General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement [View all]Moostache
(10,114 posts)When I dump on "influencers" what I mean is the incessant and omnipresent chattering monkeys on every social media outlet selling stuff (usually Chinese imported, patent-stealing or ignoring, junk) and a select few becoming social influencers and causing - in my estimation - irreparable harm.
It would take a full-length novel and investigation to do this premise justice, so I will just say that I hold an absolute contempt in my heart, mind and soul for what "social" media has become in the modern world. I accept that at 54 I am dangerously close to being considered a luddite old fogey, shaking his fist at the clouds and yelling at the damn kids to stay off the lawn... so be it. But, there is no convincing me that social media is not the PERFECT vehicle for unregulated and unscrupulous capitalism to run amok with, and as it does so, it leaves a wake of human damage that is never quantified but ever increasing in magnitude.
The dissemination of lies and use of propaganda as a control mechanism is as old as the pyramids (or older), but the breadth and scope of modern BS reach is unmatched in human history. 20 years ago, the internet was nascent and its reach was largely limited to text, as multimedia bandwidth was too extreme for the dispensing tools of the time. Fast forward to now, where physical media (discs, tapes, tangible goods) have been all but eliminated and everything is distributed, downloaded and more and more becoming licensed for use or decoding. Piracy is rife, but the control over the populace is frightening and faster by the week. What once slowed the digital take over of everything - physical size and space requirements - have been eliminated....
So what does that wall of word salad indicate or mean?
Simply this - we are in the midst of another transition period, just as humanity has gone through from stone to bronze to iron to steel and fire to steam engine to internal combustion to electric drive, but in this current transition, there are no authorities, there is no control on the billionaires and their use of money to buy outsized and inappropriate influence - whether in the form of teenage girls dancing and self-exploiting on TikTok and Instagram or int he form of middle-aged excentrics jumping around like a clown behind a modern day fascist. Its all intertwined and related and Carl Sagan's prophecy of a dangerous time when society is awash in technology it does not understand and cannot begin to distinguish from magic.
We are in trouble. There are unspeakable weapons available and a society that is rapidly becoming numb to everything, unaware of the true dangers and potential calamities that are no longer only in the minds of dystopian fiction or horror writer's minds.
Sorry...this is again an insufficient explanation, but its the best I can do off the cuff...