One of the fastest neuro-hacks to a feeling of belonging is collective schadenfreude.
We are going to connect mutually in watching this person fail and fall. And it gives us all kinds of goosebumps. It gives us all kinds of sense of we’re together.
As in, I don’t really know you, but our connection, the three of us, is that we hate the same people.
It’s like being at a public square for a hanging. And there’s a couple of things that are happening in that public square at the moment.
One, we’re gathered. We’re very limbic. There’s a ton of adrenaline.
Two, we’re also mitigating each other’s shame about enjoying this. That’s what a mob is about, we’re mitigating each other’s shame.
The thing is, the collective schadenfreude about watching someone – especially someone who’s got celebrity or a platform – fail is that it is absolutely not lasting or meaningful. It may hotwire our brain for a moment, but it’s not real.
We need to notice and be mindful of the counterfeit connection we get from collective schadenfreude.
Especially as we are in a world where so many people are in pain and need, who don’t have the grounding it takes to forge real connection, where there are barriers to connection. A world where we can be so alone in a room full of people.
In that world where so many people are lonely, and remembering that we are neurobiologically hardwired for connection and that in the absence of connection there is suffering, we look for those surefire ways to get any hit, anything that dulls the loneliness, anything that mimics connection. And schadenfreude and daggers towards others, even in a comment section, is a surefire way to get that mimicry.
Only it’s absolutely a Faustian bargain.
It is corrosive and damaging over time because we know it’s not real, but it can give us something quick. And it’s doubly damaging over time because by its intrinsic divisive nature it also wrecks the very connection we seek.
So I would say we should really think about collective schadenfreude and need for belonging that we’re not getting.
— adapted from Brené Brown in conversation with Trevor Noah
(Brené Brown was on What Now with Trevor Noah and to say it was amazing would be an understatement. So many things that got me thinking and considering and understanding and opening things up. It’s almost guaranteed I’ll pull more from this for future posts. Two hours of great conversation, I highly, highly recommend it!)
