A typical day: rise, brew the coffee, fill up the mug, pick up the phone, check email. The inbox is full of news about the virus, and spam asking us to buy products “now more than ever,” on account of the virus. Open the web browser: more news about the virus. Tune in public radio: politicians and pundits discussing the virus. Turn on broadcast television: the usual crap, plus yet more news about the virus.
We’re not even through with the first mug of joe, and we’re already past saturation. But what about social media? Twitter: tweet after tweet about the virus. Instagram: pictures and videos of people avoiding the virus. Facebook: post after post of news about the virus. YouTube: news segments (recommended for you!) about the virus.
Please, people, stop. Please. The major news outlets are keeping us plenty informed, and we can go get virus information if and when we want it. But we—you—post what shows up on social media, and if you’ve chosen to be one of those sorts who has made it a full-time vocation to post still more stuff about the virus, then listen, please: you’re not helping. You’re hurting. And you’re doing it for entirely selfish reasons.
You think you’re doing it to help keep your friends and family informed with all the latest tidbits, but what you’re really doing is boasting about how informed you are. Have you seen this? Maybe you missed this? Lucky I stay on top of things!
It’s just virtue signaling, updated for 2020. We get it: you’re desperately concerned about everyone’s welfare, and want to make sure the people you care about are well armed in the fight, and aren’t we so lucky to have you. How benighted we’d be in your absence; how worse off we’d be without you retweeting and reposting all the latest revelations of medical complications, developments in potential treatments and timelines, and the latest idiocies of our consistently idiotic leaders.
Except, of course, we wouldn’t. It’s all around us all the time, this stupid disease. Every day, it’s there. And if we want to read/watch/listen about it, that option is never more than seconds away. So what do you really think you’re doing, except making your own self feel good? You’re certainly not making anyone else feel good.
Worse yet, you’re actively making a lot of people feel bad. There are those of us who live alone, who have small families or none at all, who perhaps are accustomed to having not much face-to-face interaction during the course of a week, but aren’t so accustomed to having none at all. These are scary times, but for many, these are also very lonely times. It’s one thing to be comfortable in relative solitude, but another to have that solitude be complete and enforced.
Social media can be a big help to people in those circumstances. A chance to interact, to catch up, to make jokes, post favorite music and movies, to feel human. But if you’re posting your fifth virus-related article that day, you’re ruining it. You’re taking away that outlet, that escape from the constant barrage of virus news. You’re being selfish, arguably just as selfish as those who go out in public and refuse to mask up. In the latter case, that person is signaling, “look how tough/unfazed/wise-to-the-conspiracy I am!” In your case, it’s, “look how conscious/enlightened/careful I am!”
Really, what’s the difference? The mask-refusers may spread the infection. You’re spreading mental illness. I’d almost rather take my chances with the refuseniks.
You might protest that if we don’t want to read your timeline, we can just block/mute/unfriend you. But that isn’t what we want. We want to hear from you, or we wouldn’t have followed/friended you in the first place. We don’t want less people around; we want less virus around. If we can’t hang out with you in person, we can at least hang out on social media. But not if all you want to talk about is disease.
So please stop. I promise we won’t be any less well informed without having read whatever Times editorial you posted. Andy Beshear gives us a briefing every day at 5:00, and he’s doing a good job of telling us like it is. So is the Herald Leader. So have the local news channels. So has every online newspaper, magazine, cable station—you name it. The story is exceedingly well covered. Please let us have one place where we can get away from it.
Michael Benton
Laughing, virtue signaling. Isn’t that what you do?: “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.”
You have to admit you do engage in quite a bit of sniping online. I saw when you first posted this on social media and the thread that was developing, the first thing I thought was here we go on how you are much more socially evolved than these “rubes” that are trying to make sense of what is going on in their world. I avoided commenting then because it was your profile and whatever… I figured you wouldn’t get enough play and eventually replicate it here.
First off, people use social media for different reasons. Surely you are not trying to lay claim to that it should only be used the way you want it to be used? Some people when they are scared about something might need to talk to others about what is freaking them out? Some people may find intellectual engagement, you know talking, a productive way of reasoning through what perplexes them.
Second, if this is a problem for you, why are you even on twitter, the worst SM forum for avoiding this type of discourse with its 140 words or less and viral nature populated by people simply doing it to advance their careers or buffer their egos. It is literally 24/7 virtue signaling. Twitter is not a forum for keeping tabs on friends and family. You should get on instagram, now words, just a constant flow of pictures. Or, maybe tik tok, just a bunch of dancing and amusing videos.
Facebook, still problematic along these lines, at least allows for extended discussions to evolve and for some kind of learning about a subject to evolve if that is what one is seeking (and kind often when people aren’t seeking it). FB has a mute for a reason. If you don’t want to see their parade of posts about a current subject/issue, you can mute them, and still visit them when you want to see their other posts or pictures or whatever. I use this function with family members or people that slide off the deep end at times (delete button is also handy for trolls and toxic individuals).
So thanks for your virtue signaling – we realize you believe that SM should only be used for your particular needs & wants and that you despise those that don’t know better 😉