Gaagaagiins due to the sort of consolidation of the focus of attention and communication in this social media landscape on to laser focused points, where everyone wants to talk to/talk at/meaningfully connect with/psychologically harm/literally murder the same individual people1, are actually probably underreporting how much of that they experience on a day to day basis.
I mean, I dunno, maybe I think about this too much. But also, it’s a statistical certainty at a certain point, and it’s probably not even a low point.
Case in point, take forums.insertcredit.com. My notifications are of course inundated with a constant barrage of Likes and Replies, due to how often I am Posting excellent things. I’m sure most of us have notifications like that here, because, we are all truly excellent people of immaculate moral character, stunning intelligence, and micron-sharp wit (see, this is why I’m better at this than Tim, I more readily share my incredible gift with the world around me (Please notice the tongue-in-cheekiness of these statements (not the ones about our communal excellence though, those are sincere))).
As well, we are fortunate enough here that the actual guy, like, the wikipedia page guy, who created this Legendary Brand, enjoys posting on here. He’s very comfortable and vocal here, and shares his thoughts a lot. And he’s a delight to talk to because he’s also very friendly and considerate. Like, it’s not an act of charity by him, but I think he’s very generous with his time, which we all also know is limited.
Because of this, I really try my darnedest to not tag him, even when directly mention him. And if I want to ask him a question I make damn sure he’s 100% the person I should ask and that when I do I respect his time. I mean, I’ll tag him when he made a joke at me and I got a good riff back (comedy is sacred). And just to be 100% clear it’s not because I don’t enjoy talkin’ to him or somehow want to, like, intentionally avoid attracting his attention. Plain as day to anyone it’s a near universal delight and I’m not intimidated by him at all. I mean, yeah, I can’t imagine anyone being intimidated by him lol. Clearly one of the realest of all time, genuine sweetheart.
It’s specifically because I recognize that, like, unless everyone else also adheres to this unasked-for-but-maybe-(hopefully?)-appreciated courtesy extended towards Brandon, of a forum of a few dozen regulars and a few dozen more irregulars and several dozen more lurkers, just by virtue of his stature in this community (due to him having Created It of course), he’s the guy who is perhaps Most Likely To Be Tagged By Anyone At All Times.
This is what I’m getting at by, like, the consolidation of the focus of attention and communication. Statistically speaking being The Guy From The Podcast Who Hangs Out Here will attract attention and prompt people to try communicating. Part of the tragedy of this 21st century situation of social media parasociality is that, like, yeah, of course we want to talk to people who are interesting and/or charismatic and/or knowledgeable that we are able to observe on Youtube or hear on a podcast or whatever. Of course we all crave meaningful human connection and understanding, and most of us aren’t getting that in public life because uuuuuuuuuh, you know, the mass-delusion of meritocracy, the psychic self-flagellation chamber known as masculinity, not wanting to be aggressively pitched into picking a side in the culture wars, not wanting to be murdered for pissing off the wrong man or shot by a SWAT team for pissing off the wrong cryptofascist, because old people are cringe, and so on.
It is already novel enough that I can, like, watch a funny or informative or thought provoking video for free pretty much whenever I want, it’s just also becoming increasingly more common that the people who make these videos are instilling their values and beliefs into them, and more openly, so, like, I got an entertaining and revealing way to find out that, just like me, Tim Rogers hates cops, which makes me admire and respect him as a person, without risking having to find out that he actually likes cops sometimes (pejorative). So, like, of course a lot of people end up wanting to talk to people who make personality-driven Youtube videos, you know? And then that ends up causing all of these other problems as a consequence of just lookin’ cool to talk to or at, where there’s miscommunication resulting from some misinterpretation of performance of a persona and that person’s real personhood, or projecting and/or assuming interpersonal boundaries on to people that are tighter or even looser than they really are, when the principled thing to do is to never assume or test boundaries with strangers, and so on.
I forgot where I was going with this.