All links mentioned are clustered at the end, if youād like to read/listen to them too.
Iāve never been one for the middle road, in habits, emotions or tendencies, but if thereās one thing 2016 has taught me ā I hope ā itās that itās possible for me. At last. Iāve been more willing, as Iāve grown fractionally older, to welcome the change of heart that time and experience bring; Iāve been more likely to say, āWell, this is how I feel at the moment, but who knows,ā rather than, āNo! Never! Impossible!ā Only there have been some hold-outs from this: some political groups, some voting histories, some educational choices, anti-freedom groups, hate groups. Thankfully, they could all be bundled up in my mind as Big Bads, so I didnāt need to ever fear that I could be wrong about any of them: and if someone had expressed those choices, even once, even in error or misunderstanding or drunkenness or foolishness, or ever been associated with anyone whoād expressed those choices, then great! Into the barrel of doom with them, and good riddance!
I have loved so much of social media, so much of the quickness of thought to make the jokes, dark or otherwise, because thatās how I see the world. The kindness, too: those people who tap a āxxxā or a digital embrace to someone suffering. Iāve been at both ends of that, and it feels good.
2016, however, and everything weāre seeing unfold from that and the last few years before it, has made me wonder at the meaningfulness of these interactions. Other people than me have written about this, probably better than me, and research can show whatever we want it to (also known as ā2016ās catchphraseā) but some gut instinct in me has hollered louder and louder than social media does nothing, for me, in quite a major way. Iām sure anyone whoās reading this can give me some counter arguments ā friendships, business contacts, social and political movements ā but there is a hollowness to my life on there. On here, I suppose I should say. Having been mostly off it for several months now, I can see with greater clarity that the time I spend with friends and family on sofas and bar stools and around kitchen tables, without photos, or hashtags, or tagging, or comments, just ephemeral conversation and moments that are gone forever: these times have been better for me, and have filled some deeper need.
And of course social media can be an educational, fascinating place. Itās hilarious to suggest otherwise. So congratulations and a big shiny medal to me if I now understand that Black Lives Matter, or grasp the violence that faces the average transgender man or woman, or see that even the most supportive, feminist man occasionally uses language and jokes that chip away at the average woman. Those fights are easy to understand and easier to engage in.Ā
But ā and hereās the tricky bit ā how much time did I give, really, to thinking about why someone would support and vote and fight and hurt people for beliefs opposite to mine? Itās not comfortable to defend these people, to acknowledge that they are human and have family they love and interests they believe to be best. Itās not easy to say, in my circles, But What About Straight White Men, when weāve had such a bloody great time turning them into the butt of every smart, knowing, accurate, deserved joke. But the number of people I know on social media who are actively trying to make the world better (could count on two hands) rather than just spitting into someoneās online soup (thousands) is worth my consideration, if Iām spending hours a day with them. And the things weāve hated in those hours! We hate this film. This politician is trash. That TV programme is shit ā look at this gif about it! The readers of those newspapers are just a dumpster fire of burning garbage.
So this is what Iāve concluded, after much thinking and reading and listening: that there are two issues here. Two things that tie my feelings about social media and my feelings about whatās on social media together: firstly, nuance, and secondly, opportunity versus morality.
Nuance, as Jon Ronson (a man whoās had his share of online kickings) says on the Guys Weāve Fucked podcast*, is wildly unfashionable now. Pick a side! Quickly! Donāt worry about circumstance, or history, or mis-readings, or context! Just go go go get our boots on and pile in! My online bubble that Iāve been happy to cosy up in seems the same: straight white guys: be quiet. Leave voters: racists. Republicans: racist misogynist climate-change deniers who should also be quiet. It doesnāt matter why they feel that way. Letās just remind them as forcibly as we can that they are hateful humans we donāt want to dirty our hands with, and thatāll teach them a lesson theyāll never forget! After seeing our scorching memes, theyāll be thinking like we do in no time! Except: they are actual people. Everyoneās frightened of something, and whether or not I agree with the veracity of the source of that fear, theyāre still feeling afraid. They still have goals, which I may or may not agree with, but those goals wonāt change if I tell them their goals are trash. In an episode of the Invisibilia podcast* called Flip the Script, Hanna Rosin visits Aarhus to talk to the police who decided to stop prosecuting young Muslim men travelling to Syria to fight for Isis, and instead engaged with them, offering them care and support, employment and housing. They made them feel like they were welcome in Denmark, that this was their home, and in 2015, even when traffic was spiking from Europe, only one individual left Aarhus to fight. In the programme, Jamal, a young Danish muslim, says of his feelings before this positive intervention received him, āI thought: they call me terrorist? I will give them a terrorist.ā Treat those we disagree with as racists, as misogynists, as bigots, as fascists, and guess how theyāll be tempted to behave. (Side note: Itās also really worth listening to the Adam Buxton conversations* with Richard Ayoade, Iain Lee and Jon Ronson (again!) talking from various different angles about kindness, nuance, context, and how it feels to be a Woody Allen fan these days. Also, thereās a stand-up routine by Louis CK ā helloooo, problematic public figure ā which also covers nicely the idea of correctly using The Right Terms but having not great goals with it, and being pummelled for using Incorrect Language but wanting to communicate positive ideas. I canāt link to it as it autoplayed on Netflix while I was painting the hall, but the thought was pretty smart.)
As Oliver Burkeman said in his This Column Will Change Your Life piece*, itās moderation thatās key to a better world, not battling for victory. No one really ever wins a war. As This American Lifeās podcast* on Reconsideration showed, itās giving people a chance to be listened to that offers that chance to change minds, not shouting them down with facts that will only make them dig their heels in harder. Anger is a vital political tool, but my anger too often feels like hatred, or disdain, or dismissal. It serves no purpose. Itās a toxic, pixelled sledgehammer. It makes the world worse. Iāve really been doing a shitty job at making things nicer, guys.Ā
Secondly: opportunity versus morality. As part of my feminist beliefs, Iāve been pro-Instagram; why should some dude tell me what I can and canāt photograph? If people like my lunch pic, whatās wrong with that? If I look great and want to record and share it, what the hell is your problem? Only suddenly, as Iāve been using it less and less, Instagram looks so lonely to me. I think of the humans at the end of Wall-E, tapping their screens and never looking up, and thatās how it feels: I like the sunset someone else has photographed while Iām missing it because Iām looking at my phone. And even if Iām snapping it myself to share ā what am I missing by not just looking at the damn thing, and letting it pass through me, a beautiful gift to warm my soul? Do I really believe the tech ads about how much better a fatherās night in the woods is with his kid because he brought their tablet along? I know the feeling in me when I pick up my phone to take a picture of something with the intention of sharing it, and it feels like a greasy, dizzy dilution. For me, itās not about the over-curation of our perfect online lives, but about the inability to live in my offline life without outside approval. Iām not having real fun until 20, 50, 1000 people have liked it too!Ā
And putting that smartphone opportunity up against my moral code: just because we can do something, should we? If I can live-tweet a couple arguing on a train journey, does that make it not nightmarishly intrusive? If I Instagram a photo of someone in a terrible outfit, does that make me a warrior for underprivileged rights? If I pause every lunch with friends to take photos to post online for others to view and like or not like, am I connecting more, or less? Am I making the world a more claustrophobic, judgemental, short-sighted place if I collude in this weird global surveillance?
And god knows, Iām a hypocrite. Iāve been mean as mean can be, online and off-, about people whose political views I disagree with. Iāve Instagrammed my Christmas day lunches, my childrenās artwork, my brunches with friends, my views from a train. But why have I interrupted the flow of conversation or silence before the play started to post a picture of the theatre stage and ceiling? Why have I unintentionally asked my family to hold off from eating because I wanted a picture of the meal Iāve just made? Why did I stop thinking about whatever I was thinking about just to snap an image of the sky? Iāve thought and thought and canāt get any further than Because other people might like it. Which is, to me, right now, at this moment, fathomlessly sad. (But who knows how Iāll feel next week, a year from now, twenty years from now?)
Have some ideas on social media changed me? Of course. People and articles have educated me hugely in ways that have hopefully made me a better person. But do those new, positive and instructive ideas warrant staying on social media? Not at the moment. Twitter is a thousand people shouting apocalypse at me, Facebook is an algorithmic sink and Instagram is an endless time-suck scroll of kids Iām not playing with, art Iām not making, trips Iām not taking, food Iām not cooking, homes Iām not helping people into, chances Iām not helping others receive, political aspirations Iām not supporting because Iām just swiping my finger along this screen tap tap tap swipe tap swipe tap swipe swipe swipeā¦
But right now, Iām trying to make changes. Iām off twitter, Iāve deleted my Facebook profile, Iāve turned my Instagram to private and am slowly weaning myself off it (I still hit like at what Iām seeing, but the (v good, v scary) Moment app is also making me realise how much of my day ā my life ā is lost to tapping a heart icon on a flat screen next to a photograph someone else has taken that ultimately means nothing to me as pixels on a screen). The cards, notes, emails and texts Iāve sent and received over the last month or two have made me realise how much more valuable these quiet interactions are to me at the moment. I think about the adults Iād like our kids to grow up into: outward-facing, forward-looking, clear-eyed, generous with their time, generous with their thoughts, independent, handy (all the way from cooking and cleaning, through to crafting and mending and building), confident, kind. And it doesn't matter that Iām thinking of it in terms of my kids: like those men we laugh at for only finding feminism once they have a daughter (who cares why they found it! they found it! they're engaging!) itās not about whether or not I have children. Itās about which adults we want to share the world with. Adults we might disagree with, but whom we could hopefully rely on for respectful conversation, thoughtfulnesss, retreat on either side, apologies, space for error, learning, growth, change.
Iām not saying we should forgive anyone who asks for it ā only maybe I am, because what does the alternative produce? And Iām not saying we should love everyone in the world, no matter what theyāve done in the past or continue to do in the future ā only I guess, I suppose, perhaps, maybe I actually am, because hating people feels shit, does nothing, and makes the world boring and hate-filled and dead. Weāve tried that! Weāve tried telling men/cis/white women/privileged feminists/baby boomers/Tories/right-wingers/Brexit supporters/homophobes/transphobes/racists/abusers/Cameron that theyāre just a crapsack, nothing but a punchline, should get pushed off their soapbox or fixie or 4x4 or youtube channel into the fiery pits of hell! Weāve let the warmth of righteous indignation warm us at night and not minded the language we use against our enemies because look at the way theyāve treated us! Look at the terrible things theyāve done! So we hurl insults and craft jokes and smash bridges with our pixel sledgehammers and wait for the likes and retweets and thumbs up and YEAH comments to flood in, and if they do then our point is proved, good work, and if they donāt then maybe we up it a bit more next time.
(Or sometimes, I wonder if itās all a handy distraction from the way weāre treating our planet at the moment, like gum we can replace at the corner shop once weāve chewed all the goodness from it. Thatās frightening. Thatās genuinely sick-in-the-night, silent panic-attack terrifying. But we buy new phones and new phone covers and charge them up and snap a picture of ourselves with them in the mirror and grind our teeth that some dude took up too much space on the tube and Steven Moffatt canāt write women. Yes! Those things might be true! But, to play the card we all dislike the most: havenāt we got other things to worry about? Not necessarily bigger things, or better things, but fractionally more pressing things? Shouldn't we all be hurling money as hard as we can at scientists and policy makers in the hope we can stop sawing down and burning up the only home weāve got? Shouldnāt we be campaigning against companies who design their products with built-in obsolescence, rather than grabbing those products as fast as we can so we can use them to tweet our rage at companies who use unreliable delivery companies? And I understand that climate change isnāt a stand-alone issue ā capitalism, our lifestyles, our conditioned social priorities, corporate power over government, dissolution of employment rights, exploitation of workers ā all of this feeds into climate change and the terrible way weāre treating our planet. I understand this. And all of it feels slightly more pressing than how I can correctly display my individualism to people who donāt or barely know me.)
The fact remains, the basic philosophies of most major religions (if we put aside meat specifics and some potentially dodgy sex/marriage stuff) throughout human civilisation probably have a point: care for the needy; practice humility; think of others; show forgiveness; show respect; love everyone.
If the future looks scary, the answer isnāt to build the wall higher and sharpen our words. Itās so painful, and itās so difficult, and itās so simple. Right now, if we can take the time to type our disdain and disgust, weāre in a privileged enough position to take a deep breath, dive into life, and make a better choice.
Ā 1. *Jon Ronson on Guys Weāve Fucked
2. *Invisibilia, Flip the Script
3. *Richard Ayoade on Adam BuxtonĀ
4. *Iain Lee on Adam Buxton
5. *Jon Ronson on Adam Buxton
6. *Oliver Burkeman, āModerates are the real tough guysāĀ
7. *This American Life, For Your Reconsideration