I just feel it’s design feeds into people’s worst instincts.
All social media is of course completely evil. FBs the only one I use and I routinely deactivate that because it’s designed to drive me insane. I know it’s doing it. The algorithm knows I have a love of history and world culture.
So naturally it recommends me the most absurd conspiracy pages in existence. Because it infuriates me and I’ll have to say something. Then I wind up frothing at the mouth, in a fit of lunacy, rambling about how the transatlantic slave trade was real but giants and vampires are not.
Like this is an opinion that’s controversial to more than maybe 4k weirdos at most. But when that’s all you’re seeing in a comment section it feels like some Orwellian nightmare where I’m going to be dragged off for saying the Roman Empire wasn’t a hoax. That wasn’t comical exaggeration btw that’s another one of the cosmic big brain ideas these people have.
But it’s not all bad. There are some groups that generally are nice places where you can have thoughtful conversations. I’m in a histography group where everyone’s very respectful. Sources are cited. Generally the benefit of the doubt is given. Particularly as it’s international so you get plenty of posters who’s first language isn’t English, or who have an unusual perspective on a historical event, and have genuinely worded something about a delicate topic very poorly.
But rather than snarling at them and accusing them of secretly being Ms.Hitler, ya just ask “Hey, could you elaborate a bit more?”.
And 9/10 times it’s a reasonable take. And even if it’s genuinely unhinged it’s better to try to calmly explain why that is because often people have been just terribly misinformed and barking at them does not fix this. Like idk ya ever been shamed into reading a book?
But ya can tell when someone who uses Twitter too much turns up. I’ll never forget the most embarrassing ish I’ve ever seen.
Awhile back there was some movie where Achilles and Zeus were portrayed as black men. And it bothered this frequent Nigerian poster because he was very annoyed that theyd do this instead of just making a movie about West African mythology and heroes. He essentially said he wanted black children to see themselves in great heroes, but that simply giving them a different colored version of a white man’s myth was further erasing the distinct and storied history of his region.
And largely I agreed. I would argue that American interpretations of any myth is just going to look a bit more like our demographics, but ultimately yeah I’d love to see a movie about their stuff. There’s sorcerer kings and spiders teaching people how to weave essentially mithril armor. If nothing else it’d be something people haven’t seen a billion times already.
And here comes this guy, foot on the gas paying zero attention to anything but the thesis statement, who decides to hit 'em with the “Uh sweaty your white supremacy is showing”.
A white American man told a black Nigerian he was a N@ZI sympathizer because he was asking why black children should have to make due with the white man’s stories.
After trying and failing to double down by completely shifting his argument four times he left the group lol. Ya know just run away instead of maybe learning you shouldn’t immediately insult people based off literal first glance impressions and grow as a person.
And that’s what Twitter does to people. This isn’t an opportunity to learn or discuss topics from people all around the world who you’d never be able to talk to 50 years ago. Its a video game where you score points by hurling insults at people. And lo and behold when you do that long enough you come off as absurdly stupid.
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