10 Comments
Sep 7, 2023Liked by sympathetic opposition

I've always loved the framing that stories are truer than reality, a distillation of the stuff of truth

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at the very least in fiction its more possible to show what people feel privately & how they think & act when their only audience is their own superego

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Sep 8, 2023Liked by sympathetic opposition

That's an incredibly apt metaphor!

The social media equivalent of the pathogens would be stuff like ilness spread via social contagion, then?

It seems like you're counting substack as social media. I can see why it should, but I intuitively don't place it in the same category as facebook etc. E.g., I can say that I'm not on social media even though I'm on substack and goodreads and lurk on reddit and I don't feel like I'm lying.

Maybe it's about the site's mechanisms? Feed vs. content you specifically seek out, likelihood of coming across something that's specifically selected for pissing off people like you, etc.

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instant access to non-mutual relationships is social media to me

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Sep 8, 2023Liked by sympathetic opposition

I felt self-conscious about almost "doing the raw thing" in this comment, then deleted the paragraph beginning with "I'm terrified of social media"...

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lmao yeah it seems to be making ppl feel self conscious i wonder if i could have better written it in a less uncomfy way

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maybe, but I can't come up with any, sorry :)

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Sep 10, 2023Liked by sympathetic opposition

Remember to add plenty of emotional MSG

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love this. metaphors are perfect for the concept and i also really see what you’re saying in my own patterns/life.

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Brilliant. I love this analogy.

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