BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE
SEPARATE REALITIES
We all live in information bubbles of one kind or another. Twitter and FaceBook “communities” are just self-reinforcing echo chambers. Traditional mass media is not entirely different — you always felt you could pass judgement on your fellow subway commuters by what paper they were reading.
BUBBLES HAPPEN FOR THESE REASONS
- Humans suffer from confirmation bias
- Humans don’t like cognitive dissonance
- FaceBook is designed to enslave your mind, Instagram is intentionally modeled after opioids, and YouTube is a machine-learning algorithm that takes hours of your life. And they want your money
- Putin and other political operatives micro-target you through social media to manipulate your perceptions, whether you’re QAnon or BLM. Also, your money
- The above agencies have blended the dark arts of brainwashing and advertising to create an online world like this….
LES BULLES D’ANTAN (the bubbles of yesteryear)
Media bubbles are nothing new, they just do their dirty work faster and more efficiently, because electronically. What is fairly new is the pretense that the content of any given news bubble is just neutral facts. For most of the 20th century, newspapers and magazines were expected to have editorial positions on the issues of the day. For example, “crusading journalism” was standard ops for the Muckrakers during the Progressive Era:
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who exposed established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in popular magazines. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the US are often informally called “muckrakers”.
Wikipedia
A return to investigative, crusading journalism would be extremely refreshing. Much better than a world where Fox News can call itself “Fair and Balanced.” They should be laughed off the airwaves for that statement alone.
EXTREMELY ONLINE BUBBLES
Groups like QAnon, Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, PUAs, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, preppers, militias, the John Birch Society (making a comeback), anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, Alex Jones, etc., etc., are all incubated in online information bubbles. They all claim to have THE TRUTH. (Except for the Boogaloo Bois, because they don’t care about truth, they’re nihilists; but they are very online.)
MassMiss is herself very-online, browsing around dank corners of the internet, picking up rumors and trends early on. My bubble feels like a time warp: when some shady political trend finally shows up in the mainstream media, and my NYT-reading friends are going OMIGOD!?!WTF?!, I’m going, “Oh, yeah, everyone knows that, old news, bo-o-o-o-oring.
For example, this thing with Jerry Falwell, Jr., serious Christian thought-leader (ha!) and his wife and the pool boy — that story’s been around FOR YEARS. And yet he’s just now losing his job as president of Liberty University?? Where y’all been? I refuse to write about that, it’s completely stale. Full deets here at Wonkette, try to catch up.
Meanwhile your MassMiss is wondering how the Right is handling this particular scandal because it is psychologically threatenting to them: see GQ’s Why Angry White Men Love Calling People “Cucks”. “Cuck” is the alt-right’s greatest insult and it’s one of those projection things, because, per the Washington Post, “men who identified as Republican were the most likely to report having had a cuckolding fantasy,” by a long shot. After reading those links, take a Silkwood shower and a hefty dose of brain bleach and forget it Jake, it’s Hypocrisy-ville.
THE GOOD BUBBLE
Every pundit goes on about how Americans are so divided we can’t talk to each other. The New York Times keeps doing their small-town-diner safaris to find out what MAGA-hats are thinking so we can all communicate better.
As Martin Buber’s I and Thou indicated almost a half century ago, dialoging not only contributes to a better society, but by encouraging humility and empathy, it also makes us better persons. And like Barack Obama in his 2004 Keynote Address to the Democratic Convention, I choose to believe that we wish to be better persons and create a more united America. It would be one that rises above all the ugly manifestations and name-calling of these Trumpian times.
“Can People on the Left and the Right Still Talk?” Walter G. Moss, History News Network, April 2018
“Dialoging.” This guy is a history professor and he uses “dialog” as a verb? Just for that, I never want to “dialog” with him, never mind if we had real political differences.
WEIRD BUBBLES
And then there are people that seem to live in their own weird little bubbles. Like this guy down the street from me, with the Trump yard signs — I thought he was just a regular MAGA, and then I noticed this one:
Help me out, fam — WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Vote below. And if you have your own theory (or if you actually know) please share in the comments. And if you don’t know what an incel is, bless your innocent little heart.
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