Alan Jacobs on the swarm of me-too righteousness online, in the form of “Twitter tsunamis.”
This kind of thing always makes me want to flee Twitter, even when I am deeply sympathetic to the positions people are taking. It’s a test of my charity, and a test I usually fail. To me these tsunamis feel like desperate signaling, people trying to make sure that everyone knows where they stand on the issue du jour. I can almost see the beads of sweat forming on their foreheads as they try to craft retweetable tweets, the kind to which others will append that most wholehearted of endorsements: “THIS.” I find myself thinking, People, you never tweeted about [topic x] before and after 48 hours or so you’ll never tweet about it again, so please stop signaling to all of us how near and dear to your heart [topic X] is.
Here’s one of the things I love about Jacobs. Even when he hates what you’re doing, he gives you so much benefit of the doubt.
Likewise, Freddie deBoer:
Indeed: sincerity, in these instances, is in abundant supply. What’s lacking is the understanding that good people being publicly sincere makes nothing happen. But what else are you going to do? What am I doing? What can I do? I don’t know. I don’t know.
I don’t know either, but I am more cynical, and while I agree there’s sincerity behind these tsunamis, I also suspect that the impulse to act on them en masse to no other end than to add a “+1” to what has been said innumerably is a true expression of vanity in the digital age; not much different than dressing in-fashion, only here it’s done with text rather than fabric, it’s joining the in-group via a conviction instead of clothes. It’s the yellow ribbon gaudily displayed by those who have never done anything to support a troop.
And lord do I hate it when people just type “THIS” and then a link. As though by doing so they have presented the final word on a subject, and can thereby bask in the glow of having delivered it to the rest of us.
Worse, is “THIS. SO MUCH THIS.” It’s the triple-dog-dare of conviction-bearing tweets.
DeBoer again:
The trouble with talking about right and wrong in the age of the internet is that our communicative systems are oriented towards communicating only with those whom we wish to.
There’s no risk in taking part in one of these storms (unless you’re a woman, in which case you’re going to get a lot of shit from assholes, because you always do no matter the topic), because you know in advance that everyone shares your opinion. I of course can’t read anyone’s mind and can’t prove anything here, but my deep suspicion is that hand in hand with the vain in-grouping of these tsunamis is the pose of courage, that by expressing such and such an opinion, which I know is shared by everyone who will read it, I have somehow really put myself out there in a vulnerable position, but dammit, I can’t remain silent about this any longer. Never mind that no one else in this 48-hour period is being silent about it either, and being not-silent in the exact same way.
Oh, except for this writer from a favored partisan journalistic outlet, who really nailed it, beyond all dispute. This. So much this.
Near-Earth Object 