Conformist culture

I have been saying it for years. We are living in the most mindless conformist era in the history of humanity. The internet certainly hasn't changed my mind.

Although social networking is a very long way from reaching where I thought it would be a decade ago, I still see potential. I have tried maintaining a small social networking presence in hopes of seeing long overdue progress. Among the abundant problems with social networking is the over-the-top conformity embraced by most users.

Take a look at viral videos. These videos become so popular that people watch just because they don't want to be left out. People aren't watching what personally interests them. They watch what others are watching. This is especially problematic for videos that go viral for how stupid they are.

Then you get into the memes. Originally, these were primarily popular social network posts that everybody seems to share. Some memes were built around popular culture. To get these memes, you had to watch the same movies and television shows as whoever created the meme. In some cases, they even reference unwatchable viral videos.

This has been followed by meme editors. These are primarily websites that allow you to edit an image to include your own text. In a sense, stupid templates become viral. For example, people were being warned that something that couldn't possibly be found in candy bars was being reported as found in candy bars. Huh? Am I missing something? That's not clever. It's flat out stupid.

The issue isn't just with memes. There are a lot of internet users who think it's clever to make a reference to their favorite show in a public post. In order for these references to make sense, you have to enjoy the same programming as the poster.

This goes beyond the various forms of video I have mentioned. Sometimes quotes or stats can go viral. This includes misquotes and misinformation. It's a very common occurrence for internet topics to be built around a false narrative. The only way for some popular posts to make sense is if you are incredibly gullible.

I will admit that I make references myself. Usually, this is at home where I know people are more likely to be subjected to what I have been watching. If you have paid attention, I don't use many references online. This is because I don't want to assume readers know my personal interests.

Take a look at the election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I openly voted for Jo Jorgensen. Why? Let's just say I wasn't going to vote for Kodos just to keep Kang out of the White House.

I just made a reference to a classic Simpsons episode. If you are familiar enough with the episode, it should be obvious what I meant. What if you never saw that episode? What I just said won't make much sense. Perhaps you could figure it out from the context, but this is a horrible way to publicly share my viewpoint.

In this example, there are a lot of people who would get my reference. As a non-conformist, I don't allow others to dictate my interests. This means that I will have both popular and unpopular interests. Most references I could make would leave a vast majority of the population confused.

Social networking, as it currently exists, is based on the idea of users converging around common interests. You can get a lot more out of social networking if you conform to mainstream interests. For those of us who refuse to allow others to control our lives, most posts are just confusing. Simply put, social networking has become dependent on a culture of mindless conformity.