Two Minutes of Hate

If it was only two minutes.

Remember the disturbing scene in George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece 1984? It’s when the public gathers to vent against a common enemy on a huge theatre-type screen. If you need a refresher or haven’t seen it, a simple search on YouTube will bring the clip from the movie where we see a room full of lifeless faces that soon morph into a feral mass of revenge seeking zombies. None of them are aware, or maybe it’s a truth too painful to admit they are a product of conditioning one small nudge at a time.

In recent times I feel as though social media is the modern version.

Nonsense, some say.

Throughout the past five to six years, I’ve witnessed a transformation in not just format and content, but also in the interaction of the users. Platforms that were once a public oasis for staying connected or outlets for the return of a much-needed gonzo journalism are now experiencing a turbocharged entropy.

It easy to spot the sharp increases in advertising dollars, political manipulation, and celebrity over sharing and how it has helped morph our unique worldwide water cooler into a desert parched of its soul. We started interacting with each other on Facebook and YouTube to get away from the hold of corporations. Now they have taken over our places of refuge and turned them into hostile worlds using the same tools that made those sites successful.

Our information, talent, and time became leverages against humanity.

In the modern day, we are hardly without a screen in front of our faces. We are interacting with a system that is trying to pry you from your hard-earned dollars while promising to fix something that you don’t like about your body, thanks to the last video you watched.

The news feed is on a constant loop of stories to remind you inflation is taking another jump, mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been in twenty years. The one thing I have noticed is that they tell you who to blame. Everything is usually that group’s fault, or because of the way your brother Fred voted.

Fan pages are now some of the worse. Instead of posts of everyone getting along and reveling in their common interest. Users are dividing fans over the dumbest things. Then as soon as anyone takes the bait, volleyballs of rebuttal start getting lobbed back and forth while spectators doom scroll through a conversation that means nothing to them.

Social media has become a popular go to source for adrenaline or a desperate moment of distraction from the real world that’s in front of them that is too scary to face for some.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore all the cute dog and cat videos as much as the next person. Not to mention some of my Facebook friends lead some amazing lives and I’m grateful to be a fly on the wall as they share their newest adventures. This is the social media we all know and love. The one we signed up for.

Then, as with all things, the trial membership was over, and the real version was uploaded. Not in an instant, mind you. It happened gradually, like that poor old frog that finds itself in boiling water because its survival gene fooled its body as it acclimated to its own death.

Of course, we’re not frogs. We’re smarter than that, aren’t we? We human beings are aware of the damage emotional stress takes on us, but I bet most didn’t know how addictive those stress chemicals can be.

“Stress can cause a natural high by activating the arousal and attention centers in our nervous system, which, if prolonged, can be “as addictive as drugs,” Hanna warns. In other words, your chronically stressed-out brain could be dependent on those small, euphoric hits of dopamine, says Debbie Sorensen, a Harvard-trained psychologist who specializes in burnout.

This makes what we expose our minds to very important. Yet millions of us go to these platforms and risk infecting ourselves with unnecessary negativity.

I’m not talking bad vibes in some kind of hippie speak with a sage wand in hand, smudging the room. I’m referring to groups, comments and influencers that are some of the biggest tools to gatekeep information.

When the internet was first introduced, the common person pioneered forward in the direction of untold riches and unlimited truth. Roads were paved and empires built on this new frontier. We were all invested and seduced into thinking we were the masters of our own evolution as we became drunk on the promises of what all this could mean for us everyday people ten to twenty years from now.

Then we watched obscene fortunes rise and markets once again get cornered, like in some Gilded Era 2.0. The big winners for some reason disdained our progress, similar to the way the Tower of Babble displeased God.

And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Genesis 11.6.

Those that became influential inside the digital renaissance built a nice little world for themselves and needed to make sure the power balance remained the same.

Now we the people can do our own counter research, start our own businesses, and communicate with just about anyone around the world. Our growth was unlimited and considered dangerous. It should be no surprise what happens next.

“Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Genesis 11.7.

You get the picture.

It has literally become tiresome to witness conversations for a movie, book or political discussion devolve into a disagreement then likely a fight. This anomaly has erupted like a rash over our collective through social media and has spilled into the real world with family members who haven’t spoken to each other in months or years.

Can we start communicating again? Will we be the change that’s needed and lead by example?

We started off plugged in, but in truth, we’ve been disconnected to the point where we must shout to be heard.