But Jackson, it's nice to know what you're appreciated for and when you are appreciated.
I'm not nice. Sue me.
My 2016 ended with me pushing myself a little too hard and getting rather sick because of it. Every year I try to look back and see where the year’s gone and what I would have changed (if I was omniscient and ruler of world.)
I think it’s clear from 2016 that the world is becoming more divisive and polarising. From Trump to an increasingly disenfranchised public the world is just a little bit more argumentative and we’re all just a little more stubborn in our beliefs.
Which shouldn’t be unexpected for anyone. In a world now dominated by social media and the internet, we now get our news more from headlines rather than the articles themselves. Nowadays if you can’t express your feelings and ideas in 128 characters or less, then why even bother. No one is going to read nor has the time to read past 128 characters.
Worse still is that we presume to understand an increasingly complex world using only one hundred and twenty eight characters. In doing so, some of the context and meaning behind everything we read is left behind. Not understanding the full picture, the world becomes a little less empathetic towards each other and we make less of an effort towards thinking about the other people’s opinions and arguments.
To fill this newfound emptiness of having no idea what’s happening outside our little world, internet users and the public alike have resorted to using dank memes and click bait headlines to make ourselves feel better.
To feed our incessant need for self-justification in what we do and being outraged, we use social media to share dank memes, articles ridiculing Trump and laugh at the misfortune of others. “How can anyone be so stupid,” we say to ourselves.
Let us be honest, social media has devolved into nothing more than a tool to make us feel good about ourselves.
“Look, so and so liked this headline of this unoriginal, derivative post criticising something that is really obviously dumb. I don’t have a better alternative to it, but I think I should share it with the rest of my world because I’m a global informed citizen.”
“And because I have 57 likes, I must be right!”
“In fact I am so right, I’m not even going to read other opinions on the issues.”
“Look how much smarter I am compared to the rest of the plebs who disagree with me! (They don’t have 57 likes!)”
“Self righteous-fury! More dank memes!”
Looking at Trump and the Brexit campaign, one can see how their respective campaigns were ultimately successful. They were successful in pandering to these destructive instincts, where they found a dissatisfied part of the public who were just okay with just criticising other ideas for their flaws and never evaluating them for their merits.
Tearing down establishment and leaving nothing in its place is something 2017 could do well in avoiding.
~TastyJack~
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