What Gets Propagated Online

Mass communication, what can be spread, what causes it to be spread

Okay, so what can we spread online? Text, sound and sight. The remaining senses seem left out, hard to spread touch taste and smell. But arguably, what gets spread the most often in mass broadcasts is emotion.

Think about Radio Rwanda, causing genocides. Father coughlin, talk radio in general. What’s the deal with the platonic fake story, that shows up on Am I The Asshole, or on your morning radio show? What’s the deal with the prevalence of gender and race ragebait, why is it so everpresent? Technically any text, sound, or sight can be shared. What ends up shared, in these mass communication outlets?

So, the hypothesis I have is that what gets spread has to do with emotions, our baser instincts. I can retcon this into some desire framework, some bottom-up causing action BS, but for now, let’s just explore the hypothesis.¹ How are mass communication tools used, both when they start out, and when they mature?

This is going to be difficult without researching, oh well, let’s see what my memory and imagination can do. The first mass communication tool I know about is the european printer, sorry china, don’t know much about you. Immediately used to spread heresies about the one true god, allah. Where does that fall on my emotion scale? Idk, religion maybe should be it’s own category? Definitely something about identity, but honestly, it really feels almost more factual, or about power. Idk, in fact the first type of mass communications definitely seem more power/info based, it’s not until radio that I’m familiar with emotion-based riling up. Whether this is because of the actual facts of history, or just my shitty knowledge-base, who knows. Anyway, tlaking about the past without research is like talking about your dreams without one of those fancy Inception machines. Too wispy.

So, moving on to the present day, because, honestly, all I know about the Father Coughlin and Radio Rwanda stuff is that it existed. Also FDR fireside chats, maybe there’s something about promoting feeling of safety, or parasocial relationship with the president. Anyway, all this stuff was in the past, which means it’s not important and impossible to learn from.

If we think about current day mass media, we’ve got twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube, the big 4. Maybe pinterest and tumblr if you want to not be sexist about it. Oh yeah tiktok, lmao I’m old. Anyway, what gets spread on these channels? Lots of food and sex stuff, politics as well. It’s interesting that while politics traditionally connotes power, I think a lot of politics stuff these days is emotionally bent, of course there was always a moral aspect to politics, but idk, it just seems a little more charged, less info/power, more posturing/promotion/good-personing.

also songs! Songs are such an emotion thing, and that’s what youtube used to all be about, at least until parasociality reached a fever pitch and the online media had to supply the friend as well as the emotion, not just the emotion you could share to the irl friend.

So youtube is songs and parasocial entities, with gaming channels and react channels and whatnot. Facebook and twitter are ragebait genderslop, Instagram is softcore and food and nature and celebrity. Arguably besides base emotions like hunger and attraction, it’s more of a power game than the others, but to be honest I don’t use any of these sites “correctly”, and I may be making stuff up about them. Tiktok is songs, drama, idk have the least familiarity with it.

Anyway, this was supposed to have some payoff about how what causes people to spread things online is due to some intensification of emotion, or desire to spread that emotion, but I really didn’t make any argument, and I’m not really sure how to do so. It involves taking a break from talking about the platforms, and moving towards the motives of the users on the platforms, but me doing that would probably be rude and misinformed, and I try to only be one of those at a time.

Enjoy some mostly unrelated thoughts about smell and therapy.

There’s something really interesting about smell, I think, in that there doesn’t seem to be in the body that tells you you haven’t been smelling things. Like, for taste and touch, there’s (arguably, I will admit this is tenuous) hunger and arousal respectively. There’s a set point, maybe, or just some level of awareness of the lack of these senses’ use. This doesn’t seem to exist with smell.

Perhaps I am a freak when it comes to smell, I don’t know. But I don’t think many people go, “you know what, I haven’t had any good smells in a while”. I could be wrong.

I walked outside, gorgeous day, and was trying to “smell the roses”, as I’ve been instructed to by society. But of course, I didn’t smell shit, because roses don’t even smell anymore! This trait has been bred out, roses used to stiiiiink. I can’t remember if this was bred out of roses because the smell was disquieting, or because it allowed for bigger and brighter roses. I think it was the former, the latter makes my point better though. No research, that’s cheating. Hell, this could be all made up, you wouldn’t even know, ain’t that fucked? You have to trust me or something, or look it up yourself. You won’t though, nobody looks things up. Anyways, this shows that the prejudice against smell wasn’t started by the computer, although I’m sure it hasn’t helped.

Another tangent, the push for therapy is such classic top down vs. bottom up, go see a priest so you know which desires are noble and which are prurient. Yeah I know therapists help you decipher your own feelings, if you need someone else’s approval for that you’re already more than a little fucked. I’m not saying don’t do therapy, I’m saying mass therapy is indicative of a sick culture that breeds a lack of self-trust.

1. One problem of writing is that it’s difficult to write and research at the same time, they’re separate modes, and adding real research causes friction, which isn’t the point of these screeds. One day soon I’ll figure out a method for making pieces that are researched and well-thought out. Not today, it probably involves multiple phases. Vomiting out ideas, researching to see what’s fruitful, trying to connect what’s left, another period of delving deep, followed by probably 3 tries at making a passable first draft, and then actually editing. Sounds disgusting, but I’ll get there in my own way, slowly and then all at once, or maybe quickly progressing through baby steps. Not sure yet. This endless monologuing is getting old though, want to replace it with some new manner of writing.