I first experimented with “chat rooms” online back in the mid ‘90s. I remember AOL Messenger was big. Also something called Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was really big, and there was another one called ICQ (I don’t remember what that one stood for).
So, anonymous digital chat has been around at least 30 years, more if you count older things like message boards and the kinds of forums you’d find on older Internet protocols.
But since the digital “chat room” arena has really exploded since the invention and proliferation of the smart phone, I’m going to say that this new “thing we do” has only been around for less than 15 years.
That’s not long for a species like ours to adapt to a thing, and clearly we are struggling with it because our behavior in this new medium is… weird.
When people used to complain to me about how awful other people were online, I’d usually respond by saying it’s because that person isn’t right there in front of you.
Almost nobody is as awful in person as they are online. A large part of a person’s reluctance to behave badly in person is because their anonymity is lost. But a bigger part (I think) is that if people acted as viciously in person as they do online, they would get their teeth knocked down their throat.
People really overlook how powerful a civilizing effect the threat (even tacit) of male violence is in a society.
So anonymity and lack of proximity partly explains why people suck so much online. But as more time has gone on, I’ve noticed an even bigger reason. It has something to do with how useless and purposeless many people’s lives seem to be.
Not everyone, of course. But each year a larger slice of the public retreats from pursuing meaning and purpose and identity in the real world and instead get the dopamine hits usually associated with those good things from… something else.
A buddy of mine says it’s because “we are too rich and soft”. I’m sure that element plays a part, but there’s more.
My partner Tyrone the Porcupine would say it has a lot to do with the fiat banking system. He’s not wrong, that poisonous counterfeiting ring sucks value out of society, making pursuing value in legitimate ways seem like a fool’s errand.
But I’m going to make a broader (and more nebulous) claim. I think our modern culture has lost sight of the values and virtues that once united us and revealed brightly illuminated paths for an individual to find (create) meaning in their lives.
There are many facets to the problem. I’ll throw out a few, but there are surely more.
One of these is surely the rise of government power, and all the damage that it does. Another is the diminishment of family and religion and the thousands of private institutions that used to be avenues for people to find meaning.
A big one probably has to do with all the (empty calory) distractions our digital world offers us: video games, porn, the mindless swiping and scrolling I see people doing with short-form videos on YouTube and Tik-Tok and Instagram, etc.
It’s not like most people are using the amazing resource that is the Internet to read Aristotle and study physics. It’s much more often Candy Crush… or worse.
So what does this have to do with the psychotic, hateful, and cruel behavior we see on social media?
I think it has something to do with people replacing the meaning and purpose they’ve lost in the real world with some faux version of it in the digital.
Don’t have a partner and a family or a job that inspires you? No problem. Become a keyboard warrior for “justice” of some kind.
Lack any real-world virtues? No problem. Signal some virtue online — oh, and the more shrill and narcissistic you are about it, the more “virtuous” you become.
And again (and perhaps best of all) there’s very little chance of having your teeth knocked down your throat, no matter how nasty and awful you act.
But the Internet is a new thing for humans to deal with, and social media is even newer. We’ve shown an amazing ability to adapt to new things over the years — even things very contrary to the environment and social structure we evolved in.
So, I’m hoping that we figure out a way to adapt to this too.
Because I’m too old (and the world is too big) for me to find all these punks and give them the beatings they deserve.
Naturally,
Adam
Oh, and come say “Hi” to me (politely) on Twitter(X) — @Rerazer.