The Socialisation of the 21st Century: Plastic Waste in Cyberspace
So, these have been issues getting worse for a while now. Now that THE CURRENT EVENT THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED has struck… it has gotten rather hard to ignore these issues
These issues are not new — they have existed in some form for a while — even back in the present day long before the far distant future year of 2021… even long before the far distant future year 2007, the far distant future year 2001, the far distant future year 2000 and, of course, the far distant future year 1997
Now, joking refrances to older SciFi movies dating themselves — and the tendency to refer to the current time as “the bad future”. Mostly enjoyed because so much of the Zeitgeist of media has the future setting placed at a time, a decade or two prior to today. With Skynet destroying the entire world on Judgement day in August 1997, Tobio’s Death by driving a flying car prompting Dr. Temna to build a robot with a soul in 2003 and of course that time in 2001 when we went to Jupiter so the Monolith can turn it into a Second Sun with us forever happy. No mentioning the nuclear war of the 1970s that had society move to clones living in bomb shelters who die as soon as they turn 21. Or that time in 1988 when the entire island of Manhattan, New York was turned into a Maximum Security Prison
I do this to cope… with the many ways the vast majority of media was correct, the ways it was wrong — and the ways the parodies of scifi somehow ended up being much more accurate
These issues with socialising were around to some degree back then… but well, technology has made them so much worse
The Social Media Magazine Spread Highlight Reel
“Social Media profiles are a complete joke” — Bradlen Grahang Hayesm, Ideal for a Dragon
Social Media profiles to many people are serious business. They go out of their way to attempt to give the best show of themselves. To act like they never have any bad moments. Or if they do, those bad moments somehow indicate they are really good people
Think of mock interviews for jobs that various places teach you. The ridiculous questions they have you memorise how to answer. Which never actually show up at job interviews — as the job interviewers know all of these questions, and know you’ve spent some time memorising answers for them. Ridiculous nonsense bullshit — and they want to know how well you will perform the job, and will thus not follow that script
People view Social Media… as well, doing those mock interview questions that interviewers never actually ask
The “What is your greatest weakness”, “What is your greatest strength” and “Where do you see yourself in five years” — are all attempted to be answered by people on their social media
“Furry Yiff Roleplay accounts are more real to the Human Condition and hold more real world accuracy than most Social Media accounts” — Dread Lord Peter, Insert Dark Lord Name Later
They view any deviation from the picture perfect 1950s television family idealic picture being presented… as well, something to be purged from their profile
And, as a result, what you get is something that is about as realistic to how stuff works as an average episode of Johnny Quest or Leave it to Beaver
Yet — the people who do this sort of stuff, somehow think everybody else’s profile is the real version of them. They will spend hours a day making certain their images are proper looking, their posts are properly worded — to the point where it is a fictional character… and be envious of other peoples IRL Roleplay OC (Copyright Me/Do Not Steal)
You can learn about as much from a “properly set up” Social Media account — as you do from somebody shit posting constantly. The difference is… people believe the “properly set up” Social Media brand bullshit
Which, would be less ridiculous if people spend more time talking with people, than trying to spy on their social media profile
Spying on somebody’s social media is about the same as lurking outside a person’s window in their flower bed — and trying to figure out what sort of person they are. Which, I’ve found is not a good way to do stuff — and you know me… I empirically test these sorts of things… because people keep suggesting I am wrong when I suggest something. When will people ever learn?
Online Dating Because Hype Hurts
“Have you ever consider that the pain from something not being what you wanted it to be — isn’t from somebody saying no… but from you getting your hopes all up beyond what they realistically could have actually been?” — Kelleyixie Glenba, Ideal for a pixie
So, people have issues with talking to other people if they like them. As for some reason we have the myth that rejection hurts
Rejection doesn’t hurt at all. Nobody is actually hurt by it
What actually hurts is hype. Before you go up and ask somebody — or try to publish a work — or get shit posted. What is going through your head?
A Quick Explanation on Hype Hurting Not Rejection
More than likely, it is your dreams for what it will be like if it is successful. You are imagining you doing epic kick flips while strumming epic guitar riffs in a giant fucking robot… or something that you think is a good result for that particular context. I mean… giant robots doing skateboard tricks controlled by playing a guitar fits in any context — but people tend to hype themselves up for very specific scenarios as outcomes
Now… quick experiment. Don’t do that. Don’t spend hours signing your name next to theirs. Don’t image how fucking awesome the sex will be. Don’t imagine having to explain why you aren’t taking them home to meet your parents. Don’t imagine them wondering when you will take stuff serious. Don’t imagine them hanging off your arm while you are on the bridge of your zeppelin leading your army of killer robots to overtake the city
Then — after you’ve NOT hyped yourself up at how awesome you two (or five) making love honey together would be… try talking to them. I can guarantee it won’t hurt as much should they suggest they are not interested in you
The Online Dating Fix to the Rejection Fictional Pain
So, we created online dating because a bunch of people cannot comprehend that if they’d just stop jumping on the hype train, they’d not have their feelings hurt when it inevitably explodes off the track on constant fire while launching itself into the cold vacuum at which point you suffocate and watch as you get closer to the sun, until you end up hitting the planet Venus and watch as everybody’s bloated near dead burned/frozen corpse melt infront of you…
“Remember, friends don’t let friends do hype trains” —The Mandatory PSA Episode, The Suite Dreams of Wish Girl, Season 4
Now, online dating would be great, if it wasn’t for the fact that every profile on it is filled with lies and damned lies. They couldn’t even bother to go all the way and add the third falsehood (statistics). If they at least did ALL three falsehoods, then maybe I might be able to begrudge them a bit of respect
You may as well not even bother to read the profiles — as well, it is all sugarly sweet bullshit made for the express purpose of trying to abet the fear of not dying alone
They are all the stuff of ass kissing somebody into giving you something. Like a puppy or an ice cream or permission to annex Poland or a cup of hot chocolate
Which… kind of ends up defeating the purpose of online dating. You may as well just randomly throw people at each other — and then watch the horrible horrible wars this will cause… and for the purpose of science, count the amount of people who quiver in the corner crying in the fetal position and write it down. So that something comes from this that could possibly be argued as constructive. You know — for those people who want a challenge in their life
This would be less of a complaint… if it didn’t seem more people have been moving to doing dating stuff via these channels, because they’ve not realised it was never rejection that hurt
The Swipe Right/Left Problems
Now, let’s be real. The apps that you swipe left/right upon aren’t about dating
They are about hookups
Which, I will never understand the lure of possibly okayish sex — or mediocre sex if you are particularly lucky. With a decent amount of it just being bad sex
That is pretty much what those applications give you. Okayish Sex… and not much else
I’m certain that some people have their lives improved by the ability to have a channel that allows them to meet up and have carnal relations that meet all the requirements for it to be considered a sexual interaction. Not necessarily sensual… but it was something that can be called sex
So… I’m not going to judge those people
I will however admit annoyance that these seem to have replaced… well, I dunno how dating worked before… my relationships have generally always been such huge fuck ups that those people telling me that there are secret cameras everywhere watching us might actually have something to what they are saying. I mean… these fucks up are big enough that they don’t seem real
Either way… it seems like in order to try to learn about somebody I’m expected to jump onto their fictional role play account for Social Media or jump onto the app that delivers perhaps okayish sex — and talk to a random person… who will only talk for long enough to move to a private moment that isn’t worth writing home about
Toxic Social Media
This goes even further… that moving from one Social Media platform to another doesn’t really do much anymore. As before there was a thought that Social Media does eventually expire, and you just move to another location that hasn’t expired
Well, now of days, most of them are expired as soon as they start off. All the issues you are leaving are suddenly there at the new place
I’m not certain what happened with this… but it just… either everything I hate is at the new one… or it just lacks any reason to be used… or it closes down within six months
Social Media is just bad now… and I have no call to action or answers why or how it got like this
As all my previous explanations held a “decline time” as part of how they work and operate
I will state… Plastic Waste appears to be part of the issue. With the constant move to “Be Your Brand” causing most of social interactions to just be worthless… as you are no longer talking to a person in most interactions… you are talking to Plastic Waste in Cyberspace
Now, this whole thing was highly disorganised, poorly worded and rambling… but I figured I should at least make an effort to write stuff
You might think this is “old lady yells at clouds”… but I’ve been bitching and moaning about socialising stuff for a while now. What I’ve been bitching and moaning and complaining about has changed over the course of this time… but my general volume and irritation has generally been at the same constant level
I might try to work to figure out what the Zoomers do instead of this… but uh… the oldest Zoomer is like twenty… most of them are outside my age range. So, I’m not moving from what us ancient Millennials are doing quite yet… as well, Zoomer territory involves a lot of really young people… and… uh… yeah… not certain that won’t have any result other than coming across as creepy
And well… the underlying issues have been around for a while. There have always been really fake people out there… but like… now the world seems to require people to be fake — in order for those people to… I dunno… be allowed?
There is something wrong here… and I’ve barely got a grasp on it