Antisocial Media: Is Clementine Morrigan a Member of QAnon?
Nov 27, 2020
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Speculated to be a member of QAnon, Clementine Morrigan discusses the impact of social media on truth, body, and behavior under neoliberal capitalism. The podcast explores social media addiction, cancel culture, and challenges faced by content creators. It also delves into online relationships, boundaries, and the profitable dynamics of cancellation culture on social media platforms.
Social media impacts attention spans by offering fragmented information.
Social media serves as an escapism tool for dissociation from reality.
Social media addiction parallels habits like smoking for stress relief.
The pressure of performative political posts online affects mental health.
Social media addiction operates through the ludic loop, seeking dopamine hits.
Deep dives
The Impact of Social Media on Attention Span
Social media's constant stream of bite-sized information and notifications negatively affects attention spans, making it challenging to focus on longer content such as books or articles. The fragmented nature of information on social media contributes to a reduced ability to engage deeply with longer material.
Dissociation and Escapism on Social Media
Social media is often used as a tool for dissociation and escapism. Many individuals, including the speaker, use platforms like Instagram to dissociate from reality, scrolling mindlessly to avoid feeling negative emotions or existential dread. The addictive nature of social media creates an escape from the discomfort of everyday life, serving as an easy way to distract oneself from stressors.
The Role of Social Media in Addictive Behaviors
Social media addiction parallels addictive habits like smoking or substance use, providing a quick and easy way to seek comfort or distraction when feeling stressed or anxious. The speaker compares the urge to check social media in times of stress to the impulse for a smoker to light a cigarette, highlighting the immediate relief and escape social media can offer.
The Intersection of Cancel Culture and Social Media as a Labor Issue
For individuals whose careers depend on social media presence, the pressure to engage with political issues while balancing personal life on social media can lead to dissociation, attention span limitations, and addictive behaviors. The constant demand for performative political posts and the blurred lines between personal and professional online presence highlight the need to recognize the impact of cancel culture on mental health and work performance.
The Ludic Loop and Dopamine Hits in Social Media Addiction
Social media addiction operates through the ludic loop, a concept applied originally to gamblers. It involves engaging in behavior that is typically neutral or negative, but occasionally provides a positive and unpredictable reward, triggering dopamine release. On social media, this loop is sustained by seeking dopamine hits from likes and shares, leading to a perpetual cycle of scrolling and dissociation.
Simulated Community and Disposability on Social Media
Social media creates a simulated community where interactions are passive and curated, challenging real-life connections. The disposability of relationships is evident, as unfollowing someone equates to erasing them from one's digital life without real closure. This shallow engagement contrasts with the substantial information available about others, blurring boundaries and intimacy.
Surveillance, Truth Production, and the Take Economy in Social Media
Social media fosters surveillance culture, where self-censorship and scrutiny of others become norms. The public record nature of platforms demands a constant presentation of one's beliefs and actions, hindering growth and change. The take economy emerges as a complex system where the pursuit of views and controversies shapes online interactions and truth narratives.
The Evolutionary Nature of Takes in Social Media
In the podcast, it is discussed how takes on social media behave like evolving organisms within an ecosystem. Takes need certain characteristics to successfully reproduce, similar to organisms in nature. Social media users create and modify takes, reproducing them across platforms. The process mirrors adaptation, mutation, and evolution, with successful takes being those with compelling characteristics like definitiveness and identity-based framing, making them more likely to be shared and passed on.
The Dynamics of Cancellations in the Take Economy
The podcast delves into cancellations as a type of take within the social media landscape. Cancellations follow evolutionary rules similar to the evolution of takes. Cancellations thrive based on the severity of accusations, identitarian terms, and the level of threat imposed on non-supporters. The spreading nature of cancellations omits nuances and simplifies information for wide dissemination. The evolution of cancellations often results in escalated accusations as they are shared and transformed, losing transparency and factual accuracy along the way.
In Episode 4, we examine social media, a crucial component of the Nexus. We talk about our own relationships with social media and look at how it functions as an expression, and a tool, of neoliberal capitalism. We discuss how social media affects our bodies and our social behaviour, as well as its impact on the production of truth. Finally, we ask some hard-hitting questions: could it be that Clementine Morrigan is actually a member of QAnon? (QAnon has members, right?)
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