The internet is politicised nowadays, so impressionable kids grow up on it and hop immediately into basal tribalism and "culture-wars" for the thrill of it, even if that means extrapolating it to broad subjects for no observable purpose (besides creating more sides/tribes). Everyone and their grandma can have an opinion on a vaguely socio-political subject and feel like they're welcome in whichever metaphorical tribe they side with on said subject, then gain some sense of identity from railing against the other "tribe". I feel like many people enjoy labels, whether directed at themselves or others; mainly for waging some sort of social war against a variety of unrelated topics/concepts for an undefined (mostly directionless) goal. I don't even know if there is a goal, since it seems more like it's merely to alleviate boredom, or for them to take comfort in the notion that it's achieving something. It raises whether they've lost the ability to perceive an individual, rather than a vast monolithic collective they find easier to generalise. Every man and woman is themselves, not a hivemind constructed of sweeping assertions affixed to their gender — which makes it quite confusing when you see childish attempts to create clans of them.I think one of the more terrible trends I've seen lately is the men vs. women-spheres [YouTube, Social Media, Talk Shows, Podcasts, Forums].
We've always been very different and wanted different things out of life [men and women], but I don't think there's ever been a war of the sexes this brutal, at least not where we're enjoying when people die [Kevin Samuels], lose their livelihood, or get "canceled".
I especially have issue with men gaining pleasure from seeing women fail [Amber Heard], be harmed, lose big or get hit with "life bombs", as if there isn't something to be learned, or wisdom taken away from such a lesson; that any human being receives. Celebrating another persons misery or misfortune is a dark place to dwell I think, and that seems like the devils playground.
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It's not like we didn't know that there were things we could all improve upon [either sex], published in 1992, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" was a perfect example of professionals and deep thinkers trying to bridge the gap between us [men and women]; however, something went terribly wrong and I'm not sure exactly how we got here.
I can only assume this is a war against "modern men" and "modern women", and if that's the case... I have no interest in this new "modern idealism". I'm totally with comfortable dying as a "back in my day" old man, 'cause these new-age values ain't for me...
I would've hoped by now that us humans understood the classical strategy of "divide and conquer", but perhaps that's one of the reasons it's such an effective tactic; people know that it works, even know of its existence, but still can't help themselves, thus making it a tactic that no one group will ever be immune??The internet is politicised nowadays, so impressionable kids grow up on it and hop immediately into basal tribalism and "culture-wars" for the thrill of it, even if that means extrapolating it to broad subjects for no observable purpose (besides creating more sides/tribes). Everyone and their grandma can have an opinion on a vaguely socio-political subject and feel like they're welcome in whichever metaphorical tribe they side with on said subject, then gain some sense of identity from railing against the other "tribe".
...which is strange, because this generation really had me going, considering the idea of doing away with labels, only to then start replacing old labels with newer ones; trying to reinvent the wheel, as if the old one needed to be "broken" [a Game of Thrones reference]. I'm all for breaking the wheel, but don't then go trying to replace it with a "worse one".I feel like many people enjoy labels, whether directed at themselves or others; mainly for waging some sort of social war against a variety of unrelated topics/concepts for an undefined (mostly directionless) goal. I don't even know if there is a goal, since it seems more like it's merely to alleviate boredom, or for them to take comfort in the notion that it's achieving something. It raises whether they've lost the ability to perceive an individual, rather than a vast monolithic collective they find easier to generalise. Every man and woman is themselves, not a hivemind constructed of sweeping assertions affixed to their gender — which makes it quite confusing when you see childish attempts to create clans of them.
That's the tricky part about all of this, in order to be optimistic, you have to believe in something; oftentimes something much greater than yourself. I'm not entirely sure if this generation believes in anything... perhaps in their "personal truths"??A lot of websites I've frequented for years seem to have been overtaken by a desire (particularly with new users and traffic) to insert broad cultural conflicts into the subtext of most content all of a sudden, mainly at the expense of the userbase who were previously defined by appreciation or creative interest for the actual topic of the website; be that a game, media, hobby, etc. Essentially, it's more common to actively look for conflict than ever, even if there isn't actually much ground for creating it besides an impulsive desire to direct aggression towards "something". Even the post I'm making right now seems somewhat inane by virtue of relating to it, even if it's merely a meta view on that sort of discourse, purely because I lament the association with it. I think a lot would be solved if more people reeled themselves in a bit, focused on their more optimistic interests.
Oh my god this reminded me of how people have sensationalized things like autism and ADHD on the internet recently and it drives me MAD.Imo lately aliens, and mental health awareness.
Aliens, because it's generally unproductive and leads to a ton of mindless speculation.
The Mental Health Awareness thing needs elaborated.
To start, mental health is very important and people should get help if they truly need it. That said...
They've been pushing it really heavily and it seems like a sort of blame shifting, like the world's a disaster, possibly always has been, and being stressed, upset, depressed, angry, etc honestly just seems like a rational reaction to all of that, but your mental health is clearly the issue here that needs addressed rather than I dunno making an effort to fix the things people are stressing out about in the first place. Like they've shifted it to people being in crisis, rather than people are just trying to cope with a world that's in crisis.