Offline with Jon Favreau - Welcome to the Take Recession

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

Kate Lindsay, author of internet culture newsletter Embedded, joins Offline to talk about whether the hottest take is to have no take at all. Kate’s most recent Atlantic piece is titled “Is It Time to Embrace “Opinion Fatigue?” which argues that the internet is getting sick of discourse. She and Jon discuss how we arrived at this take apocalypse, how Gen Z cares less about their digital footprints, and how older generations are thinking harder about the virtual caches they pass on to loved ones after they die. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

What is the value of me knowing and following these controversies, let alone participating in them? Right. Like I felt that about the submarine, the submersible. I tried to avoid it for so long. And then I got, I mean, so long, four days, however, whatever the time frame was. And then I finally got sucked in. And I just remember I spent the whole day I found out just like deep breathing because I was like, now I just know that it turns out this wasn't the case, I guess, thankfully. But at that time, the thinking was there were five people losing oxygen under the sea as we all spoke. And I couldn't get that out of my brain.

And there was ultimately no reason for me to know anything about that. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey, everyone. My guest today is Kate Lindsay, writer of Embedded, a phenomenal newsletter about internet culture. I can't believe we haven't had Kate on the show yet. She's reported about parents getting social media handles for their newborns in the New York Times, content creators struggling to prove they're human in The Verge, and she popularized the phrase millennial pause in The Atlantic, a term I wasn't familiar with, but I'm apparently guilty of. Any of those pieces could have made a great offline

episode, but we finally decided to reach out to Kate after she wrote a piece in Bustle that gave me a little hope called, Is it time to embrace opinion fatigue? That's right. We might finally be getting sick of posting our takes. We're tired of all the comments. We're sick of all the criticism. We just don't want to deal with the social media shit show anymore. And I get it.

We started the show to talk about the impact of social media on our emotional and mental health. So I was excited to read that people might be pulling back. But I wasn't sure it's going to last, so I invited Kate on to talk more about her piece. We talked about how we arrived at this take apocalypse, the way TikTok supercharged discourse, and the way opinion fatigue seems to be more common in left-leaning spaces. I also asked her about some of her other reporting, which led to a great conversation about how Gen Z cares less about their digital footprints and about how older generations are thinking harder about the digital footprints they pass on to loved ones after they die. A story that's really stayed with me. As always, if you have comments, questions or episode ideas, please email us at offline at cricket.com and stick around after the break. Max joins me in the studio to talk through the political debate over the new viral

hit, Rich Men North of Richmond. Here's Kate Lindsay. Kate Lindsay, welcome to Offline. Hi, thank you for having me. I love your writing. Thank you so much. You have a fantastic newsletter about the internet called Embedded that everyone should check out. You've written about a lot of the themes that we discuss on this show. And you recently wrote a take that I have quietly been hoping is true for a while now. And that take is that people are sick of takes.

Specifically sharing their opinions online. What made you think that this might be happening? Well, so similar to you is one of those takes, ironically, that had been like simmering in the back of my brain for a while, but that I think a lot of us particularly in progressive spaces don't want to voice because the kind of like canceled culture you can't say anything or saying things is becoming fraught has been so I think effectively weaponized by right-wing spaces that you're like well I don't want to sound like that so I'm gonna say it's fine it's fine everything's fine um and at least that's what for me and so then but you know I just

honestly I'd come across a creator who I interview in the piece named Michelle who had just bravely said the thing of like it is really impossible to talk about things right now because there is such a huge audience for everyone, more so than ever before, which means that kind of inevitably you're going to have to contend with negative feedback in ways that can be exhausting. And sometimes the feedback's valid. Sometimes, in your opinion, the feedback may not be valid. But it's really a problem of just, we've never had this many people in a room. And so you're just getting,

you're not really speaking to an audience of people who have elected to listen to you. And many times you're speaking to people who you have just come across, which can just result in having to battle a lot of responses from people who don't know you or are skeptical of you or who just don't have the context for what you're saying. And they'll come in kind of out of left field with a response that then it can feel like you

have to address. And so I think all of that is culminated in just like, you know what, I don't want to deal with that. I'm just not going to say anything. So I totally agree. I also think that, I mean, that's always been sort of the structure of social media platforms and just life online. But it has felt that this trend that you're describing is like somewhat recent. And I'm wondering if there was like a tipping point or a period of time where you noticed that this was sort of the, this is what made people start having opinion fatigue because, you know, there was a, I think there was a period probably like, you know, 2015 through 2018,

maybe when all of that was happening people were getting attacked online you post something everyone's yelling at you but um you know people were just posting away yeah i would honestly say it's tiktok because of a little bit of the reasons that i spoke about before we're like yeah like um twitter used to mean it still is but whatever's left of Twitter still is a place for hot takes and dunking on each other and going viral. But going viral on Twitter or creating discourse on Twitter like is is frequent. But TikTok is specifically designed to get someone who has who may have literally no following that has no bearing on how well their video can do. So like, you know, someone can have maybe literally zero.

But if their video, you know, gets picked by the algorithm or often it's if it starts gaining traction early, if it prompts engagement, it can go viral completely irrespective of whether or not that person has a platform. With Twitter, that isn't really the case because you need people following you to show up on their feed or, you know, original Twitter, because now because of TikTok, so many places like Twitter and Instagram have really prioritized discovery and algorithms and just getting content in front of strangers versus who you're following. And so that would be my guess as to how this started is that more so we make content for strangers, not necessarily our audience.

Or we have to have strangers more in mind because they are just as likely to come across our content. On TikTok specifically, there was a creator who was talking about how going viral is just not fun anymore because you get plucked out of your community and you're put in front of people who don't know your humor or don't know your story. And she even said when she was talking about it, when she was looking at the stats of a video she did that went viral, it got like at least a million views of her followers who saw it was like 3% of the views were her follow. Like she was reaching 3% of her following. I think that is probably responsible for it where you're not talking to your community as

directly anymore. Or if you are, you have to do so in a way that accounts for the fact that a majority of the viewers at this point are going to be people outside of that community. And it's impossible to anticipate the full spectrum of like human experiences and emotions and what their reaction is going to be every time you post something. Well, that brings up a question about TikTok that I've always had, because as an elder millennial, I've been on TikTok, probably more than I care to admit, but I've never like posted anything on TikTok. So I've never like

had the experience of getting the feedback. Are like people who are posting TikToks and getting comments back from people, are they like having conversations with the people commenting or is it like pretty one way? They'll have conversations whenever they're commenting. TikTok will kind of flag next to their name that that's the creator of the video. And so oftentimes you will see them battling it out in the comments. But because TikTok is a video platform, they're more often TikTok has a lot of tools for video conversation. So if someone does a comment being like, I disagree with this for this reason, someone, they could reply to it in text, but they're honestly more often going to reply to that comment with a video.

And what'll happen is the comment will appear in the video they make and they can make a response to it. Or lots of people will respond by duetting a video or stitching a video, which is where the original video is there, and either your video, your original video will appear next to it, or it'll interrupt it after five seconds. So you can then provide commentary on it. So discussion happens a lot more that way, which means the discussion itself can become its own standalone piece of content, which is why TikTok is such a discourse machine, because if it's all happening in the comments, that's very contained. But if you're doing it through video, that's how it spreads. That sounds horrible. Yeah.

I mean, I spend like a ton of time complaining about Twitter or what's left of Twitter on this show. And obviously, you know, we all know what Facebook was like. But it does seem like all the problems with those platforms in terms of discourse are magnified on some place like on a platform like TikTok, partly for the first point you mentioned, which is that there's a lot more strangers involved when your video goes viral. And so there's people who have no idea who you are or what you were trying to say. And the conversation isn't isn't necessarily one way, but it's sort of it's like stripped of even more context and gives you less control over the conversation that you're having with other people. And it just seems like you're arguing with more strangers than before. Yeah. And the thing about TikTok's algorithm is it doesn't appear to know the difference between good and bad engagement, like people engaging because they

enjoy something versus they're tearing it apart or making fun of it. So it just sees all of that as the same. And so especially if someone's opinion is getting like dunked on or someone is doing something people think is cringy and they're making fun of it, all those comments will propel that video further into the algorithm. Because as far as TikTok cares about, they're like, oh, people are watching, people are commenting. That's what we want. And so it's hard because like I think so much of TikTok, you're scrolling a feed, an algorithm where you're not really seeking out content, you're letting it come to you. But then if you get a video that you don't like, there's like this sense of betrayal that the algorithm like got it wrong, which means like so many, like even when I make videos, I'll get comments like, who cares or whatever. And it's

just like, because they're like, why is this in front of me? I don't care. And what they don't even know is that by doing that, they've propelled, like, that video is going to then go into more people's feeds because, like, you know, as far as TikTok cares, it's just gotten a comment. And so it's like, great. Which is how these, you know, TikTok can be really conducive to like bullying campaigns or can really amplify discourse, even if it's something that's like really toxic and bad.

It will reward, you know, fueling that. Like if you make a video about a trending topic, that video is probably going to do better than if you were making one about an isolated thought you had. You mentioned how this opinion fatigue seems more common in left-leaning spaces, partly, you know, I think the sort of debate around cancel culture is one reason, and the fear of cancel culture that you don't want to talk about because you don't want to sound like a right-winger complaining about cancel culture. Like, that's definitely it. I enjoyed the example you gave about posting a video that recommends a recipe with cheese and then being attacked in the comments for excluding vegans. Right. but I'm certain you can find it out there and that's such a thing and that started on Twitter about the idea of like seeing something that is very much not applicable to you and being like

well I'm this why isn't this about me and it's all it's the same problem of like now that we just let content come to us there is like a sense of like annoyance when it is wrong and and I but it's like that creator didn't put it in front of you like an algorithm did but yeah yeah i can't remember the tweet but there's some like very famous viral tweet about like oh did this not like include every experience that you've had in your life yeah it's not like a universal experience that you've had yeah um but i'm always curious like what do you think is going on with the people doing the criticizing like for you know the cheese recipe that excludes vegans right like yeah so because some and it is a it is like a left-leaning sort of phenomenon and it probably is happening in

right-wing spaces too i'm just not in those spaces but um you see it on twitter all the time and i'm just like are these what's going on with these people like or it just you you see something that doesn't apply to you or that feels whatever and then you just sort of start yelling at strangers like what do you what yeah so yeah i've thought about this like even before tiktok because what i well one i think there's a thing of there's like when it's on tiktok when it's it when content comes to you and it's wrong you want to point it out but uh like however misguided that is but i think there's something a little bit more that i first noticed on twitter some people i think probably would say it originated on tumblr but when we started to incentivize having these takes or in incentivizing poking holes in something um you know because i think it can be if you we start if we start with like a very benign

example like maybe a movie that's coming out and you quote tweet it with like this doesn't include you know this is an oversight of this movie and you're probably if that speaks to people you're going to get a lot of like encouragement you're going to get a lot of validation for having sort of noticed this oversight and pointing it out. My guess is that because like, you know, that's totally valid. But my guess is that there's something in like our little lizard brains that like realizes that that is a like we can like literally on like lab rat stuff. It's like, oh, we point this out. There are going to be people who feel similarly and maybe like and I will feel validated for having this feeling. I think and it's just like I don't want to sit with this feeling like I want to know other people feel it. That's my guess. But I also think there's just so much content out there right now that there theoretically is content for everyone.

So there's this expectation that you should see yourself. I wish I had like an answer I could be confident in, but I think it's a combination of a lot of different things. Yeah, no. Look, I've thought about this for a long time now. I wonder if there is like, you know, an algorithmic incentive that rewards righteousness. Yeah, yeah. You know, because you do see a lot of people just like,

I mean, some people call it virtue signaling, whatever else, but it's like, I feel that I am morally correct in this opinion. And if I share it with everyone else, then other people will say you are correct. It will feel good that other people say you are right. And not just right, but you are good. Yeah, yeah. Because that was when I was working on the opinion piece.

One of the things I was like asking these people and also asking a sort of a psychiatrist, I believe, that I spoke to just sort of why do we share our thoughts at all? Like, what is that draw? And that's what they were saying. It just, it feels good to feel validated and it feels good to know other people feel the same way as you. And that's not like a bad thing, but I think the bad thing is that sort of these algorithms

and these companies have figured out how to kind of game that and weaponize it for their advantage and not ours. I've had this other sort of take that's almost the sort of the opposite, but I think it can coexist with the opinion fatigue take, which is that like, it seems like there's a bit of cancel culture fatigue as well. Like people are still saying and doing and posting plenty of problematic shit and they're getting called out for it and criticized for it. But it feels like the controversies are smaller, more contained. They aren't getting as much attention as they used to. Do you notice that or is that just me? I think I yeah, I think and this is something I kind of wrote about a little bit recently. I think it is just that there is too much. Everyone has now kind of normalized posting everything about their day, all their opinions on things,

responding to political crises because you feel like you have a platform and so you need to say something even if you don't quite know anything about it. And when you're putting out for consumption just like that much, you're bound to say something wrong or not be informed or, you know, and I feel like every time i leave a party i'm thinking over stuff i said and being like i wish i said that better but at least it's like in the air and not recorded and um and so and so i think it's just like now that we are putting so much of us out there we're seeing more of these missteps and i have to imagine there is like fatigue with just like like it's kind of like um like playing whack-a-mole, but there's just too many.

And so, you know, these things still happen. Like, you know, the thing was happening with Lizzo right now. But I also think there's a little bit of people like another thing that's kind of happening on TikTok right now is that an named rachel ziegler was making some comments about the snow white film she's in and she was basically talking about how they had kind of updated it to be in modern times but a lot of people who i think feel very protective of the snow white story were very thought she was like being very dismissive of the message and they were like why are you in a film that you clearly hate and all this stuff and then pretty quickly like there was like that layer of discourse and then pretty quickly there was a layer of like you need to calm down like this is like one interview snippet like and so and

that kind of feels similar where it's like there's this rush to um react and condemn and then another layer of people being like, let's reserve this for like when it's really necessary. Yeah, I mean, I see, I like casually scan those controversies now and I'm like, this is fucking exhausting and I don't even want to find out what's going on right now. Right, right.

Yeah, I know. Even like the Lizzo's, it's like it has to like bubble up to like a point where a ton of people are writing about it. I'm like, all right, I'm going to figure out what happened with Lizzo. Let's go. Let's get going. We're going to check the story.

Because at some point you're realizing like, do I, where I am and what I'm doing, need to know all the details about this story so that I can participate in a discourse about it? Or what? Like, what is the value of me knowing and following these controversies, let alone participating in them? Right. Like, I, because it's like, now I just know this. And like, that like, and I felt that about the submarine, the submersible. I tried to avoid it for so long. And then I got, I mean, so long long four days however whatever the time frame was I but

then I finally got sucked in and I just remember I spent the whole day I found out just like deep breathing because I was like now I just know that turns out this wasn't the case I guess thankfully but that I in at that time the thinking was there were five people losing oxygen under the like under the sea as we all spoke. And I couldn't get that out of my brain. And there was ultimately no reason for me to know anything about that. Well, not only that, but then the discourse took a direction where it was like, they're just fucking rich people.

Who cares? Like rich people should die in a submarine. Billionaires shouldn't exist. And one way to kill them is to put them in a submarine. It was just so out of control. I know. Like rich people should die in a submarine. I know. Billionaires shouldn't exist. And one way to kill them is to put them in a submarine. I mean, I don't know. It was just like so out of control. I know. I know.

And I had to stay awake. This sucks. Because I would just start being like I would need to breathe. Well, you mentioned the recent piece you wrote about sort of digital footprints. Yeah. how this is more of like a Gen Z phenomenon that because this generation grew up like posting so much, they are less and less concerned about posting embarrassing stuff online.

Yeah. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's just like that's all they've known? Like that's just the digital world they've grown up in? I think so. So it's like, it seems to be like a conversation they're having

because sometimes in these like very out of left field posts that I'll come across that are like stuff I would never say on the internet you'll usually see a comment from someone that's like digital footprint like they're just like like this will exist um but that hasn't slowed them down um one I think yeah they've grown up online they've grown up with so many more apps than like millennials grew up with and so many different ways of sort of documenting their lives and sharing their opinions. I also imagine sort of one to two years of being sort of in a lockdown type situation.

Yeah. That was how a lot of these people who are now adults, that was the only way to socialize and talk. And that was what society looked like. And so I do wonder if that is playing a larger role. I think also it is combined a little bit with what you were mentioning, which is kind of fatigue with this cancellation.

Because in the piece, I was talking to a creator named Hannah Stella and she was saying that she's one of those people that has like Reddit threads dedicated to her, her every move. And she was, that she she's one of those people that has like Reddit threads dedicated to her every move and she was and there's so many people who have that and she was like I do think that that is waning a little bit because people put out so much that like the idea of sort of documenting and picking through their every move and and decide and passing moral judgment on it is like exhausting that's a lot of work because people are putting out a lot of content. Plus, it's just a simple thing. It's like the more you

put out, the more like a Google search of you is like it's going to like something silly maybe that you did that an employer wouldn't like is going to be very buried. Yes, that is true. And I also think there's an element to, you know, where we culture or call it culture, whatever it is, where it started was, you know, very prominent figures. Yeah. And then it became like prominent figures and then maybe influencers with big followings or like some. And then you sort of the definition of what constitutes a public figure. Right. Started expanding. started expanding and now it's at the point where like just any person who might not have any kind

of public profile could still be a target yeah of like a an online mob just because of something they posted that went viral say like on tiktok and suddenly appeared in front of a bunch of people that they've never met before and the people who are yelling at them have never met them and don't really know them but so everyone i'm wondering if people start thinking well it can basically happen to anyone now so let's just like give let's just give each other some grace on this i don't know maybe that's too hopeful no i think i mean like because like i i think there is a legitimate fear of it and what's weird is that it can happen like i'm thinking of i don't know if this was a uh discourse that bubbled up to you

but the west elm caleb stuff that happened i think this was last year where it's like that's not even someone who posted anything that's someone who was probably being like a pretty like shitty boyfriend or you know a dating partner but as far as like it came out he didn't do anything beyond just ghost a bunch of people and he hadn't done it he had not put himself out there in any way and yet he was still people found his like linkedin and and he got totally like completely just torn apart from people in like australia um and so it's it's yeah it's kind of like it is so ubiquitous that yeah it's just like it is doesn't nothing matters then right and then and and i think

for everyone else suddenly you're in a you know slack conversation about west elm caleb and you're like what what am i doing what am i how am i how am i spending my precious time right now i know speaking of digital footprints you just wrote a beautiful piece in the atlantic uh that i can't stop thinking about your mom has decided to leave you what's essentially her digital diary after she dies, her Google Drive, her passwords, her emails. I hadn't realized that this is very common now until I read your piece. But you talk to people in the piece about how it's changing the experience of grief. Can you talk a little bit about what you learned? Yeah. So yeah, I get this. So luckily my mom is, uh, like healthy. There's no reason for this to be an imminent thing, but she

just sends me this text out of nowhere being like, FYI, just updated. She just was like, I've designated you as the contact after, and she used the phrase three months of inactivity, which, um, we like know what that means without saying it. And she was telling me because she wasn't sure if when she designated me, Google would like send me an email and I would like freak out. And so she told me that and I was like, oh, like weird for many reasons. But the big thing I was thinking about was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all of that because I would feel weird reading through all her emails. But at the same time, if this is happening because she passed away, that's a way that she would kind of still exist and live on. And it might be nice to like spend time with her that way. And so I was just thinking that, you know, you see a lot, I was looking into it and there's so many articles sort of giving people advice for what to do to kind of make

plans for passing on their digital footprint after they die. But there wasn't really anything about people who are the ones receiving those things and how they feel about it. And so, yeah, I just kind of poked around, talked to people who were very gracious about getting an email out of nowhere from me to talk about something that might be sensitive. And what was just interesting is the ways

that someone can sort of die physically, but digitally, the person who receives the digital footprint has more agency in how that person lives on. And I think it can be, that can almost make things more complicated because, you know, like a thing that people mentioned a few times was lots of families share streaming services. And so everyone has a profile. And so every time you would open it up with a person has passed away, you would see their profile sitting there. And it's like one person I spoke to was like,

I think I'm ready to delete it. But another person who was like, you know, I will never delete these things because it depends on your relationship and where you are in the grieving. Because I think it can be hard to feel closure and move on if, you know, every time you open Netflix,

you see their name. But also, you know, you've just lost this person who you didn't want to lose. Why would you go and then voluntarily delete this thing of them that remains? It's really weird. And they're just, yeah. The Netflix profile is like one thing. What really stuck with me is, I i think a woman lost her husband yes actually their texts they're like and so she could go and pull up the and she had pinned the iMessage conversation and i could like totally see myself doing that right like yeah it's just i like i wonder because you know i like lost some people earlier in life and before there was like iMessage and text and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, wow, if there had been like years of conversation, would I want to go back and read those to make me feel like that person's still there?

Or I guess as some people told you in the piece, it's also can be very painful. And it's sort of like it's sort of like grieving again. Yeah, it's like a weird feeling because Ashley was like she describes it as just like psychic damage to kind of read through all those things. You know, if she goes to his YouTube profile, she can see all the videos that are being recommended to him and like be like, oh, this is what you'll be watching right now. And she'll do these things just to kind of feel like she's spending time with him. But it also is very painful because it's nice in a way that these digital artifacts

exist because it is like the closest seeing how someone was speaking seeing your conversation seeing things they were posting or things they would be watching is like really uh the closest they can be to seeming alive and it can can be, I think, nice to feel that, but also it's no replacement for the actual person. And it just is like, I think, each individual person has to decide. Like, so Ashley was saying she has her husband Rob's AirPods, and they still say Rob's AirPods.

And she said, like, she'll never change the name she'll always have it be his airpods and like she likes keeping that with her but for marie who's someone else i spoke to i believe she was saying she's thinking it's time to delete her mother's profile from like netflix um and so it just yeah it just depends where you're at it made me think a little bit about our earlier conversation about digital footprints and sort of the tension between like guarding your digital footprint and worrying about your digital footprint and sort of the power of a emails. I set my text conversations to auto-delete after 30 days. Partly because it's like, you're worried about hacking. You're worried about what happens if someone breaks in. And then it's embarrassing, right?

So it's like, I can clean up my digital footprint. But then I was reading your piece and it's like, there are times when I wanted to remember a funny conversation with a friend or a meaningful moment that's digital and then you like don't have that anymore right so it's like a weird tension like how do you think about that in your own life for you well yeah so that's something that kind of was interesting after writing this piece because I think for everyone who I spoke to I kind of asked them had this experience made them think differently about their own situation and something Ashley said just really stuck with me where she was like being camera shy because at some point those pictures of you are going to be all that's left and that makes me think a lot

because I similarly I feel like I'll go through these phases where I get very like it's the same kind of feeling as when like my house is messy I'll just be like i need to clean my digital house and um yeah and i'll just i'll just you know i'll archive instagram pictures and and just all the stuff where i'm like let me just spruce this up a little bit but then hearing that there are i similarly like there are now so many things that i have deleted that i'll remember and be like oh i wish i had that to look back on just for me. And it was interesting to have it contextualized in like for other people, they're going to like, I brought this up when I was talking to Ashley and I felt so silly comparing it,

but like I, my cat passed away in January and I know. And so I was relating this conversation because it would kind of be a joke when she was still alive, how many pictures I had of her. I had like, I think it was like 1,700. And at the time it was like ridiculous. But then after she passed away, I was like, thank God I have 1,700 pictures to look through because- And I wish I had 1,700 more. Yes. Yeah. There's like not even enough. Cause I was just like, you know, I can look at these

pictures and I never really feel like I know them. Like they're always, they're still surprising things. And so I was like, oh, I can understand that. And so it has made me, I don't know, it's a weird thing because especially in light of our conversation earlier where it's like, how much of me do I want out there? Well, like, I don't know, it's fraught. But then when I think about not having much out there and how there's someone, hopefully people in my life after me who would want to see those things.

Yeah. It's like, what do I, what's the priority? Yeah. I will say having, having read your piece, it did make me rethink sort of my own views of like how much I want to keep,

which is more than I thought I might. Before I let you go, to the extent the show has a theme, it's about how we can all navigate the hellscape that is the internet today in healthier ways. You wrote a newsletter piece last year about why the internet is built to make us think that everything is terrible all the time. And you had some great advice at the end about how to consume the internet. Can you share that? Yeah. So I think it took me a really long time, especially during COVID and especially

after Trump's election. It felt really irresponsible because I think in the case of like Trump, I think an underestimation and an ignorance is what kind of allowed him to thrive and so there was very much his messaging online after that I think was true but it's just like okay we need to like be on this like no more complacency

and for me that manifested pretty unhealthily of like I need to subject myself to every bad thing I see because I didn't before. And now we're here. And then when COVID happened, it felt very irresponsible to not be up to date on all the moving parts of it. Because it felt like, you know, to someone who doesn't consume those things is clearly living in a world of privilege. It was very fraught and wrapped up in all this stuff, which but it really took a lot of like literally talking to my therapist about

like you are not actually useful to anyone if you're consuming this stuff all day and feeling horrible and feeling scared and just feeling hopeless. That actually is like not what the world needs from you. And so it took a bit. But I finally was like, you know, I can be in charge of what is on my feed. And I also like, I know I'm not some, like, I'm clearly thinking about this stuff. I clearly care. So this isn't an act of ignorance, but I am like, if these things make me feel actually paralyzed, then they're not helpful to be on my social media feed.

And so I, to this day I have, I'm pretty sure I have Trump muted. I have COVID muted. And I have like global warming, end of the world apocalypse, all muted. These are all things I care about. And in my day-to-day life, like I very much like I compost, I use reusable cup,

like all this stuff I'm very active about. But I found that like that is the stuff, you know, voting in local elections, donating to mutual aid, doing your part to reduce like your carbon footprint, like that is the stuff that matters and actually helps these situations. But consuming scary headlines to the point where you're just like, it's all pointless. That does not help the situation. And so that's kind of when I talk about like passive versus active. Passive is just letting it all come to you but active is being like okay how can I curate this online space to make me feel like a better person and also to make me feel like hopeful and just excited about the world because I think

for me fear is not a good motivator and it took a little bit to learn that about myself and once I did it was like that kind of allowed me to be like okay OK, it's it's not negligent for me to get rid of the things that are causing that fear that's paralyzing me, even if it doesn't look that way for other people. Yes. And you like and you shouldn't have to feel guilty. And it's because and it's not about disconnecting and saying, I don't want to I don't want to deal with these problems. It's about figuring out a way to solve the problems or at least make a difference. Right. As opposed to marinating in them, which is what social media does.

And I also think it gives you a warped view of reality, right? Because we know all the incentives are towards only showing us the worst headlines, the most negative shit. So you get a picture of the world that is even worse. And we don't need to exaggerate the problems in the most negative shit so you get a picture of the world that is even worse and like we don't need to exaggerate the problems in the world we know there's a plenty of awful things out there and there's plenty of scary shit out there but like i think that social media exaggerates it even more and then like leads it does lead to this like this online doomerism

where everyone's just like oh god like the the world's gonna end so what are we even doing here like what right no i remember like a weird wake-up call i had in the midst of really struggling this was just going to get like i just been in this all day and it was definitely climate stuff and i i walk out and i'm like stewing and i'm like so stressed but i'm like waiting in line for like a cute little mocha in like a nice little coffee shop and the weather is actually like very nice out and everyone else is having normal conversations and i was like i put myself in a world that doesn't exist like there these are problems and they're real but like i'm walking out and getting a cute little mocha

like and and walking in the sun and it's not like i need to realign myself with reality yeah well and then it's like maybe i can go figure out like uh how to more quickly transition us from fossil fuels to renewable energy, right? Like that's something I can do that would have an impact on where climate, you know, so anyway. But anyway, I think that's very good advice. Active internet consumption. Everyone should clean up their feeds and not marinate in this stuff so much. Kate, thank you so much for joining Offline.

This was a fun conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for joining Offline. This was a fun conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm here with my pal Max. John, I got my banjo. Yes. Got my acoustic guitar. Love it's going to be in here on the washboard. So the reason max is

saying that so we have two items to cover today oh my god the first is the chart topping viral hit from country artist oliver anthony called rich men north of richmond i personally i can't get enough anthony uh he worked in a paper mill in north carolina currently lives in a trailer on a farm in Farmville, Virginia. Very on the nose. Just hearing this is making me want to drop my Gs. And those experiences certainly inform his music. Here are the opening lines of the song. I've been selling my soul, working all day.

Overtime hours for bullshit pay. So I can sit out here and waste my life away. Drag back home and drown my troubles away. It's a damn shame. Sounds like you could hear that at a Bernie Sanders rally. It does. It does. But then it takes a bit of a turn.

Because your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end. Oh, no inflation. Then it takes a real turn. It does. I wish politicians would look out for miners, like coal miners, and not just miners on an island somewhere. Shout out to Jeffrey Epstein. Also, I love a rhyme that's just a homonym that doesn't make any sense unless you read it. Yeah, right.

Allegedly. We're going to wait for Oliver's next song to tell us where jeffrey really is and then he complains of the uh obese milk and welfare and says quote if your 300 pounds taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds uh the song has been praised by carrie lake marjorie taylor green joe rogan dan bongino mike flynn all your favorite right-wing coops my favorite music critics you know that's praised by Carrie Lake, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, Mike Flynn, all your favorite right-wing kooks. My favorite music critics. That's who I turn to.

They're all pitchfork writers, right? I have like a Carrie Lake Spotify list. Though Anthony claims he has always been pretty dead centered down the aisle. Just right down the middle. Right down the middle in politics. Max, you can imagine the discourse that has ensued. People have feelings. What are your feelings?

So it's a perfect like discourse bomb because I think it hits on, it just, it hits on the like two of the biggest anxieties for the online political right and the online political left. Neither of which of course have anything to do with actual pop music, much less people in Appalachia or working class whites in Appalachia. And on the right, it's this anxiety that like, we would be so much more popular if not for the left's cultural hegemony. And if only we could get like one of ours into the top of the billboard charts or like have a big movie that was right wing, then the kids would all realize that cutting taxes is cool and would want to become Republicans. And on the left it's this like agita that left-wing writers love to have over like why don't we have working class whites like are we losing working class whites and so it's been is perfect discourse driver for both people on the right and on the left which is where i think

all of the actual energy around this is coming from and not from i believe actual music fans because it's like fine as a song it's it's look i'm gonna admit it the music itself sure is catchier than i thought sure having prepared for this i listened to it a few times i caught myself like humming the song in my head okay the lyrics are they're silly yeah most of them some the the you know many of the lyrics are silly and it is interesting like there's a few categories of responses that i've seen to this the first is like it's time to milkshake duck this fucker and so you know there was there were accusations and these obviously mostly came from the left. There were accusations that it's only viral because it's like an astroturf campaign on the right. Because there's this right-wing guy who runs a right-wing media firm who reached out to Oliver Anthony and said, oh, I love the song. I can help you produce it, get it out there, which I'm sure he did.

But it's like he still wrote the song. The song is the song. Right. Right. That it's a pro-Confederate dog whistle is one of them because Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. Oh. And so instead of taking Richmond

north of Richmond being like rich people in Washington, D.C. or the surrounding counties, which are some of the wealthiest in the country, which is a fact, it's really saying anyone north of the confederacy oh okay it feels like a stretch a friend of mine was was joking to me he said that he um googled where all the synagogues are in richmond and they're all in

the north end and he was like there are just retweets laying on the table secretly anti-semitic speaking of that there there were some on his youtube page there were some like videos he put on a playlist there were there's some anti-semitic conspiracy theories sure dancing jews on 9-11 kind of thing i always feel a little bit iffy when someone goes from like obscurity to internet fame and immediately gets like all of their shit hyper looked into which is not to forgive like posting did the jews do 9-11 videos like that's always bad but um it's always it's a little weird seeing someone get like all their stuff overturned to

look for like what's the what's the bad like that they put on a tweet once yeah i mean so then there's a uh like a liberal policy type response oh which is there which is like you know most of these lyrics just aren't accurate it's like you know i realize that um like he's probably not paying many taxes at all sure right so his complaint about taxes doesn't seem he's probably benefiting from some government programs uh he the ira i have heard is actually very heavily impacting communities just like his there you go he could and you know what he could benefit a lot more if uh the republican politicians that are praising his song would stop cutting taxes for rich people sure and stop fighting

medicaid expansion medicaid expansion minimum wage increases overtime pay all these all these other things right so then and then health care right and it look it is infuriating that republican politicians think that the pain he is talking about would somehow be alleviated with their political agenda sure right that if only we would we had less fewer food stamps were given out in major american cities then like this guy would be happier and better off yeah and there and you know so it's like it's pretty i feel like grossed out by the republican politicians and the right-wing media types embracing it because it's like you fuckers you have nothing for this man or these communities i think this is kind of what's

funny about it is it's like we're not really talking especially the discourse around this song on the left it's not really about the song it's really about this like debate that we have been having for you know either eight years now or 20 years now depending on where you're following it over like why do working class whites no longer vote democratic and like this song does kind of hit on that in a like unintentional kind of way because it's drawing on a kind of like appalachian folk song that really does have its roots in the pro-labor left if you think back to like woody guthrie like these are all like labor right songs and i don't know like the fact that he's reciting fox and who's talking points that like are not that relevant to his life does make me a little bit skeptical of the idea that this is a cri de corps of West Virginia.

Well, so here's what I think is worth talking about and exploring here is because I think for a long time it was this whole debate about losing the white working class. Sure. about losing the white working class. And then Trump gets elected and there's a whole bunch of studies done that like, you know, you can track racial resentment with Trump vote and all that kind of stuff. Right. Since then, we've also noticed like non-college working class

blacks and Latinos starting to drift a little bit. Yeah. Much more so Latinos than black Americans, but like younger black Americans. Sure. Because older black Americans are like very democratic. And are they drifting to the Republican Party? Are they drifting sort of away from politics altogether? We don't know. But what's true is there are a lot of poor and working class communities that are left behind and people are struggling in those communities and like they're only sometimes in those communities the only this is a very offline

thing the only real connection to the rest of the world is over the internet and it i think it's worth asking what kind of picture of that world the internet is painting for these people in these communities Carolina factory and it was hell. And then he got a injury there and that's why he moved to Virginia. And so like, he's had a tough, you know, he's had like a tough time. And if you have a tough time like that and you're like, okay, let's go down the, let's go down the YouTube rabbit hole. Then suddenly you get from, I had a tough time to, uh, Jews were dancing on 9-11. So I think there are kind of two different things that you're identifying here. One is the like, why do the Oliver Anthonys of America, why have they drifted so far to the right? And causally, I think that is distinct from the question of like, what is the narrative that people assign to their politics often after the fact? And like clearly the like, I think it is true that Oliver Anthony, whether he is astroturfed or not, the like, I blame the fact that poor people in cities have food stamps for my circumstances is a widespread phenomenon.

Yeah. And has been for the predated the internet. Right. Absolutely. Right. And maybe even Fox like goes back decades i do think that that is probably different from like why do people who live in working-class rural communities why have they identified so hard with the right over the last 20 30 years and that is obviously a much more complicated story that you've got the decline of organized labor you have

the end of economic mobility for those communities i feel like that's got to be a pretty big one you have the rise of racial resentment but i do think i feel very confident saying that and i'm not accusing him of being like a liar or a show but i don't think that oliver anthony is going to be a like good narrator for us of the causality of the movement of working-class whites towards the right and what do you mean I mean I think that he represents a movement that has been happening for a long time and that he is just like he got there which is I mean this is how politics often work is it like big circumstantial macro

factors lead communities to identify one way or another politically and then after the fact you reach out for an explanation and it's like what does youtube tell you or what does fox news tell you or what are like oh yeah what are they telling you and like the media that he is consuming is telling him that it's because of like jeffrey epstein and the global cabal of whatever and like food stamps like that's why things aren't good for me but i don't think that that means that that is why working class whites have moved to the right. Yeah, no, it's, but I do think that your political views are,

first of all, they like continue to be shaped and they continue to evolve. And I think what you were exposed to, the information that you were exposed to, certainly plays a role in that, in reinforcing those beliefs and helping them evolve one way or the other the information that you're exposed to right certainly plays a role in that and reinforcing those beliefs and helping them evolve one way or the other and chain persuading you differently which doesn't seem to happen that often anymore um but like you know it just so it's like why do

all these people end up believing in the global cabal so like where are they all getting it from right right i mean this kind of highlights what i think is really funny about this like in the global cabal. So, like, where are they all getting it from? Right, right. I mean, this kind of highlights what I think is really funny about this, like, quote unquote,

phenomenon of this song is that it's being presented as this, like, nationwide anthem beloved by red-blooded, like,

conservative Americans. Everybody I know who's obsessed with the song are people like you and me. They're like urban liberal commentators on the left who were

like, what happened to the working class whites? And like, what are the economic versus the social drivers? And I think it's like the song's appeal is as a way to like, talk about those issues. The reason that I have always cared about it is I mean, look, I think it's people struggling in the country I don't love. And I would love there to be less economic inequality for all races of people everywhere in this country and other places. From a narrow political perspective, I care about this from a math problem. It's a math problem. Sure. Like if we continue to lose, if the Democratic Party continues to lose people who are struggling and not just white people, but people from all races and we don't have sort of an economic appeal that reaches those people, even if we have great economic policy that would help them, then we're not going to be a party.

We're not going to have like there's there's not going to be Democrats elected. And so figuring out like calling out, I think, the cynicism of these right wing politicians being like, well, this is working class populism. I mean, it's like a J.D. Vance thing all over again. Right. J.D. Vance is like hillbilly elegy. Right. And I'm like a working class populist. And suddenly now he's just like spends all day defending Donald Trump's legal troubles. Well, I think they're right. Like not very economically populist and suddenly now he's just like spends all day defending donald trump's legal troubles well i think they're right like not very economically populist so here's my like big take on this song i don't think we have to care about it i think all of the all the like political forces you're identifying like incredibly important for the reason you say i don't think that this song represents like oh and now the right has like some sort of and i think you see that in the fact that like the marjorie taylor greens are trying to will this into representing some cultural shift that like the right-wing populist energy is now cutting taxes for the rich yeah

which is like it's just not like even if you look at like polls for what people who are like angry working-class whites who are shifting hard right they don't want tax cuts for the rich they don't want social services eviscerated that's i think that is that like that is part of why right-wing leaders have like seized on this song so much i think it's basically just a meme that went viral on the internet yeah and it like we're it just happens to also be on spotify yeah i actually think that it is possible that that some of his views because you know he says he's like right down the center but we know that people a lot of people a lot of voters in this country have views that are not necessarily what we would think of a centrist but

like very complicated and sometimes conflicting political views sure i would bet that some of these republican politicians like if they actually talked to him or heard him for a while he would say some things that probably pissed them off, too. I mean, it sounds like he's got a lot of opinions. and feeling quote hopeless that the greatest country on earth is quickly fading away because of a parasitic internet driven by technology made by the hands of other poor souls and sweatshops in a foreign land and he also then said it's easy to walk down the sidewalk beside somebody and look down at the ground and look at your phone but that really is a big part of the problem we're also disconnected from each other so he's really bringing you around are you gonna throw in the olive anthony playlist this weekend i'm telling you i i look at these things like uh you know what politicians are not supposed to do barack obama did this a few times

like a sociologist anthropologist right like it's just it's fascinating because i do think that if we're trying to build political coalitions not that i i expect oliver anthony to be in ours but um part of this show what we're doing here is like what what the internet can do to people and it is certainly true that and i do think that it has the power to radicalize or accelerate beliefs that we're already going in for sure and we are all feeling a sense of enemy a sense of like disconnection of purpose disconnection from the people around us and that is something that this genre of music like happens to be good at expressing and is also for sure connected to and exacerbated by our like addiction to our phones yes yeah so this is a good segue into our second topic oh my god i planned it oh my god which is a good segue into our second topic. Oh, my God. I planned it. Oh, my God. Which is a very long David Brooks piece in The Atlantic.

So long. Titled, How America Got Mean. We're really trying to trigger all the Twitter licks today. We really picked them. And I'm off on vacation for three weeks. Good luck, Max. Disappearing now that I'm on the centrist offline. You know what?

On offline here, we're just right down the middle, just like Oliver Anthony. Anyway, next segment we'll have Jordan Peterson. We just, I like to, you know what, both sides, both sides have something to say, and if they're arguing, truth is usually somewhere in the middle. That's what I always say.

What do you think, Ross Douthat? So, Brooks has been trying to figure out the rise of hatred, anxiety, and despair in America. And he says there have been a few different explanations, all of which he says he agrees with to some extent. Social media is driving us crazy. No argument from offline. Two, we've stopped participating in community organizations. Three, a diversifying country that's panicked a lot of white people. Yeah.

And high levels of economic inequality. Yeah, great. Sure. But he argues, Brooks argues that the most important explanation for all the anger and all the depression is, quote, we inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Such a funny word to use, trained. Trained. Yeah. What do you think?

Is there evidence that in his, this is his phrase, stronger morally formative institutions would make us a kinder and happier country? So I think that he raises some good questions here. And I think a lot of the premises about social atomization, division, and like, certainly we're all feeling like people getting meaner. Like if you've flown in an airplane since the pandemic, like people have lost their minds. That's definitely true. This piece was a little bit frustrating to me because he spends so much time just kind of like pulling the answer out of his ass a little bit. It's just like, and then like the thing is, is like, look. There's not a ton of data. There's not a ton of data.

I'm a big nerd. I think that we are sincerely in a like golden age of social science and of like the ability to empirically study and answer exactly some of the questions that he is raising. And it's a little frustrating to me that The Atlantic carved out 10,000 words of space for David Brooks to raise some really big questions that social science has a lot of insights to speak to but then instead of looking at those insights at all just like masturbated in full public view for 10 000 words just like self-pleasured talking about how like well all of the things that he has always liked those are actually the answers it's like david brooks likes the great books of literature so that is what will like solve social atomization in america and there's like it's just like it's the answer that feels good to him and that's not how you do social science yeah it's yeah because it's like yes our culture does reward narcissism sure and selfishness but why like is it uh because we've stopped teaching kindness in classrooms not a lot of evidence it could be but like it just it feels even without

knowing the social science you're like i don't know and he's talking about like how the civil rights movement was infused with morality king was a big believer in the moral arc of the universe he sort of goes through history but again it's going through history and just like picking out different books philosophers figures and talking about how they had like a lot of moral drive yeah and i don't know now he i do think he gets into something interesting about politics like later in the piece okay so he also said over the past several years people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism because lonely young people are seven times more likely to say they are active in politics than young people who aren't lonely.

For people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy. It offers them a comprehensible moral landscape. The line between good and evil runs not down the middle of every human heart, but between groups. Life is a struggle between us, the forces of good, and them, the them the forces of evil that's interesting i think there's something to that i think there is definitely something to the idea that and i'm gonna like yes and what he's saying a little bit into something that's a little closer to like stuff that we have talked about that like we

all need a sense of identity and community just to like function as human beings it's just how we're wired it's a like basic cognitive psychological need that we have. And we've talked a lot about the like loss of local community, the loss of like local social organizations. Like we're not like hanging out with local groups anymore. And so the thing that we plug into because of the thing that is fed to us for hours a day by our phones and our computers

is this sense of like the larger national political fight, which is so polarized, so is incredibly mean, but is also incredibly emotionally engaging because it makes us feel like we're a part of a big, important moral struggle to be like shit posting on Twitter or like posting on Facebook about how much we hate people on the other side, which both does not fulfill the need. So we are still left feeling lonely, but also makes us angry. And it really rewards and incentivizes meanness. I mean, you sound just like David Brooks here. Well, he does. He says later, he's like, politics appears to give people a sense of righteousness. A person's moral stature is

based not on their conduct, but on their location on the political spectrum. You don't have to be good. You just have to be liberal or conservative politics also provides and this is really what you were getting at politics also provides an easy way to feel a sense of purpose you don't have to feed the hungry or sit with the widow to be moral you just have to experience the right emotion you delude yourself that you are participating in civic life by feeling properly enraged at the other side and that is a a, we've talked about this, a social media phenomenon, right? And we say this all the time. It's like posting on Twitter about politics is not nearly as effective

either to society or your own health than going door to door, knocking, you know, like community organizing, like you're just saying. And so I do think that there is, now, is the way to fix this moral education in schools. That seems more doubtful. I do think that the way we conceive of politics right now, sort of, and the way that politics is practiced and the way that social media and the Internet has allowed us to practice politics does fit within Brooks's framework here of like what is making us angrier and more isolated for sure. So I think that Brooks is kind of asking without maybe realizing it, he's asking three separate questions that he kind of conflates into one. Why are Americans feeling more pessimistic, which is true? Why are Americans more socially atomized, which we're talking about, and why are Americans getting meaner? And to me, the first of those, Why are Americans more socially atomized, which we're talking about? And why are Americans getting meaner? And to me, the first of those, why are Americans more pessimistic,

is the easiest answer, because there's actually a lot of research into pessimism about the future. And it's usually just tied to a belief in economic mobility. And people in wealthy countries consistently tend to be pessimistic about their future because wealthy countries tend to be in this, especially now in the last like 30, 40 years, tend to be in this kind of economic trap where because of rising inequality, your personal circumstances are very unlikely to improve. But people in developing and poorer countries tend to be extremely optimistic about the future because even if things in their country, might you know you might look at Indonesia or Kenya and say like actually I would not be as optimistic if I live there but the thing that

makes you optimistic is thinking you have a good chance that your personal economic situation will improve in the future and that just feels like it doesn't fit well into the David Brooks framework but feels pretty straightforward we talked about I think that's also back to our Richmond, North of Richmond conversation. Right, exactly. But like if you are, and this is why it's been so easy for the right wing to gin up all kinds of outrage and anger towards cultural elites

who tend to have a lot more money, is if you're sitting in one of these communities and you're like, what do you see on the internet? If you're not going down a YouTube rabbit hole, you see celebrities, a lot of rich people. And if you're seeing more and more of those people and they're becoming more and more liberal, then suddenly you feel like there's this other world out there of all these like rich people and you're not getting ahead. And it becomes easier to have that resentment towards people who aren't feeling of being left behind well so why do i think the last one why are americans getting meaner is the most interesting what do you think about because you know we've talked a lot about

like morality and where it comes from and what guides that i think that i mean he notes like sort of in passing that all this stuff has gotten worse um since around the pandemic yeah but i think it's like bigger than it warrants more than a passing mention because we did a an experiment where for a couple years we were socially isolated and on our phones and computers all the time and under a lot of stress and anxiety and what did it produce a meaner society yeah and i don't think that's an i don't think that's an accident yeah you know i think that social isolation i mean i think brooks is right here that social isolation does contribute to uh some meanness some people not treating each other up because when you're not when you're not in community all the time when you're not actually with people and disagreeing in person or working

together or figuring out ways that even if you like disagree with someone on something that you can work with them on something else right like all the things we do in the course of normal life when you're not doing that and your only interaction with society is yeah what you're seeing on social media on a screen like i think you are going to be a meaner person yeah and i don't think that like being taught in school something different is going to help that you know like i i was saying to you before this like my since having a child i was like my as soon as charlie was born of like the most important thing i want to instill in him is how to be kind, how to treat people with respect. Like, I hope he's smart.

I hope he's successful. But like, I just want him to be a good person. And that is something that we try to instill at home. But like, as he gets a little older and goes out into the world, my biggest fear about like why it's going to be challenging to continue to be a good person is not necessarily like the friends he's hanging out with so far stuff like that i'm sure that there'll be worries about that but it's like what he's seeing on the fucking internet yeah on his phone right and like and all the incentives to like you know show how great you are like right the incentives toward narcissism the incentives toward selfishness, like all these platforms, like they encourage that.

I mean, David Brooks draws on and I think you really hit on this with the like the pandemic was a big natural experiment in how we learn to treat people. He kind of draws on this like folk wisdom in trying to answer for himself what is making what makes us moral or not moral and he goes for the like answers that we want to believe which is like oh it's the it's your core philosophy that you learn from reading great books or it's like do you have a like strong theological guide or do you have a like strong moral inner compass and And the thing is, is the question of what makes us determine how we treat other people. It's a solved question in social science. It's been known for years. It's been demonstrated one study after another that how you treat other people is determined overwhelmingly by how you believe other people in your community want you to treat other people.

You take social cues from the people around you for what do they expect? What do they think is the normative, correct, moral way to behave? And then you internalize that so that it feels like it's coming from within and you want to behave that way. And there's been all of these like experiments that have shown it and it it's disturbing because and people don't like this because it shows that our inner moral core is not this like deep thing from within our soul that it's really malleable we're social beings we're so it goes back to this you know this is like fundamentals of sociology now right but it's like the idea that you you know, individual

character is just like comes from within, as opposed to all of your experiences from birth on, your parents, your community, your siblings, like the things that you, I mean, partly the things that you read, but also the things that you experience in life, you know, your community. Right. And I think that's a big part of why the pandemic was so bad for how we treated people because we'd lost that sense of a like community from which we could derive social cues that was going to tell us how to behave. I think that the rise of, I think you were talking about the nationalization of politics and identity, that now we don't associate our own identity with people in the community with whom we might have an incentive to maintain a constructive relationship.

We bind our identity to liberals versus conservatives, to left versus center left, to things that feel like these all-encompassing fights where you are supposed to go out and wage ideological combat against the other side, the rise of social distrust and distrust of institutions, distrust of one another, which is a big driver of polar or has a close relationship with polarization. And I do, I know we're always on about this. I do think that social media has a demonstrated, like a real empirically demonstrated role in this. There's this phenomenon on social platform called super posters. It's this like known thing, even within the companies, like people in the companies will kind of talk about this like problem where there is a particular subset of people on any platform that will get artificially promoted by those systems

that will often they're just hyperactive. They're not people who would be influential in the offline real world, but they're just like really active on the platform. And they're active in such a way that they have a really extensive reach. And so they exert a lot of influence on the community. And these people, because they show up on every platform and they're always the same people on every platform, they're very easy to study. And they have three or four extremely consistent traits. One is that they tend to be dogmatic, which means they have fixed, inflexible, strongly held views. They tend to be pushy. They have a very high rate of

grandiose narcissism, which is defined by feelings of, I know this is going to be sounding familiar, defined by feelings of innate superiority of entitlement. They tend to have low self-esteem, which is part of what drives the compulsive posting. And the really big one, they have an extreme drive towards what's called negative social potency, which is a clinical term for when you derive pleasure from inflicting emotional distress on someone else. So when you see- Bullies. Bullies, right. When you see that those are the people who online- Donald Trump was president.

Right. Exactly. Right. Super poster right exactly right he was a super poster who became president right and there was this incredible experiment that reddit ran where they didn't they didn't realize they were running it as an experiment where when ellen powell was running the platform in 2015 they had this terrible problem with extreme racism and harassment millions of people on the platform reddit it's one of the biggest social networks this point. They can't figure out what to do with it because they institute rules, but then people are still horrible. So they went in at one point and they identified the 15,000 users out of their like several million on the platform who were the biggest violators of hate speech. And they banned just those 15,000 accounts, the like worst people

on the platform. And what they found in these academics who were doing an independent study found is that hate speech among the users who remained. So the people who were not even touched, hate speech by those users dropped by 80%. So you take out the people who were the worst behaviors, who were getting pushed in front of everyone by the platform, and all of a sudden, everyone behaves better because so much of how we treat each other, even though we don't like to admit it to ourselves, we derive from who are the people we're seeing who are most visible in our community.

And social media is, it's not the only thing that's giving us the worst. Also, national politics is putting the absolute worst people in front of us. I was going to say, like, talk about, like, social reference points, the people who are running the country. And there was, you know, there was a lot of discussion from, I think, the far left to the center right when Trump was president, that like,

just having someone of that character as president, as the leader of the country, itself was sort of poisoning society. Even if he didn't make any decisions or pass any policies. Right. Just like having him there and hearing him all the time, like that did have an effect. Right. But I do think back to like,

I mean, it's, you know, he talked about the four theories of like why we're all mad. And it's like, I kind of want to go back to those. You know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, it's like social media is driving us crazy.

So it's like, how do we fix social media? How do we get people to participate more in their own community and community institutions a diversifying country is a problem we've been having for a while now right because there's white panic and stuff like that either we've talked about and then of course economic inequality right like and those are all those are mostly all issues that you can have policy solutions for. And actually, I think the rise of diversification and the backlash to it is a great example of both what's driving this and also the fact that these problems are not as unsolvable as they might seem. There's a lot of research into something called the halo effect, which is that the biggest white backlash tends to take place. If you were to look at a map and you look at the areas that are, I'm sure you're familiar with this, look at the areas that are diversifying.

The white backlash occurs in a big halo, a big circle around those areas. People who don't live in the areas that are diversifying. So if you live in the area that's diversifying, you're seeing people in your community who might be immigrants, refugees, who might look different from you. You might see your community changing, but you're interacting with those people every day. And especially again, this brings us back to in person. Right, right. And you see your neighbors interacting with them every day and you see your neighbors having perfectly fine, pleasant, friendly interactions with them. And you derive from that, oh, it's fine to treat these people nicely. And like, actually, they're going to be nice to me too. And we can all get along.

You really learn from that. Your conformity instinct kicks in. And I think that there is really something to the idea that like, if we just can interact more with people, not in these online contexts that are so polarizing. If you like unplug from that, you really do develop it. Like, or if you have like Republicans in your family. Yeah. Like if you just like talk to them as people, you will get along with them.

It's not going to fix politics. I'm definitely not saying that's a solution to polarization, but I think it's definitely a solution to social distrust. Yeah. I think like isolating people physically and in online spaces that are just like outgroups. Right. And like, this is my online group. We're pitted against that online group. And like, it's all virtual. Like that is just the, you know, trying to fix that is tricky and challenging. But that for sure is poisoning things. So what are you going to do for, what's Charlie's being a moral kind person,

which he's doing great so far, I will say. I think, yeah, just some great books. Okay. The David Brooks, get it? You know what he needs? A theologian. So I'm going to read him some Reinhold Niebuhr. David Brooks.

The David Brooks and Barack Obama philosopher overlap. Oh my God. No, believe me. I've gone through that. I've gone through a lot of that. Are they still pals, do you think? I don't know if they're still pals. On the Reinhold group thread? They liked talking about Reinhold Niebuhr.

Who's a great philosopher theologian? I'm sure he's lovely. But like, you know, again, I don't know if he's the solution to all our problems. Right. This was fun, Max. Yeah. What a great chat. I think we solved it. I think we solved folk country music. We solved social atomization. We did a lot.

Well, this is why I'm going on vacation. Also because there's a hurricane hitting the city in a couple of days. I'm getting out before Hillary hits. But then I will be back Also because there's a hurricane hitting the city in a couple of days. Yeah, I'm getting out before Hillary hits. But then I will be back after Labor Day. Well, I will be here, but we can't wait to see you when you're back. All right. Take care. Offline is a Crooked Media production.

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