Social Media Has Made You Strange – Part 2

#FirstCoffeeThoughts

I have been putting up shorts on YouTube from various episodes from the Babylon 5 and Evangelion Media Therapy project that Dr Jennie Song and I do together.

I’ve written extensively on why I don’t allow comments on what is essentially active therapy and how the predominantly white male scifi audience of B5 had created a lot of problems for the project when we first started it.

The trend continues with “dislikes” on shorts as well.

The largest number of dislikes is on a 2 minute long short of Dr Song talking about the character Garibaldi and why he’s a “jerk”.

Media Therapy is about transference – 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙩, 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩. She’s responding to how his attitude about the poor, the unhoused, and “undesirables” makes her feel and triggers her. He’s expressed intolerant, impatient, anti-alien sentiment before so her reaction, as a member of the Global Majority, makes sense.

How Dr Song relates to this character and what his nasty, insensitive attitude triggers in her is VALID TRANSFERENCE because of her lived experience as a woman, as member of the Global Majority and her experience with men like Garibaldi (his specific personality type) as a licensed psychologist.

But because white men are INCAPABLE of understanding that not everything is about them or their feelings, they flock to any opportunity to attack anyone, especially a woman, who offends them.

The actor who played Garibaldi was Jerry Doyle, a well known, very loud Republican and racist, who infamously dragged Michael O’hare, who he worked with on season 1 of B5, and called him “a nut job”.

Michael suffered from crippling mental illness during his time on the show and he pushed through season 1 before needing to leave to get help.

It was a secret at the time the show was airing, but not by the time Jerry was calling him a nut on his conservative radio show.

Jerry was trash like a lot of racist, misogynistic, fascist, Republicans.

Jerry has been dead a long time (from chronic alcoholism) but he had fans. So I understand them coming out to vote down anything that talks about his character on B5 regardless of whether its true that Garibaldi was a “jerk”.

Babylon 5 has a predominantly white male audience and it is a well known FACT, with plenty of data, evidence, and studies to back it up, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙡𝙮 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙩, especially right now in time.

Many white male scifi fans take their fandom too seriously and personalize it deeply because of 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙊𝙒𝙉 𝙏𝙍𝙄𝙂𝙂𝙀𝙍𝙎 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙏𝙍𝘼𝙉𝙎𝙁𝙀𝙍𝙀𝙉𝘾𝙀 and the number of 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙛𝙞 𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙝 which makes it a dangerous environment for women and members of the Global Majority.

From a psychological standpoint, putting a “dislike” on something that has nothing to do with you and isn’t about you is an interesting judgment to make on someone else that says a lot about who you are as a person.

I have written essays before about how social media has TRAINED people to think that JUDGING other people is normal, acceptable, and something to be REWARDED for doing …

𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙛𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.

Dysfunction is “abnormality or impairment” and when I talk about dysfunction in terms of social media, I mean how it completely has altered how people treat one another and has trained people to abuse, control, and harm others in insidious, unpunishable, and also rewarding ways.

Social media has trained people to insert themselves into strangers lives to judge and manipulate them by commenting, trolling, berating, and/or bullying them.

𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙎 𝙄𝙎 𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝙉𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙇 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙉𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙇𝙄𝙕𝙀𝘿.

What is a “like” or a “dislike”?
What does it represent?

Do these things truly represent how someone feels about a post or does it represent how much power they wish to have over someone else’s life?

Or is it both?

One is significant to the person who is posting and the other is significant to the one giving the judgement.

Both are powerful tools that help shape someone else’s view of themselves.

Likes, dislikes, and comments are designed around 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝙍𝙊𝙇, 𝙍𝙀𝙒𝘼𝙍𝘿, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙂𝙊.

One of my favorite features of G+ was the ability to FULLY control your feed including who could see your posts and 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢.

At a time when social media was really becoming a thing, G+ allowed you to create allowed groups of people who could comment on your posts.

Some of your posts could be open to everyone, but some were restricted and this 𝙙𝙧𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙄𝙉𝙎𝘼𝙉𝙀 because they could see other people commenting but THEY weren’t allowed to comment themselves.

I cannot tell you how many people would SPECIFICALLY comment on some of my open posts JUST to tell me that they were pissed that they couldn’t comment on some other post and how they were going to UNFOLLOW me because there was no reason to follow someone that blocked them from REACTING.

Are you fucking serious? Are you so completely mentally and emotionally dysregulated that you HAVE TO insert your feelings and thoughts into everything or else you lose interest?

WTF is wrong with y’all?

𝙄 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙖𝙙𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙈𝙀𝙉 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨.

The rage at not being able to center themselves; seeing OTHER people able to comment but being locked out themselves was REAL.

It indicated so much psychological dysfunction. It was really telling of exactly what was wrong with the majority of people who were THRIVING on 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘿𝙊 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨.

The sickness was already showing back in 2012 and it has grown worse since.

On a 2 minute short that almost NO ONE watched in its ENTIRETY, the number of dislikes tells me 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙝𝙞𝙘 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙅𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝘿𝙤𝙮𝙡𝙚’𝙨 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙢.

The content of the clip is very telling about the kind of people who would DISLIKE it …

… especially racists, white supremacists, narcissists, and miserable, dysfunctional, angry white males.

𝘼 “𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚” 𝙞𝙨 𝘼𝙇𝙒𝘼𝙔𝙎 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙋𝙊𝙒𝙀𝙍 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙀𝙂𝙊.

Review bombing, pile-ons etc … these are all tactics by insecure white males who group together to try and 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 “𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙”.

I’ve experienced pile-ons before, even here on CoSo by people who didn’t like something I posted and then attacked me and got other people to attack me on their behalf because of their psychological fragility and the power to weaponize their followers.

It’s all ego and dysregulation.

I keep comments turned off on my projects 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙐𝙉𝙒𝙀𝙇𝙇 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙊𝙎𝙏 𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙎 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮.

People CAN contact me using a form on my websites. Filling out that form takes TIME and so does the email verification.

𝙄 𝙉𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙍 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙮, 𝙙𝙮𝙨𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙, 𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙩, 𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢.

No one ever takes time and effort to write something NEGATIVE. Dysregulated negativity is FAST, EASY, and doesn’t survive TIME.

Commenting/disliking are INSTANT gratifications that work well for NEGATIVE, dysfunctional people.

People need to understand how social media has turned them inside out and pushed them to center themselves.

People need to recognize their dysfunction.

Most of what people post HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH YOU and therefore having ANY reaction, especially a negative one, is 𝙃𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙇𝙔 𝘼𝘽𝙉𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙇.

Not being able to recognize someone else’s truth or accept someone else’s lived experience without having a negative reaction or needing to insert yourself into it is a serious sign of MAJOR dysfunction.