::takes a deep breath::
At this point, all of us are—at least to some degree—people online.
You are, after all, taking time out of your busy schedule full of important things to read some of my writing online—and it’s entirely possible that we’ve never met. I think we can confidently say that this interaction has brought both of us firmly into the online space, which makes me a person online and you a person online.
Over the last few years, I’ve been confronted in a different way with what it means to be a person online. While I’m hardly in influencer territory, my podcast has a not insignificant following, and given the subjects we tend to cover on the show—culture, nostalgia, class, race, history—I’ve had to learn how to step up to the plate and handle my public platform responsibly and in a way that makes my listeners feel safe. There have been times when I’ve done this better than others.
As a rule, I’ve opted out of most of what you might call “social media activism.” While there have been a few moments and causes where I’ve felt uniquely qualified or inspired to contribute and speak out, I’ve found that—for me—the responsible way to use these enormously powerful tools in Big, Real Moments For the World is as more of a consumer, as a listener, and as a learner than as a creator. I’m not saying that this is the “proper” function of the internet or social media for everyone, and the purpose of this post is not to shame, judge, or convince others to make the same decisions I’ve made.
As horrendous acts of violence and hate have erupted in the Middle East over the last week, I’ve been stunned (as I’ve been many times in the face of major events) by the ways we—the people online—have taken to our social media platforms. What I seek to unpack and process in this post is that reality: that we, by no real fault of our own, have been thrust into a situation wherein we are learning (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) how to wield connective tools that at once feel so small and so big while heinous, serious acts play out in parallel in parts of the world we may never see.
A key disclaimer: I am not writing this post in order to absolve myself of meaningful learning or of having an opinion about the war now raging in the Gaza Strip. I do have an opinion, and it’s one I’ve been discussing and analyzing every day with the people who populate my life offline. My opinion is a strong one, informed by my personal experiences, my affiliations, my politics, and pressure testing against the ample resources that exist for each of us to evaluate for ourselves.
I am, in fact, sharing my thoughts on this topic in this particular way at this particular moment in time because I firmly believe that there’s a larger conversation to be had about the role that social media plays—and will continue to play—in this escalating international conflict. As a longtime student of media in its many forms (not to mention a creator and a consumer of it), I’ve been thinking about this so much recently. If you’re also having complicated feelings about how to process a crisis of this scale on social media, I’m hopeful that some of what I’ve come up with can help—or that we can at least muddle through it together.
I’m cautious about the idea of over-intellectualizing any aspect of what’s happening in our world right now. The reality of the human lives being lost deserves so much more than any philosophizing that I can do from my corner. That being said, social media is an almost grossly commonplace part of so many of our experiences in 2023. Practically speaking, it’s the backdrop against which we live our lives. It’s something mindless that we fall into when we quite literally don’t have anything better to do. The way it overlaps with our understanding of major world events—whether it’s the war now taking place, the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, or pretty much anything political—is so easily taken for granted that to unpack it further feels like it might be the opposite of intellectual. It’s just realistic.
So here’s some food for thought about how this all might just be too damn big for those tiny squares we’re putting it in…
We’re all moving really, really fast. It’s no secret that the news cycle has sped up significantly in recent years. It all started with 24-hour news stations, and we’ve applied a similar logic to the content we create and share on our personal platforms because we can. And I get it! It’s only natural to want to address what’s happening around us and to signal to our communities and followers that we are aware of these events, especially when we have the privilege of easily borrowing content that others have created but feels resonant with our own opinions and experiences.
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