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Twitter mostly proves that a lot of people are not happy unless they're outraged.

la_barba 7y ago
Agree. Its just a reflection of society. You cannot legislate behavior or morality from top-down.
vokep 7y ago
Or rather a lot of people are unhappy and express this through constant outrage masked by a facade of happiness and "good vibes"
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  I think the reality on Twitter is that only a very few people are unhappy and outraged and a very many people without the strong emotions empathise and amplify it. This is actively encouraged and labeled in some groups by "being a good ally" for example.
  - LargeWu 7y ago
    But to what end? The end result of all this for me has been that I simply quit Twitter. And here's the thing: I generally agree with them, but it's so annoying I can't even engage with them anymore. So sure, maybe they're amplifying somebody's message, but I'm no longer there to hear it, no matter how loud it is. They're mostly just shouting at each other at this point.
    - thinkingemote 7y ago
      I'm with you here, I wonder if it encourages people to shout even louder as "these people aren't listening as much any more"?
derefr 7y ago
I feel like there's a mental illness the entire world is seemingly ignoring, whose symptom is constant, floating disgust and contempt and despise. The ability to be offended by anything, because it's not the stimulus that offended you; you were already offended as an equilibrium state. Let me attempt to describe this mentality as a recipe (because I don't have a good name for it, but I'm sure you can recognize it): start by imagining clinical depression. Keep the "everything in the world sucks" part, but remove the part where you consider "everything" to include you. (This isn't narcissism; you don't think you're all that great. You just aren't down on yourself. You think of yourself in a normal, healthy way.) Then, take the parts of depression where you have no energy and don't experience any emotional affect, and replace those with a sliding scale from "neutral" to "panicked shouting." (Which isn't real panic, per se; it's just a very loud simulated fight-or-flight response, without any real fear or traumatic recall behind it.) An increasing number of people are like this. Nobody notices these people as unusual at all. This used to be rare enough to caricature; it was the "I want to speak to your manager" mom. But everyone is like that now. Every age group has these people in equal numbers. What... happened?
- nullc 7y ago
  We become what we do.
- asdff 7y ago
  Outrage culture is nothing new. Orwell wrote about it, in 1984 outrage culture in Oceana was boiled down to a daily 'two minutes of hate.' It's just moved to twitter rather than the dinner table or the work cafeteria or other meeting places, where you might see the same circular outrage opinions although perhaps with more restraint. The trope of 'racist grandpa' goes back a while, for example. That said, when everyone you know or follow is echoing the same thing, there's a sense of entitlement that builds. That you are entitled to outrage, and now with social media you have a platform to echo like minded opinions from the hilltop. It's easy to forget that you inhabit an echo chamber on the internet (1), and all too tempting to equate it into a worldwide crusade. You used to have to earn a platform through persuasive arguments or hard earned authority and expertise. 1. https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/ https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-use...

Agree. Its just a reflection of society. You cannot legislate behavior or morality from top-down.

Or rather a lot of people are unhappy and express this through constant outrage masked by a facade of happiness and "good vibes"

thinkingemote 7y ago
I think the reality on Twitter is that only a very few people are unhappy and outraged and a very many people without the strong emotions empathise and amplify it. This is actively encouraged and labeled in some groups by "being a good ally" for example.
- LargeWu 7y ago
  But to what end? The end result of all this for me has been that I simply quit Twitter. And here's the thing: I generally agree with them, but it's so annoying I can't even engage with them anymore. So sure, maybe they're amplifying somebody's message, but I'm no longer there to hear it, no matter how loud it is. They're mostly just shouting at each other at this point.
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
    I'm with you here, I wonder if it encourages people to shout even louder as "these people aren't listening as much any more"?

derefr 7y ago

I feel like there's a mental illness the entire world is seemingly ignoring, whose symptom is constant, floating disgust and contempt and despise. The ability to be offended by anything, because it's not the stimulus that offended you; you were already offended as an equilibrium state. Let me attempt to describe this mentality as a recipe (because I don't have a good name for it, but I'm sure you can recognize it): start by imagining clinical depression. Keep the "everything in the world sucks" part, but remove the part where you consider "everything" to include you. (This isn't narcissism; you don't think you're all that great. You just aren't down on yourself. You think of yourself in a normal, healthy way.) Then, take the parts of depression where you have no energy and don't experience any emotional affect, and replace those with a sliding scale from "neutral" to "panicked shouting." (Which isn't real panic, per se; it's just a very loud simulated fight-or-flight response, without any real fear or traumatic recall behind it.) An increasing number of people are like this. Nobody notices these people as unusual at all. This used to be rare enough to caricature; it was the "I want to speak to your manager" mom. But everyone is like that now. Every age group has these people in equal numbers. What... happened?

nullc 7y ago
We become what we do.
asdff 7y ago
Outrage culture is nothing new. Orwell wrote about it, in 1984 outrage culture in Oceana was boiled down to a daily 'two minutes of hate.' It's just moved to twitter rather than the dinner table or the work cafeteria or other meeting places, where you might see the same circular outrage opinions although perhaps with more restraint. The trope of 'racist grandpa' goes back a while, for example. That said, when everyone you know or follow is echoing the same thing, there's a sense of entitlement that builds. That you are entitled to outrage, and now with social media you have a platform to echo like minded opinions from the hilltop. It's easy to forget that you inhabit an echo chamber on the internet (1), and all too tempting to equate it into a worldwide crusade. You used to have to earn a platform through persuasive arguments or hard earned authority and expertise. 1. https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/ https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-use...