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Naomi Kanakia's avatar

What about simulating vulnerability to create a parasocial relationship with one’s followers? Surely this okay (and even encouraged)

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a potential space's avatar

this is interesting. in general, I think I also favor here and now, ie removing yourself from the stories you've crafted about yourself and dropping into the present moment, but I also feel that it's prone to meta dissociation. a vulnerable reflection is at least narratively solid, something to ground yourself in, even if it might be fiction in part

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PsyXe's avatar

People who insist that you should be vulnerable generally want to hurt you.

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Eschatron9000's avatar

I'm unclear what "vulnerability" means. When I see people praised for being vulnerable, it's usually over something like "I went to a shadow work flame meditation retreat workshop and I was very scared". How tf are you gonna hurt someone with this information?

I suppose the intent is that you could say "wow you were so brave" or "looool you were scared? everyone point and laugh at this coward", and in real life, the latter would be hurtful, so it's a vulnerable thing to say to a friend. But I very much doubt that an internet rando can use it to be any more hurtful than the no-information baseline "kill yourself you dumb bitch".

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Andrew Shade Blevins's avatar

This is great, I’ve been having similar thoughts about the outsized memetic fitness of vulnerability and wondering what else is available for honest essay-as-sense-making type online writing.

Who (if anyone) do you think of as doing this here-and-now thing? Would be nice to have examples.

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