Feels Porn
One interesting development I've noticed in the evolution of social media: feels porn videos. The teenager whose recently deceased dad left him a guitar. A military dad surprising his daughter by coming home from deployment early. A kid breaking down in tears over bullying at school.
With the possible exception of the military dad, those are situations I'd be uncomfortable being around in person, let alone broadcasting to millions of people on the internet. What does it say about our society that our first impulse at moments of emotional upheaval is, "Can I film this to get attention on the internet?" and, more troublingly, that we're getting increasingly good at parceling visceral emotional reactions into contextless videos of short duration?
This is the next level of bread and circuses. This is something that can be weaponized to convince people to believe all sorts of things as opposed to just convincing them not to believe like we do now. For now it’s just slightly creepy that you decided your teenage son’s tears over his deceased father’s gift should be broadcast to millions.