The Beginning

Social media has been around since roughly 1997 if not earlier with platforms such as Friendster, allowing people to connect with each other over the internet and talk about things in life that they encounter and deal with on a daily basis. Some of the most well known being things like Facebook, Twitter (now X), Instagram, and Mastodon. The very first platform was named SixDegrees. While these platforms have seemingly brought us together, they have also begun to tear us apart at the same time.

Anonymous Toxicity

The biggest issue with Social Media in my opinion happens to be the issue with anonymity. While anonymity brings us privacy, it also brings with it a psychological phenomenon known as the online disinhibition effect. To summarize this phenomenon, I will quote wikipedia for this one:

The online disinhibition effect refers to the lack of restraint one feels when communicating online in comparison to communicating in-person. People tend to feel safer saying things online that they would not say in real life because they have the ability to remain completely anonymous and invisible when on particular websites, and as a result, free from potential consequences.

This phenomenon is also amplified by things like empathy deficit and personality or cultural factors. When people are able to hide behind a mask of an alias or possibly even a fake identity they feel empowered and freed from the so-called chains of reprecussions of their own behavior.

Messiah Complex

Another common issue I’ve noticed in online communities happens to be people with a messiah complex. To summarize what a “messiah complex” is, it is in summary when a person feels the need to “save” or “help” an individual or group of people to inflate their own importance.

In terms of the attitude wherein an individual sees themselves as having to save another or a group of poor people, there is the notion that the action inflates their own sense of importance and discounts the skills and abilities of the people they are helping to improve their own lives.

This is a phenomena that is unfortunately very common, I have noticed. We must keep in mind that there is always better ways to handle things than being toxic or ruining the next person’s reputation who says some scummy take on the internet. Remember, by being a toxic asshat to another toxic asshat, you’re just proving their point. Block them, report them, and move on.

Taken at Face Value

A lot of things on the internet are taken at face value and not investigated further before being acted upon. An individual can make accusations on another and the internet will swarm the second person without questioning what the first is saying. This is often called groupthink.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.

One of the biggest factors of groupthink is peer pressure and the fear of being exiled. When groupthink occurs, people are afraid of going against the crowd and following their own decisions and thoughts regardless if they agree or not. This conformity can also be amplified or even accelerated by a coping mechanism known as Uncle Tom Syndrome, which can be summarized as:

A theory in multicultural psychology referring to a coping skill in which individuals use passivity and submissiveness when confronted with a threat, leading to subservient behaviour and appeasement, while concealing their true thoughts and feelings.

When everyone is afraid to fight against the crowd, the only ones who lead are the ones who do not care how other people think or feel, and only care about themselves, using groups of people to amplify their thoughts and harm to others. This is why the biggest accounts on social media can cause the most harm. How can a small person fight against a giant with an army of devoted people?

Internet Cult(ure)s

A lot of the time people will use cult tactics to recruit people into their circles, instilling their thought processes and creating a group of devoted followers who wont question their motives, thoughts, or actions. If you want to avoid this, I recommend reading up on how to avoid it, here’s a few resources:

• Cult Thinking and How to Avoid It
• The Methods of Thought Reform
• The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

On top of this I also recommend reading probably one of the most notorious books that were ever created, The 48 Laws of Power. Which are about the 48 laws of manipulation. I also highly recommend reading through The Dictator’s Handbook as it goes into detail about how authoritatian governments function and use their own group of powerful people to stay in power regardless of other people.

A Means to an End

I am not sure what the solution is to solving the antisocial behavior that is exhibited on social media. The thing we created to socialize is causing us to be even more antisocial, and as ironic as that may be, it is the sad truth. The thing is, this is something that’s buried deep in the human psyche, it is not something that can be easily fixed or removed, these problems have existed since the creation of social media as a whole, less so when it was first created but over time it has become even more prevalent.

The only thing we can do is fortify ourselves and avoid becoming part of the problem, as this is an amalgamation of intentional and unintentional manipulation tactics, power abuse, power dynamics, egotism and so so much more. I created this post to inform, as I have been a victim of these things, you should avoid it, be someone who leads, not someone who follows mindlessly.