#1 ·
I was scrolling through my feed late last night, just mindlessly clicking through videos, when I stumbled onto something that actually made me put my phone down and stare at the wall for a few minutes. I won't even get into the specific details of what I saw—because honestly, it was so visceral and senseless that I don't think describing it would make anyone feel better—but it left me with this heavy, sinking feeling about where we are as a collective group of people.
It wasn't just about the act itself, though that was clearly disturbing. It was the *vibe* of it. We live in this era where everything is captured, uploaded, and broadcasted instantly. We’ve become a society of spectators, but we’ve also inadvertently become a society of performers. There’s this growing, terrifying subset of people who seem to view reality through a lens of "content creation." To them, nothing is sacred, and no living thing has intrinsic value unless it serves as a backdrop for a viral moment or a way to vent some sudden, inexplicable surge of misplaced aggression.
I find myself wondering: when did we lose the ability to coexist with the world around us without feeling the need to dominate or disrupt it? I’m not just talking about how people treat nature or animals, though that’s a huge part of it. I’m talking about the erosion of empathy in the face of something vulnerable. We see these outbursts—these flashes of pure, unprovoked cruelty—and we realize that for some people, the "social contract" is just a suggestion. They don't care about the laws, the ethical norms, or the basic dignity of a living creature because they are trapped in a loop of their own immediate impulses.
I remember when I was a kid, if you saw someone being mean to a dog or a bird in a park, the collective gasp from the people around you was almost physical. There was a shared sense of "how could you?" It felt like there was a baseline level of decency that everyone agreed upon. Now, it feels like that baseline is constantly shifting downward. It’s like we’re watching a slow-motion collapse of basic human decency, fueled by a weird cocktail of anonymity, impulsivity, and a total lack of consequences in the moment.
And then there's the digital aspect. The fact that these moments are filmed means they live forever. We are building a digital archive of our worst impulses. We’ve created a world where a person can have a single, terrible lapse in judgment—or worse, a premeditated moment of malice—and that moment becomes their entire identity, burned into the internet for eternity. It’s a strange kind of justice, isn't it? The "internet mob" often steps in to provide the punishment that the actual legal system might be too slow or too limited to deliver, but it also turns every tragedy into a spectacle.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the psychology of it lately. Is it a lack of impulse control? Is it a symptom of how disconnected we’ve become from the natural world? Or is it just that the "audience" has become so large that the individual feels like their actions don't matter, as long as they get a reaction? It feels like we are losing the "quiet" parts of being human—the parts that involve respect, observation, and just leaving things be.
I’m curious to hear what you guys think about this shift. Do you think we’re actually becoming more cruel, or is it just that we’re finally seeing the cruelty that was always there because everyone has a camera in their pocket now? Is there a way to get back to that baseline of empathy, or is the "spectacle culture" too far gone?
It wasn't just about the act itself, though that was clearly disturbing. It was the *vibe* of it. We live in this era where everything is captured, uploaded, and broadcasted instantly. We’ve become a society of spectators, but we’ve also inadvertently become a society of performers. There’s this growing, terrifying subset of people who seem to view reality through a lens of "content creation." To them, nothing is sacred, and no living thing has intrinsic value unless it serves as a backdrop for a viral moment or a way to vent some sudden, inexplicable surge of misplaced aggression.
I find myself wondering: when did we lose the ability to coexist with the world around us without feeling the need to dominate or disrupt it? I’m not just talking about how people treat nature or animals, though that’s a huge part of it. I’m talking about the erosion of empathy in the face of something vulnerable. We see these outbursts—these flashes of pure, unprovoked cruelty—and we realize that for some people, the "social contract" is just a suggestion. They don't care about the laws, the ethical norms, or the basic dignity of a living creature because they are trapped in a loop of their own immediate impulses.
I remember when I was a kid, if you saw someone being mean to a dog or a bird in a park, the collective gasp from the people around you was almost physical. There was a shared sense of "how could you?" It felt like there was a baseline level of decency that everyone agreed upon. Now, it feels like that baseline is constantly shifting downward. It’s like we’re watching a slow-motion collapse of basic human decency, fueled by a weird cocktail of anonymity, impulsivity, and a total lack of consequences in the moment.
And then there's the digital aspect. The fact that these moments are filmed means they live forever. We are building a digital archive of our worst impulses. We’ve created a world where a person can have a single, terrible lapse in judgment—or worse, a premeditated moment of malice—and that moment becomes their entire identity, burned into the internet for eternity. It’s a strange kind of justice, isn't it? The "internet mob" often steps in to provide the punishment that the actual legal system might be too slow or too limited to deliver, but it also turns every tragedy into a spectacle.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the psychology of it lately. Is it a lack of impulse control? Is it a symptom of how disconnected we’ve become from the natural world? Or is it just that the "audience" has become so large that the individual feels like their actions don't matter, as long as they get a reaction? It feels like we are losing the "quiet" parts of being human—the parts that involve respect, observation, and just leaving things be.
I’m curious to hear what you guys think about this shift. Do you think we’re actually becoming more cruel, or is it just that we’re finally seeing the cruelty that was always there because everyone has a camera in their pocket now? Is there a way to get back to that baseline of empathy, or is the "spectacle culture" too far gone?