5 ms·

“It’s a religion/identity” is true of just about everything these days (sports, political movements, subreddits, whatever). It’s not specific to crypto. It’s

“It’s a religion/identity” is true of just about everything these days (sports, political movements, subreddits, whatever). It’s not specific to crypto. It’s a symptom of the lack of meaningful identities for people to adopt, and the social media push toward outlier-ism (nobody follows a boring father of 2 with a reliable job and a stable marriage) - so they choose trivial things like crypto or wokeness or Q to identify with and be extreme about.

te_chris 5y ago
You’d be surprised how many boring/conventional influencers there are out there with huge followings. People who literally are just doing up a house or something incredibly benign.
beebmam 5y ago
I'd imagine that religion/politics are kinda fundamental to most people's meaning in life, and mostly always has been.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Politics wasn't fundamental to most people in identity sense for most of humanity's history, for the simple reason that most of them didn't have any political power to speak of, even notionally. Which, to be fair, is still true - but we've got better at pretending otherwise.
  - presentation 5y ago
    It's striking to me how all my friends in the USA talk about politics nonstop, but now that I moved to Japan practically nobody under the age of 40 seems to care.
m_fayer 5y ago
+1 It's striking that although there's a lack of meaningful identities to adopt, the number of shallow identities to choose from is mushrooming. Pursuits that used to be "interests" or "hobbies" (gaming, fandoms, sexual preferences) are converting into identities. What's concerning is that people will aggressively defend identities and turn them into causes, not something we need more of right now.
- robbiep 5y ago
  I saw some lark call it the toaster fu*er problem once and it’s stuck with me. 40 years ago if you fetishised having it off with a toaster and told your mates they made fun of you and/or you got help. Today you tel your mates; they make fun of you, you double down, find the toaster fu*er community online, feel vindicated in your newfound sense of meaning, purpose and belonging and get about defiling kitchen implements
  - bavell 5y ago
    Love it haha, gonna borrow this sometime!
jonwinstanley 5y ago
Having everyone get their news, information & entertainment from Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/Instagram plays a huge part in this. Algorithms that serve you the "most engaging" related content pushes a lot of people to extremes. Oh you want to eat a little less meat do you? How about you FAST for 18 hours a day and go mega-VEGAN? Oh you want to read an article about Politics? How about you now watch this very well produced documentary on how the government is run by aliens.
mclightning 5y ago
"True of just about everything" If I had a dollar for every time I heard of this against an anti-crypto sentiment... I would have at least 10 dollars

te_chris 5y ago

You’d be surprised how many boring/conventional influencers there are out there with huge followings. People who literally are just doing up a house or something incredibly benign.

beebmam 5y ago

I'd imagine that religion/politics are kinda fundamental to most people's meaning in life, and mostly always has been.

int_19h 5y ago
Politics wasn't fundamental to most people in identity sense for most of humanity's history, for the simple reason that most of them didn't have any political power to speak of, even notionally. Which, to be fair, is still true - but we've got better at pretending otherwise.
- presentation 5y ago
  It's striking to me how all my friends in the USA talk about politics nonstop, but now that I moved to Japan practically nobody under the age of 40 seems to care.

m_fayer 5y ago

+1 It's striking that although there's a lack of meaningful identities to adopt, the number of shallow identities to choose from is mushrooming. Pursuits that used to be "interests" or "hobbies" (gaming, fandoms, sexual preferences) are converting into identities. What's concerning is that people will aggressively defend identities and turn them into causes, not something we need more of right now.

robbiep 5y ago
I saw some lark call it the toaster fu*er problem once and it’s stuck with me. 40 years ago if you fetishised having it off with a toaster and told your mates they made fun of you and/or you got help. Today you tel your mates; they make fun of you, you double down, find the toaster fu*er community online, feel vindicated in your newfound sense of meaning, purpose and belonging and get about defiling kitchen implements
- bavell 5y ago
  Love it haha, gonna borrow this sometime!

jonwinstanley 5y ago

Having everyone get their news, information & entertainment from Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/Instagram plays a huge part in this. Algorithms that serve you the "most engaging" related content pushes a lot of people to extremes. Oh you want to eat a little less meat do you? How about you FAST for 18 hours a day and go mega-VEGAN? Oh you want to read an article about Politics? How about you now watch this very well produced documentary on how the government is run by aliens.

mclightning 5y ago

"True of just about everything" If I had a dollar for every time I heard of this against an anti-crypto sentiment... I would have at least 10 dollars