Romance ex machina

Social media.

Nice idea, brilliant idea even. At least in concept.

But in practice?

The public promise of facilitating social connections, was secretly (not secretly at all) overridden by the private promise of profit.

Absolute freaks like mark fuckerberg saw social media for what it was: a tool for exploitation.

They used their platforms to collect data, reducing each and every user to a collection of numbers— to track us, to know us, to anticipate us.

And why?

To target us with ads.

It’s not all on mark. This was a grand collaborative effort between him and many gaping assholes who had no qualms about designing their platforms to be downright addictive for societies most vulnerable: children.

Did you know Facebook feeds are designed for endless scrolling? What an innovation.

The endless scrolls are a promise of endless novelty. You never know what you’ll get and if you just scroll a little further you’ll probably find something that makes you laugh, makes you angry, or makes you horny!

It doesn’t really what the feed makes you, as long as it triggers enough of a response to spike your endorphins.

these platforms were quite literally designed to perform like slot machines, the goal was always to hook users on the feeling.

Limitless scrolling through everything from news to memes did what the grocery kart did for retailers: allowed them to drive sales through the roof, by expanding the amount of time a person can immerse themselves in the buying experience.

Now, on socials, the sales are a little convoluted. Most users don’t pay money to access their pages, but we do pay time and boy oh boy do we ever!

Yes we pay a fuck ton of time and that was always the point.

Even the notifications system, that was built to pique engagement— to get you focused and to get you to stay onsite.

I had a professor in a psych course back in 2010 talk about the way Facebook was designed to be addictive.

So this was all known, way back then!

But now we’re seeing news (and ads) for payouts from class action lawsuits against Facebook for the stuff we knew all along: they never gave a fuck about user safety or wellbeing, it was all a numbers game where users (especially children) were nothing but pawns and dollar signs.

But where did fuckerberg generate profit?

The ads.

We talk about our algorithms these days, delivering content the platforms think we will engage with.

yeah, that wasn’t just built to keep us on site for shits and giggles, it was built to keep us on site, soaking up advertisements and marketing, all of which were “personalized” just for us.

I say “personalized” in scare quotes because many of these platforms said it that way themselves, giving users the choice of opting into personalized ads.

As if this was something gracious, as if this was something to be desired.

“Just give us all your data, and we’ll have an easier time manipulating you into buying dumb shit, it’ll be great we promise!”

—Facebook and other socials, apparently

F in the chat, but here it’s not to pay respects. It’s to say fuck each and every tech bro.

But I’m not even here to rant about the toxicity of the ads or the deliberately addictive platforming of social media feeds.

I’m really here to comment on the so called loneliness epidemic.

Social media can’t bear all the guilt there, some of it boils down to financial stress. People are working harder than ever for less buying power than their parents enjoyed.

Wars (and genocides mislabeled as wars) and epidemics and political corruption and natural disasters have shaken the public conscience to a terrible degree. People, all around the globe, are having a hard go of it.

Stress and conflict has pushed people apart, and I don’t just mean in an ideological sense, I mean in a social sense.

People are more guarded, more cautious, and more shy than they used to be.

And also, far more tired.

And a whole entire generation (my generation, I suppose) was raised on social media and has born the brunt of this exhaustion— they are afflicted with such a constant flood of information that they are to some degrees bound to become overloaded, overstimulated, and overwhelmed.

On top of all this, when modern “connected” people actually have the time and the social battery to try and connect with others, they may face the very simple but real obstacle that the others they may wish to connect with themselves too tired to move.

We haven’t gotten the knack for synchronizing our exhaustions yet, so it’s a bit of a numbers game, trying to find the good luck of being available at the same time as somebody you’d actually like to spend time with.

So, starved for social contact, people turn, increasingly to social media, for the promise that was never made in good faith. There, rather than enjoying genuine connection, they encounter more and more and more information.

I worry that to some degree, people who are exposed to social media at increasingly young ages may develop a sort of crutch, if they are not given ample opportunity to practice and develop their in person social skills, they may develop a sort of social atrophy there. I imagine it manifesting as extreme shyness, or awkwardness, where simple things like approaching a stranger become nearly impossible without the aid of a insta dm or a Snapchat.

Sad to think about! Maybe I’m just being a pessimist.

But the loneliness epidemic is a real problem, so much so that I’d venture a bold guess that everyone who reads this write up has probably heard of it.

I HOPE that those reading don’t feel terribly lonely, I hope that those reading enjoy fulfilling friendships and relationships of their own!

But the fact is, many in our modern age feel painfully isolated from others.

In an era where technology should facilitate an extreme ease of connection, people are feeling all too wired and far too distant.

And social media freaks like mark fuckerberg LOVE that.

Really this whole rant wasn’t even about the deliberate social media addiction stuff, nor was it about the targeted ads, nor the financial, social, political, and health stressors many of us are facing.…

This rant is all about ai chat bots.

Because what the FUCK was zuck the fuck talking about when he suggested that the problem of loneliness could be solved by people being friends with ai chat bots.

Bro, please fuck off forever with that noise.

I’d like to see ai used for something therapeutic and beneficial, but if people feel alone, isolated and broken I guarantee you that pretend friendships with algorithms built by the same companies that got us isolated, lonely, and addicted in the first place is NOT the answer.

I literally can’t even.

Reader beware. Zuck wants you to lean into it, to fall in love with his bots.

Tell him and his weird, alien kind to go fuck themselves and stop fucking us.