As the internet is the place of "point scoring" in order to feel relevant, I think it has also become the place of pettiness and small minds. This result is kind of a little strange, considering it is also the place where we have the history of the world collected, and have access to it any time of the day. Pettiness though seems to be in full effect in the world today, and I think that a lot of it is because of digital culture, where there is very little consequence for action, so people will "act" because they are protected. Essentially, this means that the barrier to respond comes down, at the same time that emotional resilience has almost disappeared completely.
If you don't know what pettiness means:
Pettiness
/ˈpɛtɪnɪs/
noun
undue concern with trivial matters, especially of a small-minded or spiteful nature.
"the sheer pettiness of the officials was quite startling"
While this is spilling more into the real world as well now, I think that one of the reasons that the digital life has enabled it so well, is that lack of immediate consequence of having to deal with someone face to face. Say something online and the worst someone can do is WRITE IN ALL CAPS. Say the same thing in the real world and they might just smack you in the nose. While I don't condone a lot of the violence today, I think if more people got smacked in the nose for being a dick, there would actually be less violence in the world.
There are a lot of proverbial dicks in the world.
But on the internet bad behaviour can go unchecked, letting it not only to run rampant, but also to collect into pools to fester and spiral further. Couple this with the incentives of interaction on the internet where it is all about attracting attention, and the behaviours end up in a very quick race to the bottom, where rage and spite are a currency to be traded in exchange for ad revenue. Participants are encouraged to be petty, because it creates more impressions faster, than actually having to be good at something.
Even the people who are good at something like an artist or a sportsperson who are worshipped on social media for their talent, are driven by rage and pettiness - and most of it isn't even their own. Instead, their fans and their anti-fans are the petty ones who drive arguments and rage to increase the spread of malevolence to drive even more ad revenue, and further polarisation between people.
These days, everyone is expected to "pick a side" but the problem is, the sides are on everything. This means that people are polarised in views on a million different topics, so it is impossible to "see eye to eye" on enough of them to be able to turn a blind eye to the ones in contention. People expect to get everything they want in a person these days, and nothing they don't want in that same person. It is an impossibility. It is not that we have to compromise ourselves, but we have to be accepting of at least some differences in others.
It is like most people are a Venn diagram where the circles almost completely overlap each other, but the edge is slightly off, and that is enough to hate each other with a passion. The narcissism of small differences gets played out on the internet to the extremes.
Pettiness.
But I think the point scoring online is an interesting psychological mechanism, because it gives that sense of progress, satisfaction and accomplishment, even if nothing was actually gained. It allows people to spend inordinate amounts of time screaming at strangers, feeling like they are getting somewhere, but there they are, sitting at their screen, in the same place, with the same size bank account for the vast majority of them. And then of course there are the spectators, who don't take part in the first layer, but amplify the vitriol to build those numbers that are all so important to up the auction price of the next advert.
A relationship made in greed.
But, one side of the couple has all the power and gets the majority of the benefits. The other, well they are the proverbial doormat, getting walked over and used to satisfy the needs of the other, their master. They are a sub.
It is kind of funny to realise that all these internet jokers who think they are winning with the points they score against other participants, are actually just another one of the platform prostitutes getting pimped out to the market. The pimp platform makes the money, the prostitute gets the dicks of strangers.
Winning!
Pettiness is unattractive, as is greed. Yet, we live in a world that incentivises practicing both in order to be a success. And, success is attractive. It is a bit of a mess, isn't it? The alignment of the economic ecosystem is not made to bring out the best of our behaviours. Instead, it is designed to make money off of the worst of our behaviours, which just leads us down that slippery slope, onto the sharp rocks below. But until there is nothing left of us to churn, the gears will keep turning.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
