Before starting this text, I would like to wish all of us a year 2022 with less health turbulence. I wish that evolutionary mercy dwells in the Omicron variant and that it ultimately becomes the bearer of a more lasting armistice between the virus and humanity. But for that, it is still necessary to stick together during the perilous crossing of the months of January and February – especially for the hospital system, which begins to falter and whose staff work so hard for the health of all.
I would also like to say that we can accuse social networks of being more and more antisocial, they can become great platforms in the service of benevolence. It all depends on how and why it is used. If in cavemen the light of fire scared animals away, in many modern humans the light of the screen scares boredom. While Facebook offers to write his biography even before being famous, Twitter requires us to summarize it in a few words … and Instagram reminds us that a picture is worth a thousand words! In the hope that we will be enlightened, we ask both of them to follow us without really knowing where we are going. Now is the time to teach kids to go from non-influenceable to influencers. In our social networks, we went from the flavor of the month to the personality of the week, to the buzz of the day to finally arrive at the star of the hour. If this continues, I bet they’ll cut our 15 minutes of fame!
Not surprising then that today, to attract attention to these platforms, it is necessary to innovate, shock, provoke, hurt, harass, insult, intimidate. Even that, for a handful of subscribers more, many do not take long to exceed the limits!
If notoriety grew on top of tall trees, some wouldn’t hesitate to lick a chimpanzee’s ass to help them reach it.
The recent escapades of a few reality TV starlets and other influencers on a plane bound for Mexico are proof of this. All this head-to-head bustle was meant to shine the light on this group Trudeau called the gang of no-intention. In this cabin turned upside down, all the elements were there for the press to make this event a global success. The organizer was also right to mention on Twitter that it was worth it. My little finger tells me that while preparing this aerial rumba, all these Ostrogoths addicted to likes knew that the fact of risking being blacklisted by showing your middle finger to sanitary measures would pay off a lot of thumbs up!
Even though Facebook’s algorithm has been singled out a lot lately, we have to admit that it only offers users what most people like. Why do these programs promote more evil and incivility rather than good and kindness? For the same reason as this party planned young people eager to followers had huge success. We do not know what will happen next, but the goal – always more visibility – has been achieved. Facebook knows that in the human species, voyeurism pays. The guilty pleasure of squealing the skin, watching the misfortune of others or seeing them trample the law… it all pays!
Many people rejoice at the blood of fighters who get defeated in the ring and take offense when others let go of their verbal abuse in social media.
Let’s face it, those who step into a ring choose to do so, but what’s going on there is undeniably violent. It is also important to remember that sometimes stepping into a ring can be a way of offering yourself as food for the benefit of privileged voyeurs to find something to eat and feed your family. Let us remember the fate of the young Mexican boxer Jeanette Zacarias Zapata.
Eyeing violence or incivility is a guilty pleasure for many humans. Launched in social networks, the sentence “Boucar blew his grandfather’s face” would generate a thousand times more reactions than “Boucar pays homage to the elderly”. “Boucar freaked out his grandfather” is a lure of angry emojis, a trap for animated gifs of indignant kittens! But, strangely, “Boucar blew his grandfather’s face” would also elicit signs of appreciation, including thumbs up and hearts from some without embarrassment and genius of social networks. . For those looking to take advantage of the momentum of this publication, all they need to do is share it quickly with their community to see other curious people show up and show their interest in their activities.
So, like the courageous hunter-gatherer of yesteryear who brought the carcass of a deer from Longueuil back to the village, the torchbearer feels important in his digital clan, and his brain is jubilant under the effect of dopamine. Facebook has only provided a platform for the guilty pleasure of mankind for backbiting, denigration, and other grudges which, according to British evolutionary anthropologist and psychologist Robin Dunbar, are ways of making a pact with like-minded people.
Anger, indignation, resentment, meanness, misogyny, racism, hate, discrimination, incivility, rudeness and the inevitable cat videos are the best sellers on social networks. I wish all of us to resist this dark side of the force and to have the courage to speak out against it. Except of course for the videos of cats playing the piano and doing karate. As my title flirts with that dark side of the force a bit too, I suggest starting the shift next week.