Telepathy (random)

[elainegrey]

I am suspicious as many are that "social media" has driven the darker impulses of human behavior. But when i think of the national guard in Washington DC right now, i think of Oklahoma City, Waco, and Ruby Ridge. Talk radio was there before social media. A friend mentioned GamerGate as presaging violence, and all i could think about was the violence which has been a throughline for America, against the indigenous peoples, against Blacks (what a complicated construct, that), against women. Social media has let us hear what people used to say in the confine of their own heads, or in a bar, or in the hall, or the locker room. I think of the speculative fiction tropes about telepathy and how hearing unfiltered thoughts of so many can drive one mad.

"Don't read the comments."

That's my unfiltered thoughts. Christine and i spent some time these past weeks talking about social media as she prepares her next chapter in The Soundtrack of Now. I realize how narrowly i scope "social media" and how myopic my thought is. I think about blogging and facebook and twitter and wouldn't have thought of Flickr and youtube and medium.