10 Comments
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Scott Hansen's avatar

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

sympathetic opposition's avatar

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

Antonia Caenis's avatar

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.

sympathetic opposition's avatar

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

Antonia Caenis's avatar

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"...

sympathetic opposition's avatar

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

Antonia Caenis's avatar

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

JJHW's avatar

Remember to add plenty of emotional MSG

finnigan (she/him, he/her)'s avatar

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

Aster Langhi's avatar

Brilliant. I love this analogy.