What Informs Your Thinking?
I think one of the reasons I've always struggled to get substantially involved in mainstream social media is the overwhelming lack of original thought I encounter.
Whenever I end up looking at Facebook, twitter/X, YouTube, Instagram or somewhere else it seems like virtually everything I encounter is a little more than a commentary on what somebody else said rather than somebody doing some research on their own and coming up with an original thought, or even just a new way of looking at something currently in the news.
It is as if almost nobody's opinion is informed by their actual personal life situation and life experience and almost entirely derived from what somebody else said. Hence this tendency of people just depending on two words added to somebody else's opinion and reposting it in a seemingly endless game of online "telephone."
At the risk of sounding a bit conspiracy theory, it makes me wonder if the whole scenario is deliberately set up to encourage people to not have their own opinions and instead to just regurgitate somebody else's.
Although they might be regarded as "primitive" times, sometimes I really long for the early days of social blogging where virtually all the content was somebody's original opinion and experience and then it was discussed in a generally pretty active comment section below.
Sure, the idea of re-blogging existed, but it was used very sparingly and reserved for the few times when you saw something that was truly outstanding and it moved you in some way... but it was not regarded as your primary form of expression because you didn't have an original thought in your head.
I'm not sure if there is any particular blame to be laid here or whether it's just a trend in overall society towards less thinking... or maybe the whole problem is caused by the fact that virtually everything these days is monetized in some way and people find it easier to just ride the coattails of somebody else who has gone viral than to try to create their own content that might (or might not) end up being viral.
What is somewhat sad about it is that it seems like our entire existence has been reduced to a pervasive chasing of the almighty buck at the expense of anything else including originality, peace of mind, genuine connection, meaningful dialog and authenticity. And sometimes that authenticity is actually dangerous to express because of so-called "cancel culture" so we fall back on a watered-down version of cutting edge thinking that is more socially acceptable.
Or maybe we just rely on a version of ourselves that skims the top of our ideas while also assuring that we get the maximum number of page views. But who is that really doing any favors for?
I am definitely a large scale content consumer, as well as a content creator. But sometimes I get really disgusted with the way some of my fellow creators seem to focus entirely on the proverbial "low hanging fruit" of basically copying and regurgitating what has already "done the rounds" endlessly.
I realize that many people get really overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information they get exposed to, every day... so it can look very tempting to just nab someone else's idea, add a couple of words and consider it "worthwhile."
Thanks for stopping by and have a great Friday!
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2026.08.28 01:59 PDT
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