Small-Talent-For-War t1_iwz1inr wrote
Reply to comment by 22OregonJB in Social media makes us feel terrible about who we really are. Neuroscience and philosopher Guy Debord can explain why – and empower us to fight back by ADefiniteDescription
There is a complementary discussion toward the idea of "representation" in the media. Diversity and representation in media is generally very good, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to be something that can be artificially or intentionally moderated. Our arts and media - stories, in general - are reflections or imitations of life, but the focus on the necessity or importance of representation in what are essentially various forms of fictions (even the news is in part often fictionalized to present a "story" - the people in the story become characters that likely are as unrecognizable to the actual people as a actor playing them in a TV movie would be).
However, the emphasis on representation seems to imply that real life or the real people should actually model their behavior after what they see in the media - as opposed to actual "IRL" interactions with their families, friends and colleagues.
Commercial media is and has always been a horrible place for real people to live. It has unrealistic expectations and incredibly life-threatening traumatic events on a regular basis. We get immersed in stories for the exact reason that they are not our lives, but drama is something we should all want to avoid in our real lives. I don't think Aristotle really explained all of drama in his short Poetics, but I agree that it is better to leave all the bloodshed, incest and murder in the theater rather than let it spill out on the street.
Also, even more tangentially, it does concern me a little bit that the commercial media has somewhat colonized and monopolized our imaginations. That rather than the shared myths and legends of the past, copyrighted, stage managed, and corporate owned products from Star Wars to Marvel to Pixar to Netflix, etc., makes up our culture (or pseudo-culture).
They are called "I.P." or "intellectual property" and that property is really owned usually by some massive corporation rather than any particular author and certainly not by the culture at large. Yet, really, the property where these products operate is in our own imaginations. In a sense, we're not really buying these products with our money, but with pieces of our own minds.
I think that the fact however a person defines their identity, it involves all sorts of commercial accessories to express it even in one's own imagination. It's commercial culture.
22OregonJB t1_iwzb8hg wrote
Damn. That is one of the most articulate well thought out arguments I have seen in my 6 years on Reddit. I had to read it 3 times to understand it and it makes perfect sense to me as that is what’s happening around us.
But it leaves me asking why the majority of us continue to let this dictate our lives. I know it’s instinctively in us to compare but we continue to compare ourselves to lives that we know are false or not attainable.
Not sure what your taste in music is but this makes me think of a song called propaganda by Dax. There is a powerful scene in the video when he goes to check on a friend he hasn’t heard from. That friend is sitting in a recliner staring at the news on a TV in a almost comatose state. While there is a huge white beam of energy shooting in him from that TV. It goes on to say that the news ticker at the bottom of the screen is called a news feed and we are a product of what we feed our brain.
When I learned about stoicism and the fact that we have virtually no control of the things that happen around and to us only how we react to it I was able to see things differently. Comparing my life to others made less sense after internalizing that. Instead of comparing myself to others I break down each day by contrasting my actions against the virtues I believe to be important and if I took the correct steps to live my best life that day. This is not to say that I don’t find myself doing exactly what you explained at times but it helps center me when I do.
Small-Talent-For-War t1_iwzg5ap wrote
Those are good points. Particularly in the sense that we are so connected to our media fairly constantly - and honestly have been since radio and television. Even the "Post" and print were fairly ubiquitous. It brings up the question how much of our lives and personalities are actually the result of the essentially fictional or imaginary products that occupy so much of our day to day time and attention.
"We are what we consume" in a sense and since most of what we consume is media, then we are what we watch as well.
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