The Disentanglement of Social Media

For all the difficulty and pretentiousness surrounding David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, the point – if such a book can be said to have a point – is that what you believe is good for you, what you believe you want and even what you believe is right may not, after a while, turn out to be all that great.

Whenever I talk to people about social media, I get this feeling. It did not take last month’s data hacking scandal to convince the world that Facebook was in an overly powerful and compromising position; nor was it the impetus for misgivings about social media. If I were to speculate, part of the problem with the innate ill feeling that I do believe is prevalent in the face of social media is it’s hard to explain what these feelings necessarily are. I think Wallace sums up my view of social media in its current form best with this line:

“Was amateurish the right word? More like the work of a brilliant optician and technician who was an amateur at any kind of real communication. Technically gorgeous… but oddly hollow.”

-        Infinite Jest pp. 740, David Foster Wallace

To an extent it’s impossible to argue that social media is good or bad, partly, I think, because it’s spectacularly new compared to the contemporaneous mediums of news media and, well, human interaction. But also, crucially, because used theoretically it should simply reflect the user; in absence of a user, or taken as an entity in und itself, Facebook, for example, is a tabula rasa. Perhaps, I concede, it is that very thing; that the oddly hollow nature of social media reflects the fact that it is not a community or institution in the classic sense, but a system that may only mimic, and not create.

I understand such musings are not the day-to-day considerations of either the movers and shakers of these social media companies nor the users of said companies; yet, I believe, if we are to rectify the doubts that are present about social media in our society, and indeed to establish the place and purpose of social media in our society, it is crucial to understand quite what social media is intended to be.

The misappropriation of data, for example, seems to me less so an intrinsic breach of trust – for did we all truly believe such nefarious manipulations would not occur given how much data Facebook holds? – and more so a dramatic collision, or perhaps we might call it a reminder, of the reality within which the online presence is held; that all the silly little things we do on Facebook have consequences. Thus, I argue, social media is not just some innocuous means of disposing of time.

The rules and means by which we communicate and interact in the real-world are governed fundamentally not by laws, but by the social contract. The threat of the law is meaningless if we do not first have faith in the law (which is to say, in each other), and thus the social contract prevails. Likewise, such a contract governs the media, yet with an extension that demands the objective reality of the world, insofar as it can be perceived, to dominate the subjective interpretation of the world which we find in common social interactions.

These camps, when considered as a conversation on the street, or the browsing of a newspaper, are distinct and understood. The innovation of social media, when detached from its online domain, is that it seeks to combine these two camps into one, and, in the process, promises tremendous benefits. Yet, such benefits can only be understood as pertaining to either the social camp or the media camp, so long as the new notion of social media remains unembedded in the social contract. Social media may bring us closer together; however, it also highlights the discrepancies in our objective understanding of the world. It may inform our objective understanding of the world; but in doing so, it places us in silos.

The algorithms of social media are technically brilliant. But in practice the result feels absent of any real communication. This, I posit, is the source of any doubts – we, nor the social media giants, know what the purpose of social media is. Any failures of Facebook is also – party –  a failure of society in which Facebook is contained; it is not a question of why does Facebook need our data, instead, it’s a question of why do we need Facebook?

And, drawing on that question, the response we’ve seen in recent weeks of those leaving Facebook seems natural. However, I feel, unhelpful. Insofar as this brief analysis has posited, it seems more coherent to attempt to answer the question posed, as opposed to invalidate the question in the first instance. And the logical answer, again insofar as is posited here, is to break the hegemony of social media back into its constituent parts: social and media.

The benefits of online socialising have at no point demanded the intrusion of advertisers, companies and special interests. Such intrusions, if ever made prior to social media, were done so via the purposeful intention of those whom we were socialising with, and interpreted based on the social credibility with which we attributed to that person. Social media, insofar as notifications and likes are concerned, makes credibility unitary and eliminates purposeful intention. For social media to be social, it must seek to restore these virtues.

And yet, from a business perspective, social media must act as a platform for those aforementioned groups. This requirement being accepted, social media should present news and advertising in a way that absolutely distinguishes itself from the aspects with which the site is deemed social. Such distinctions would return the agency that exists in our current social contract to the user, as it would be their elective to browse the news and consider the advertiser’s propositions. Again, the business voice might say, such a system would result in users electing to avoid such media content and the site becoming unprofitable. To such an argument for the status quo, I reply as such: that is the nature of business, and if the product does not appeal, one cannot blame the customers.

To summarise, we should not reject social media, though we should demand changes. Yet part of those demands must be a holistic consideration by the users as to why, not how, we use social media. For social media, I suggest a distinct disentanglement of the social and media aspects of social media, less doubts be allowed to linger, and the foundations of our patronage be jeopardised. To return to DFW: we have the tools and the technical know-how to leverage them, yet our attempts thus far have been amateurish.

How May I Stand Amongst Giants?

Individualism fascinates me.

Any politically aware or socially concerned person will, very early on in their life, come across Marx’s proletariat and Bourgeois. They will look around their society and see, be it subtly or blatantly, that the disparity Marx attempted to qualify is most definitely real. This is the first reason as to why it’s a very compelling idea. The second reason is it’s a very human idea; the Us vs. Them, the Have’s vs. the Have-not’s. The laws of Mathematics tell us most people will be in that latter category – the Have-not’s – and so there is perhaps a third reason why Marx’s simple idea becomes so compelling so quickly; more often than not you benefit. 

Though right now we should stop and consider something – that Marx’s great social equalisation and macro-communalism is powered primarily by divide. First we see our own perspective and those whose wealth is distinguished from ours; next we see our enemy and our allies in the economic game; finally, we see what we The Individual gain out of this conflict. Individualism still plaques Marx’s idea.

Of course Adam Smith would not describe individualism as a plaque but as a force for good. The much discussed invisible hand over the market often generating net benefit for all is proclaimed by many capitalists as a call to individuals to work and to create and to innovate – not for the system, but for themselves. The theory extends that The Individual, be them philanthropic or consumerist or both, will spread the wealth throughout the economy – trickledown economics.

So which is it? Is individualism a force for good or a mark on the mantra of egalitarianism? Well I would think the Marxist would scream at the Smithsonian that their model does not work, that trickledown economics does not work, that the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer. I would then suggest the Smithsonian, riled at the thought that they are the bad guy, would point out that the forces that drive the will of the capitalist entrepreneur are the same forces that drive the riotous factory worker – individualism and self-betterment – and to describe the capitalist as a wolf amongst sheep is to ignore the fact that those sheep are merely wolves in disguise. Indeed, the Smithsonian may suggest that the only difference between the proletariat and the Bourgeois is that the latter built their ivory towers, and the former wish only to tear them down.

At this point the Marxist is pissed.

   

The issue is that the concept of The Individual is not straightforward, and at any moment a person may be good or bad, selfish or generous, concerned or nihilistic. And their perspective, from the inside looking out, may be completely different to those on the outside looking in. And that’s the issue both the aforementioned models have – they both try to define what an individual is, intentionally or not, and proclaim to know how they operate. I think this is flawed.

   

For the record, all I would suggest to the warring Marxist and Smithsonian is this; do not forget all coins have two sides.

  

In Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket the lead protagonist can be seen wearing a peace symbol on his lapel and the words ‘Born to Kill’ on his helmet. When questioned as to the contrary nature of his outfit by a senior officer Kubrick’s protagonist is flustered for a moment before stating, ‘it is meant to say something about the duality of man.’ The colonel seems satisfied with the soldier’s reply.

   

Thematically the film is a critique on hive-mindedness; of the dehumanisation of the individual so as to create a reproducible, indistinguishable killing machine. Consider the words rank and file – to rank and store, to categorise and analysis and quantify. To consolidate an idea – a person – into something tangible and fixed. Kubrick’s ‘duality of man’ line exists, in my opinion, to draw fallacy to the idea that people can exist as a singular; indeed, did I not say before a person may be good or bad, selfish or generous – where is the ‘and’ in this statement? Where is the duality? It seems abstract or merely a mistake to misclassify people as or’s instead of and’s – that we don’t actually mean people are singular – but far too often we place our fellow man into linear identities.

   

Turn on any news channel and observe the divides we place between each other. Right or Left. Domestic or foreign. White, Black, Hispanic, Asian. Listen to the rhetoric of politicians on the subject of immigration or terror. Who are the terrorists that threaten our way of life? Who are the undesirables that are stealing our jobs? Indeed, what is ours, but something that is not someone else’s?

   

Why do we draw these divides? Or perhaps, why do we construct boxes into which we place others? I have offered several suggestions already. Allow me to offer another – because it’s easy. 

   

David Foster Wallace wrote in his speech ‘This is Water’ that “There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of.” I think this is important to remember when we consider individualism, not to remind us that we are all innately self-centred and narcissistic – though we are – but instead to remind us that we all have a singular perspective. When you look in the mirror you see a face that you are totally familiar with. It’s yours. It’s the picture you place in your brain, the physical moniker with which you now use to define You. Yet when you look at a photograph of yourself, for the slightest of seconds, the face you see is not yours. It is a haunting similarity that falls into the uncanny valley until your brain pieces it all together and tosses the free falling doppelganger a rope. It is also you. It is what others see that you do not. Reflection vs. reality. You may become uncomfortable seeing something so similar but yet not quite familiar, and for a moment you might realise that the faces you see in the street that you ignore because they’re all so simple and numerous might just be as complex as you, if only you could see how similar you are.

   

It’s all a matter of perspective. It is easy for us to forget that other people, be them our parents or our friends or complete strangers, have a different perspective from us. This perspective can be as subtle as the angle at which they are standing in a room, the way they interpret the word naughty, or the way they vote. Consider that right now there are people you have never met and will never meet being born, dying, or participating in an innumerable number of menial tasks they love or hate or don’t care either way for. Right now there are people falling in love and falling apart, having sex or doing heroin or both, marching against injustice or martyring themselves for their own One True God.

   

We restrict our perception of our world to that which conforms to the rules and borders we cannot escape – those experiences we are at the absolute centre of – whilst allowing ourselves to forget the hidden lives of our fellow man.

   

To appreciate these hidden lives and comparatively abstract perspectives alongside our own is not easy. To consider others to be just as complex as ourselves is to admit to ourselves that we are not complexly special but complexly ordinary. To destroy our own paradigm of self and accept that we are not an island surrounded by an ocean but rather a singular droplet occupying space in a river that flows to the sea is terrifying. It is hard. 

   

What is easy is to ignore this fact. What is easy is to deny your soul the consideration of others’ complexities, to say with an absolute rite that yours is the correct outlook, that you are the protagonist in this tale, whatever the tale may be. What’s easy is to stereotype, to trivialise and demean and certainly to disrespect. To divide and categorise and rank and file. To seek comfort in the blank statement that you are an individual, and everyone else is everyone else. To decide that you are a giant whose shoulders other people occupy.

But of course that statement is only partially true. Yes, you are a giant. But so am I, and so is every human being you will ever or indeed never meet. To decide that others occupy space on our shoulders is to assume the apparent value of another. So do not ask yourself how may I walk with others on my back; instead question how may I stand amongst giants whose size and complexity and individual potential I cannot understand. The answer will be simple – side by side.