Today we’re going to be talking about a problem I’ve noticed over the years that seems to almost exclusively apply to social media communities. This means things like Twitter, Tumblr, Mastodon (and co), Bluesky, you name it. Let’s discuss the overarching problem.
Cancel Culture#
The biggest problem on social media in my opinion is cancel culture1. It is something that is primarily noted to start in the 2010-2020 era, as that is when social media started to get its feet off the ground. The concept of cancel culture stems from the fact people feel the need to be important, and in return the need to “purge the world of evil.” While that is surely a profound goal, in reality, it is not realistic in the slightest.
The issue with this train of thought in my opinion is a few things:
- Not everyone lives or thinks the same way as everyone else.
- It has a collateral damage2 effect and can hurt innocents.
- It can (re)ignite drama and trauma that has been moved on from.
Something to keep in mind when engaging on social media is that you are not anonymous, you may try your best to be anonymous, but no one truly ever is. Consider the Six Degrees of Seperation3 theory. Everyone, including yourself is theoretically only 6 or fewer connections away from having direct connections to someone else.
Cultural Differences#
Another problem is a lot of social media pivots on American culturalism and the ideology that the world has to follow American ideology. There are many examples of this. I’ve seen people canceled and banned for things platforms and users do not understand.
User A: Posts a swastika and brings up a discussion about hinduism
User B: Brings up to moderators or staff that they posted a nazi symbol
User C: Bans User A for nazi symbolism when it really wasn’t
This is an actual example I have seen happen in a Discord server I was in.
User A: Discusses lolicon4 and it’s significance in japanese media.
User B: Immediately calls User A a pedophile for bringing it up.
Again, another example, simply just discussing cultural differences. Social media as we currently know is based heavily on Americanisms and what people believe is “correct” is based on those Americanisms. This is an ongoing problem I don’t know the solution to.
(Un)intentional Racism#
What people do not seem to realize is that a lot of things people do can be summarized as simply Racism. Social media has a huge prejudice problem and that can include Racism and it often does. You can be racist without the intent of being racist.
The first example in the Cultural Differences section is exactly this, while User B believes they are doing the right thing, they are ignoring that the symbol was originally used by Hinduism as a symbol of peace. This is a great example of a racist action with a good-hearted intent. When dealing with cases like this it is best to approach them with nuance.
And I’m going to get some heat for saying this, but reverse racism is not a thing, it never has been. The term “reverse racism” was coined by white people to describe people of color being “racist” towards them. The problem with this term and ideology is that racism involves oppression. It was the population of whites who did the oppressing. I will note that white people can still be discriminated against, but not to the degree as people of color.
When talking on social media, regardless of the platform, it is best to keep in mind not only what you are saying, but how it affects other people, as well as the nuances around the decisions and wording you are using. Things are not as simple as they seem on the surface, there are many many layers. Keep that in mind when interacting with people.
Conclusion#
Social media has so many problems, most of which are complex and would require a fundamental rewiring of how our brains typically work. These are not problems we can fix with ease, these are problems we must fix on the human level. I sadly do not think that this will happen any time soon. So things will probably go on as they are.