaks for Pádraic and his kind but dull-witted existence, but if you’ve ever had a mind to pursue the creative arts or simply yearned for more than the bare minimum, then you can’t help but sympathize with the plight of poor Colm. While Pádraic is content to while away the days, drinking and discussing the contents of his pony’s shite, Colm endeavors to create music that might outlive his meager existence.

The Narcissism of Small Differences

Conformity is a fluid concept, ironic as that is, dependent on which community you are speaking of. Accommodating the values and mores of the majority might indeed be anathema to those in the minority. It all depends on who you want, or hope, to agree with you. But if you are of the mind to question things, you will get under the skin of one group or another, possibly both.

It’s not unusual for me to take a position that is contrary to the majority opinion of my own community because I feel that it is errant by degrees, only to have someone from the opposition attempt to agree with me that the entire concept is suspect. So rather than making a distinction of degrees, I end up defending the idea against those I disagree with and arguing with those I supposedly agree. What Freud called the “narcissism of small differences.”

I can’t complain too loudly since this is the mud I’ve chosen to wallow in. I could spend my life preaching to the choir, confident in the biases of my audience, that, like me, they too believe that God hates all the same people that they do. But that seems pointless and pandering. I would rather challenge the mostly-right people to make them even better.

There is no helping the lost to find their way if they’re going to insist on shooting at you as you attempt to light their path. Better to find willing participants and nudge them a bit. Whether or not this grand experiment in creating online communities will ever result in positive social change remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’ll continue to stumble around in the dark like everyone else, hoping for the best.

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