The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m always amazed at the success of social media to sign up folks for their platforms. Millions, even billions, logging onto Facebook, Tik-Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, all happy to give up their privacy for the privilege of connecting to other folks. Could be the start of a new religion, a substitute Fellowship, faith in the New God: Mark Algorithm. And the wonder of it all, the miracle in the middle, is that it’s all based on consumerism, advertising revenue, corporate profit. For a small price we can find old classmates, see photos of the grandkids, chat with long lost relatives, stay in touch without really touching, read news that’s tailored to our own biases. What’s not to like?

It would be easy to blame the CEO’s of these tech companies for the discord their very successful platforms have wrought. They knew how to monetize the boredom of our generation, how to profit from our alienation, how to addict us to the desperate desire to be part of the herd. They fed like piranhas on our anger and our fear and our sense of isolation. They knew if they appealed to the worst in us, we’d click on the bait. And they knew we couldn’t step away any more than a junkie would want to go cold turkey. That was a bridge too lonely, too far.

Yep, I think we can assume, like the tobacco purveyors, they’re amoral and probably evil incarnate. Welcome to Greed, 21st Century. But before we decide they’re the ones to blame, take a good look in the mirror. We love that clickbait, we really do. Go back and look at the last turn of the century’s photos of lynchings. The whole family attended the hangings. You can see folks with picnic baskets, kids and parents all smiling. Great entertainment! Sure, the KKK or the local gendarme, the so-called justice in a society that still won’t face racism, they’re to blame obviously. But take another look at those photos and tell me we’re just innocent bystanders. That news feed that blames Black Lives Matter for the January 6th insurrection, sure, just checking out what it says, right? Just following some of the threads, maybe read about those Jews starting California’s forest fires from space with lasers, gotta pass that one on to some ‘friends’. And so we got ourselves a little virtual picnic.

Zuckerberg didn’t make us racists and homophobes and neither did Trump. But they gave us the okay sign. We can spew out what not too long back was considered vulgar and ugly. You know, just between us friends.

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