You Are What You Amplify
Not everything that hurts you deserves to be seen again.
There is a pattern on social media that has been bothering me for a while, and I think it has less to do with individual people and more to do with how these platforms function.
This is not an argument against talking about harassment. Harassment is real, and people have every right to document it, respond to it, and seek support. But there is a difference between documenting harm and building an entire presence around repeatedly displaying it.
On many accounts, the primary content has become a steady stream of screenshots: messages from strangers, insults, accusations, and hostility. Each post follows the same basic structure—an instance of harm is presented, it receives engagement, and then it circulates. The cycle repeats.
To understand why this happens, it helps to think about the life of a post.
A post does not simply exist; it is distributed. Platforms are designed to amplify content that generates reactions, and few things generate stronger reactions than outrage. When a post is emotionally charged—especially when it involves visible harm—it is more likely to be shared, commented on, and pushed into wider circulation.
This creates a feedback loop. Harm is posted, the post performs well, it is shown to more people, and the increased visibility invites further interaction—including from those who wish to provoke or harass. Those responses, in turn, become new content. What begins as documentation can gradually become a self-sustaining system.
This does not require bad intent. It is structural. If a certain kind of post reliably produces attention, support, and growth, it becomes easy—almost inevitable—for that kind of post to dominate an account.
But the effects of this pattern extend beyond the person posting.
For the audience, particularly those who belong to the same targeted communities, repeated exposure to hostile language can be exhausting. Even when the harm is secondhand, it is still processed as threat. Over time, a space that might otherwise be about identity, work, or daily life becomes saturated with negativity.
In this sense, the repeated circulation of harm can begin to amplify it. A single hostile message, once shared and reshared, no longer remains isolated. It becomes part of a broader stream of content that reinforces the same narratives again and again.
At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that visibility has also had positive effects. Before the internet, many people encountered only the beliefs present in their immediate environment. Harmful ideas—racist, sexist, or otherwise—often went unchallenged simply because there were no visible alternatives. Increased visibility has made it possible to counter those narratives and to encounter lives and perspectives that would otherwise remain unseen.
But visibility is not neutral. It does not only reveal; it also amplifies. And what it amplifies most effectively is not always what is most helpful.
Social media tends to reward volume, repetition, and emotional intensity. As a result, highly reactive content rises to the top, and over time it can begin to feel representative, even when it is simply what the system favors.
This creates a subtle shift in how identity is presented. When harm becomes the most visible and most circulated form of content, it risks becoming the primary lens through which that identity is seen.
There are other ways to respond to hostility that do not rely on repeating it. One approach is interruption: countering false claims with accurate information, refusing to circulate harmful language without context, or redirecting attention toward something more constructive.
Another is something that has long existed within queer history: joy as a form of resistance.
“We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”
That phrase did not depend on cataloging every hostile voice. It asserted presence. It refused to allow opposition to define the terms of existence. Visibility itself was the disruption.
Joy, in this sense, is not passive or apolitical. It is a refusal to be reduced to suffering. It is a way of existing that does not require constant reference to harm in order to be valid.
There is also something to be said for what it looks like, in practice, to refuse that cycle.
Not every response to hostility has to be a direct confrontation.
Sometimes it looks like continuing on.
A teacher shows up to work, teaches their class, and does their job well—regardless of what strangers say about them online.
An artist keeps making their work, refining their craft, and sharing it.
Someone builds a life—relationships, routines, small moments of happiness—that exists entirely outside of the opinions of people who do not know them.
That kind of response doesn’t generate the same immediate reaction as outrage.
It doesn’t spread as quickly.
But it does something else.
It removes the critic from the center of the story.
It shifts the focus away from what is being said and back to what is being lived.
And over time, that kind of consistency has its own weight.
Not because it argues with hostility, but because it makes it irrelevant.
There’s also something else underlying all of this.
Social media often treats visibility as a kind of authority.
The louder something is, the more it’s repeated, the more engagement it gets—the more weight it seems to carry.
But the loudest voice is not the same as the wisest one.
Social media doesn’t reward wisdom. It rewards volume, visibility, and reaction.
And a lot of that visibility is shaped by things that have nothing to do with the substance of what’s being said: algorithms, timing, production quality, and how emotionally charged something is.
In that environment, certain types of content rise to the top again and again—not necessarily because they are the most helpful, but because they are the most effective at being seen.
And content built around conflict and outrage performs extremely well.
So it gets amplified.
And when that amplification happens over and over, it can start to feel like: this is the dominant narrative. this is what the community is. this is what we are supposed to focus on.
But that’s not necessarily true.
It may just be what the system rewards.
And part of wisdom, at least to me, is being selective about what you expose yourself to.
Social media gives strangers constant access to your attention, your reactions, and your emotional space.
Not all of those voices deserve to live there.
It’s not about avoiding social media entirely.
It’s about choosing what actually gets to matter.
I’m on social media to follow artists, arthropod keepers, plant collectors, and neurodivergent people. Spaces where I can learn, connect, and see people living their lives—not just reacting to harm.
There’s a difference between being aware of harm and being immersed in it.
And in an environment where visibility is shaped by engagement rather than care, it is worth asking:
what are we amplifying, and why?
And are we choosing it—
or is it being chosen for us?
There’s a reason constant exposure to hostility wears people down.
Even secondhand, repeated exposure to threatening language can trigger stress responses over time. Your brain does not fully separate “this is happening to someone else” from “this is a threat.”
And that’s why curation matters.
As Audre Lorde wrote,
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Choosing what you expose yourself to is not avoidance.
It is a form of resistance.
It is possible to open social media and not feel anxious, or angry, or afraid.
It is possible to be inspired. It is possible to learn something new. It is possible to see people creating, building, and living their lives. It is possible to connect with others and not feel so alone.
That kind of space does not happen by accident.
It is something you build—through what you follow, what you engage with, and what you choose to amplify.
None of this means people should stay silent about what happens to them.
It means we should be thoughtful about what happens when harm becomes the primary content.
Because once a pattern becomes a system, it does more than reflect reality.
It begins to shape it.
And you do have a say in what kind of space you exist in.
You are allowed to choose something better.
