good ass effort post i thought, using brat to discuss the current social landscape
The commentary on Mr Beast was interesting. Mr Beast's own commentary on himself was interesting too.
I'll be chewing on this for a while, thanks for posting it.
There's something to that idea of "feelings with no one to feel them." I do get that impression sometimes, like this synthetic advertiser culture we're surrounded with wants us to bounce from impulse to impulse without a solid core self to direct our behavior. It's alienating that our culture is drowned in advertisements that reflect only our
baseconsumptive impulses back at us, and not any kind of deeper selfhood. It hides our commonalities with the people around us and makes "collective projects" (as Alexander put it) feel impossible.As someone with ADHD and diminished executive function, I feel especially susceptible to this. (*To clarify, I’m talking about losing touch with myself, not dopamine-seeming. I find it especially alienating to not see myself reflected in the media landscape around me, because it feels like my already tenuous selfhood is being further erased.)
I do think we should be careful about demonizing prescription drugs though, a small portion of this video does seem to go in that direction. Personally I've benefited from treatments for depression and ADHD. I probably wouldn't have made it through school without medication.
As someone with ADHD and diminished executive function, I feel especially susceptible to this
This is why I feel like takes like this video are often kind of... crypto-ableist. Because a lot of the implication is that our adhd symptoms would just disappear if capitalism wasn't around. Think about how stuff like watching a video essay while doing the dishes or not sitting around for the 45 seconds is mocked and ridiculed in that video.
What is the actual harm of those of us who are neurodivergent and benefit from keeping ourselves busy? I understand the emotions in the concerns over being unable to do collective action, but this seems misplaced. I've never felt out "base impulses" as much of a barrier to revolution. Yes, they can be problematic if misguided, and capitalists often attempt to do this quite often, but it is those same impulses that lead to revolution in the first place.
And people don't give up those impulses en masse. What purpose does commenting on all of this serve? The "opiates" of checks notes, uh, fun things, are not like religion. You can't really get people to revolt against and defect from a behavior that actually makes them feel more satisfied because of direct biophysical reasons, like you can with people who are committed to religion out of fear and social obligation.
It infuriates me when I see people debase and insult these "base impulses", "primitive drives" (what a problematic phrase). There is nothing about being human that isn't those drives. There is internal selfhood, but it is a composite, a powerful personal meshing of all of our intense desires and drives into a cognisant reality.
And some might recoil at this idea. Does this mean caring about others is impossible? Teamwork? Honesty? No.
Social interaction and morality is a 'base drive' for many, if not most, people, just like sex or comfort or shelter or food. We pretend it isn't because those drives are crushed and starved because they are actively harmful for maintaining oppression.
We will never get people to give up any attempt to densitize themselves by indulging these desires. It is simply not something that can be done on a collective level. Attempting to go against these desires on a social level is extremely hard if not outright impossible.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a conclusion that only really effects one group of people: Those who are, for many reasons, drawn to specific forms of self-soothing using 'consumeristic' methods. And many of these are exploited, yes! Social media is a generally coercive mentally harmful shitfest. The same is true of a lot of marketing schemes and strategies. But that doesn't mean that like, people who like microblogging are committing a moral failing.
It means they deserve platforms and ways of indulging those desires without being manipulated. It means we should be doing harm reduction by informing and creating healthier and safer forms of what are currently harmful forms of recreation.
So the only actual person this sort of moral panic about widespread addict culture helps... is people who don't want visibly disabled or neurodivergent people around them. They want us to hide our suffering and our issues, to not make them things they have to observe. People will anaesthize regardless, they just want the anaesthization neurodivergent people indulge in to be invisible and "normal".
There is no failing or issue with watching a video essay while doing the dishes. But there is something evil about someone who wants to exploit the person watching video essays. And there is something evil about trying to morally judge behavior you deem strange and concerning because you personally can't relate to it (not you, person I'm replying to. "You" as in essay video maker)
Ableism and the scapegoating of social media CEO's, disguised as a leftist social critique. I don't know if that's literally true but it's how it feels to me whenever I see this stuff, like with "dopamine fasting" "biohackers" or whatever.
I believe we are talking about two different things.
I understand the emotions in the concerns over being unable to do collective action [because of lack of executive function]
This is not my angle at all.
I'm saying collective action comes from collective feeling, but all too often the synthetic culture around us only shows us ourselves as consumers, not as human beings capable of collective feelings that would lead to collective action. Synthetic capitalist culture doesn't show us an authentic reflection of ourselves, it shows us what it wants us to be, and I think this is stifling, alienating, and suppresses collective action.
It infuriates me when I see people debase and insult these "base impulses", "primitive drives" (what a problematic phrase). There is nothing about being human that isn't those drives.
When I say base impulses, it's not a synonym for "primitive," it's not a value judgment about those impulses, I just don't have a lot of vocabulary on hand to make the distinction I'm trying to make. Your next sentence is something I might have written myself:
There is internal selfhood, but it is a composite, a powerful personal meshing of all of our intense desires and drives into a cognisant reality.
Exactly. There is a deeper part of you that integrates all these feelings. Advertiser culture does not speak to that deeper part of you. It says "you want a burger." It doesn't say "you are a person." Same goes for a lot of other capitalist media.
moral panic about widespread addict culture
Addictiveness is not the main thing that bothers me, but I do think escaping from yourself to an excessive degree can be harmful. I have spent the last ten years numbing myself online, and I do think it has hurt me. I feel hollow. I eventually installed a browser plugin that prevents youtube from recommending videos to me, not because I've internalized a protestant work ethic, but because the constant escape from myself was starting to make me feel sick.
I am disagreeing with the video, not you. I agree advertising is dehumanizing and such. My concern is just... I didn't watch the video, because I really don't want to subject myself to another thing basically telling me I'm a moral failure, but I do not like the Vibe of victim blaming takes like that have. I was referring to the video and not you with my previous reply, I have no beef with anything you said
Edit: for all I know the video could include none of that, I probably should have just ignored this post instead of commenting and stuff
*Took me a while to write this comment, didn't see your edit. Fwiw I recommend the latter half of the video.
I hope this doesn't sound confrontational by text, but have you watched the video or did you quit after he started talking about drugs?
The parts of the video I was responding to were the "market fetishism," "dysphoria mundi," and "enough" sections, roughly the last half of the video. I do think he has some interesting things to say here. This is where he gets into the "feelings with no one to feel them" idea. That's what I meant when I said "I feel especially susceptible to this" as a person with ADHD. I'm prone to losing touch with myself.
I understand what you're saying here but
It became a chicken-and-egg problem where I rotted to escape the pain of rotting.
I mean? I guess I do the same thing? But I really really do not view it that way. It's more like distracting myself with things I know are safe and happiness inducing. I try to avoid advertisements and social media, I just focus on interacting with actual friends and doing normal fun activities.
I really, really don't want to watch the second half of a video explain to me how I need to change my lifestyle and self-flagellate. I've come to realize there are external reasons I have the habits I do and no matter how much I'm worried I'm hurting myself by being a computer nerd or being a furry I'll always fall back on these things as long as they actually serve me, as long as I have genuine reasons for it.
Pathologizing that seems extremely harmful. Viewing, say, the usage of this site, as rotting myself or being a failing of character that I haven't stopped, can't be healthy in and of itself. To constantly do things and then hate oneself for it, repeatedly unable to change anything because of an individualistic perspective of choice and behavior, feels immensely unpleasant and the fact so many people think that way scares me. I think the chance of such self deprecation being unhealthy is way worse than the chance that enjoying playing video games is actually part of a capitalist plot to destroy my sense of self to stop me from revolting.
I understand where you're coming from but stuff like the "45 second silence" absolutely infuriates me. I refuse to subject myself to listening to someone with that level of condescension and infantilization of their own viewers. It's unbelievable. I'll continue building in Minecraft and they can fuck off with their weird gotcha attempt. I don't enjoy being bored. Who does? I'm not going to purposely torture myself just so I feel more morally pure about my hobbies.
And also, I think the whole not having a sense of self in the way people usually describe it is just a common autistic thing. There's a reason "kins" are so popular among autistic people as well as an inability to describe one's own feelings in words. Our experience with identity is simply vastly different from a neurotypical person's, it has been before computers were as frequently used, too.
Sorry, I edited a bunch out of my comment before i saw your response, including the part you quoted. I decided it was too personal.
I really, really don't want to watch the second half of a video explain to me how I need to change my lifestyle and self-flagellate.
that's not what the second half of the video is about, or I wouldn't be recommending it to you. The dysphoria part, for example, is what it says on the tin, it's about dysphoria. It's just cultural analysis, not about what you personally should do.
To constantly do things and then hate oneself for it, repeatedly unable to change anything because of an individualistic perspective of choice and behavior, feels immensely unpleasant and the fact so many people think that way scares me.
I don't want to misinterpret, but are you saying I hate myself? I don't feel ashamed of "rotting on the computer." I feel upset about it. That's not a feeling someone else put in me. It's not internalized protestant work ethic or ableism or whatever else. I genuinely do not like the experience.
There were external reasons, but there was also the feedback loop I mentioned, the chicken and egg. That's my personal experience and I'm sure it's different for everyone, but it's a way that i personally relate to the idea from the video of "feelings with no one to feel them."
Ah ok. Sorry I kind of interpret negative adjectives as moral judgements very easily.
i definitely agree that that segment was not handled with the thoughtfulness it deserved. i also have benefited/am benefiting from prescription drugs.
What in tarnation is that title and cw combination. This seems like narcan for Internet poisoning should be required past this point.
i'm realizing i totally brain-holed that part after it passed, maybe i should delete this post. you're not wrong, and i'm also certainly not a proponent of rawdogging reality/am never not being altered by a chemical. i still clearly have my own shit to work on because i took in that ableism like it was valid criticism.
I might be being too harsh, idk. I just hear this stuff all the time and when you have like 4 mental disorders it feels like a slap in the face. Like, they're right, it's not good that I need all these distractions to function. It's sad that there's this burden of a "box" we all feel we need to keep ourselves tied to to be free, whether it's meds or tv shows or weed or whatever. But it feels so... dehumanizing. Disheartening and sinister. As someone with impulsive and chronic anxious thoughts, it's shocking how well stuff like this replicates those thoughts. It feels like- All of it gives this same distinct impression of psychic self-harm, a coercive and compulsive attempt to get you to keep engaging with fears that never go away even when you challenge them, because that's how compulsive thoughts work, they get stronger the more you try to "disprove" them.
People love to give meditation as an answer to this stuff, and it works, but the way they suggest it implies it makes you able to stay there and think. But it doesn't. Meditation is great because it's not thinking, it's allowing yourself to rest your mind, to not engage your anxieties. So when people suggest such a thing as a replacement for, uh, other ways to not think... it comes across very strongly as someone who does not really understand meditation, but that has twisted themselves into this moral knot/trap because they can tell something is wrong but they can't bring themselves to be angry at capital and those in power for holding the things they love and cope with hostage, and have to blame The Thing Itself. Or themselves. It very much comes across as people exchanging one form of "mental fire extinguisher" for another that feels less morally loaded to them. Because video games, drugs, even prescription medication, have all of these (sometimes arbitrary and constructed) moral stigmas associated with them. So they force themselves to do a more "wholesome" activity instead of trying to ask themselves why they need to use a mental fire extinguisher. And I feel like if people did that more, asked why they needed it, they would judge themselves far less for using it lmao
I hope someone else who's disabled or has multiple mental issues chimes in here. I wouldn't delete it until then. My personal experiences, where arguments and stuff like this is mostly the content of mental self-harm and not actual solutions, is either something I'm completely misperceiving (as in I'm deep in denial), or others don't experience because it's just a very unique form of compulsive thoughts.
So don't delete it until you get responses. Maybe cross post with c/neurodivergent or c/disabled to see their thoughts. Also don't beat yourself up, the youtuber's other videos look very based and again I have a really weird perspective on this so I don't think you're problematic for liking the video or finding it helpful.
i think i'll leave it up for now since it's not uniformly bad then, but i do really empathize with your feelings about being alive as applied to the content. i got too burned out to work almost two years ago and i'm only alive and happy as i am because i can accept that almost all of society is at this point cruel and wrong about almost everything, and the people around me in particular are more supportive than that.
Should I link it to c/disabled and c/neurodivergent to see people's opinions?
It reminds me of cripplepunk and more radical perspectives of addiction- There's this knee jerk desire to view it as a moral failing when it seems far more radical to me to see being "functional" (aka not needing any of these things, just rawdogging reality etc, being mentally stable or well kempt or productive or whatever) as an arbitrary ableist signifier. Aka the core philosophy of cripplepunk (not caring about being "functional" or a "good disabled"). But I might be overapplying that philosophy here and preventing my own growth. I genuinely don't know. It's so hard to tell the difference between ableism, social criticism, and genuine advice sometimes, because unfortunately even social philosophers are not immune to brainworms and also unfortunately I am not either and this could just be addiction defending
Deleted my top level comments - they were hurtful, emotional, and not productive
Thanks for the CW, I feel like I take serious psychic damage every time I see that eldritch thumbnail face.
