Member-only story
Social Reality
Human beings are social animals. That’s obvious, right? For much of history, most people ran in circles of maybe knowing a 100 people. There may be a brain barrier to interacting, reasonably, with more than a certain number of people. I don’t know what that number is, but I suspect we’re quickly teasing that number out. The discourse in the news, between governments, between celebrities, between even just lay people, are facing to a degree never seen before- just how much sociability we can stand. It isn’t just ‘people want five minutes of fame,’ but rather- many people isolated from family and friends will seek discourse with humans, turning to media in the form of blogs, tictoks, or tweets to get their social needs met. Humans needs haven’t changed, but our ways of interacting are so loud the world is shaking!
Imagine going through life speaking into a megaphone. That’s your voice on social media.
Drew Barrymore is blowing up in the news because she was seen making jokes and laughing over the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard fiasco. It is definitely a fiasco, but in unusual ways. It’s nuanced by subtle and surreal artifacts that likely wouldn’t have been possible a hundred years ago.
Human beings facing shit make light of it. Doctors and nurses have gallows humor in the breakroom, and over…