I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I love bicycling. It's my main transport mode. I ride basically every day--thousands of miles a year. But when I see bike themed web forums, I'm struck by how differently (how much more obsessively) those people discuss bicycling. They know so much more about models, components, accessories, etc. I wonder, which of us actually spends the most time in the saddle?
this is so spot on! and i guess when it comes to politics, this tendency is supercharged in two ways...
1. the regular feedback loop where the more insane the community becomes, the more normal ppl leave and that just contirbutes to ever more insane discourse.
2. thanks to geographical sorting and everything, it is increasingly likely that the only exposure you get to the other side of politics is online - which means you *think* other side is way more insane than the it actually is - and that will create the permission structure to drive your side of politics even more insane to "match the energy"
And i think the confluence of 1 & 2 are, myself included, ppl who lack the emotional intelligence to imagine "huh maybe evertyhing I know about the other side could be very biased and the other side of ppl are actually not the evil monsters I imagine them to be" - and at this point, it is a bit of self perpetuating prophecy...
If I could only apply one rule and only one rule to all social media that have a timeline feed, it would be that the service must provide non-algorithmic TL setting. When applied, you only get content that was either posted by people you follow or content has been directly reposted by someone you follow. That's it; nothing else. That would be a huge improvement. It would make Twitter/X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc so much better for everyone who doesn't want algorithmic TLs.
So does this mean that the creators who feel pressured to change plotlines based on feedback from their insane fanbases are catering to a tiny minority of viewers? But the superfans are the ones shaping the online conversations that everybody sees, so they might really have an outsized effect on the perception of your project. Ugh. What a terrible dynamic.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I love bicycling. It's my main transport mode. I ride basically every day--thousands of miles a year. But when I see bike themed web forums, I'm struck by how differently (how much more obsessively) those people discuss bicycling. They know so much more about models, components, accessories, etc. I wonder, which of us actually spends the most time in the saddle?
this is so spot on! and i guess when it comes to politics, this tendency is supercharged in two ways...
1. the regular feedback loop where the more insane the community becomes, the more normal ppl leave and that just contirbutes to ever more insane discourse.
2. thanks to geographical sorting and everything, it is increasingly likely that the only exposure you get to the other side of politics is online - which means you *think* other side is way more insane than the it actually is - and that will create the permission structure to drive your side of politics even more insane to "match the energy"
And i think the confluence of 1 & 2 are, myself included, ppl who lack the emotional intelligence to imagine "huh maybe evertyhing I know about the other side could be very biased and the other side of ppl are actually not the evil monsters I imagine them to be" - and at this point, it is a bit of self perpetuating prophecy...
Agreed 100%. I was excited for the idea of online discourse, but I found out quickly that I was almost never talking to *normal* people.
If I could only apply one rule and only one rule to all social media that have a timeline feed, it would be that the service must provide non-algorithmic TL setting. When applied, you only get content that was either posted by people you follow or content has been directly reposted by someone you follow. That's it; nothing else. That would be a huge improvement. It would make Twitter/X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc so much better for everyone who doesn't want algorithmic TLs.
So does this mean that the creators who feel pressured to change plotlines based on feedback from their insane fanbases are catering to a tiny minority of viewers? But the superfans are the ones shaping the online conversations that everybody sees, so they might really have an outsized effect on the perception of your project. Ugh. What a terrible dynamic.