3 ms·

Yes, exactly this. It's a form of a Keynesian beauty contest. That essentially means to make your comment based not on what you think, but on what you think wil

by seneca 3y ago

Yes, exactly this. It's a form of a Keynesian beauty contest. That essentially means to make your comment based not on what you think, but on what you think will be popular with others. It's the heart of modern social media. It abdicates opinion to the masses and drives the hive mind.

bitwize 3y ago
It's called "social proof". You see this a lot in Japanese culture, it seems that all of Japan goes nuts for one thing or another that sweeps the entire nation like falling cherry blossoms in spring. When I was in Japan in 2011, young Japanese women were pretty eager to make smalltalk with me (most likely to practice their English, I'm not gonna lie about how much of a stud I am), and they tended to ask me similar smalltalky questions like "Who's your favorite musician?" I would try to explain as best I could who the KLF is, and then I would turn it around and ask "who's yours?" Every single girl had the exact same answer: Lady Gaga. Every. Single. Girl. Born This Way had just dropped in Japan, so there was a lot of promotion and Lady Gaga was everywhere in Japanese media, so Lady Gaga was the safe favorite artist to have at that moment in time; because everybody else apparently likes her, you won't be thought of as weird or an outcast for doing so, or be put in my unfortunate position of having to explain who the artist is and why their peculiar work is so captivating. That's social proof in a nutshell. Similar things that literally all of Japan was fond of at the time included One Piece (which is evergreen) and the cartoon character Stitch of Lilo & Stitch fame (an anime featuring him was running at the time). I saw Stitch and his girlfriend Angel crop up in some weird places, including on a poster in an elderly gentleman's ramen shop which was otherwise free of pop culture; just a grotty CRT TV with a Hanshin Tigers game on.

by seneca 3y ago

bitwize 3y ago

It's called "social proof". You see this a lot in Japanese culture, it seems that all of Japan goes nuts for one thing or another that sweeps the entire nation like falling cherry blossoms in spring. When I was in Japan in 2011, young Japanese women were pretty eager to make smalltalk with me (most likely to practice their English, I'm not gonna lie about how much of a stud I am), and they tended to ask me similar smalltalky questions like "Who's your favorite musician?" I would try to explain as best I could who the KLF is, and then I would turn it around and ask "who's yours?" Every single girl had the exact same answer: Lady Gaga. Every. Single. Girl. Born This Way had just dropped in Japan, so there was a lot of promotion and Lady Gaga was everywhere in Japanese media, so Lady Gaga was the safe favorite artist to have at that moment in time; because everybody else apparently likes her, you won't be thought of as weird or an outcast for doing so, or be put in my unfortunate position of having to explain who the artist is and why their peculiar work is so captivating. That's social proof in a nutshell. Similar things that literally all of Japan was fond of at the time included One Piece (which is evergreen) and the cartoon character Stitch of Lilo & Stitch fame (an anime featuring him was running at the time). I saw Stitch and his girlfriend Angel crop up in some weird places, including on a poster in an elderly gentleman's ramen shop which was otherwise free of pop culture; just a grotty CRT TV with a Hanshin Tigers game on.