I see this as a terminally-online thing personally. The folks who walk the walk at a local level don’t tend to spend the time arguing with folks about it on Twitter because they’ve got real outlets for political action. Therefore, their reach is far lower - if you’re not in that local community, you probably wouldn’t know they exist at all.
A lot of the most annoying castigating on Twitter imo comes from people who are overwhelmed by big problems, or are genuinely marginalized/traumatized in some way, but don’t have an outlet IRL to take action and therefore the Internet takes its place. It’s formed like an attempt at online political action, but really it’s venting. And considering that social media platforms are incentivized to widely spread ideas that make people angry - because that boosts engagement - it’s worth considering their reach online is much, much wider than people posting about measures on their local ballots, or organizing locally, etc.
I think of my friend Val, who teaches self-defense and organizes for collective defense of queer folks and their families. She’s just about the most sincere lefty I’ve ever met, and she’s not even remotely online because she has no need to be - her people are around her. I aim to take a page out of that book tbh.
I don’t really have a sense for how common they are across the board - but ofc lots of folks are. I was myself at one point, and still am to some extent but in a much healthier way I think. It’s certainly something that can change over time and I think more and more people are experiencing social media burnout. I try to be optimistic because if there’s hope for me there’s hope for everyone else.
And it also means that I’m constantly surprised at the number of people I meet near me who are engaged and doing things for the community and I just wouldn’t have seen em online.
I see this as a terminally-online thing personally. The folks who walk the walk at a local level don’t tend to spend the time arguing with folks about it on Twitter because they’ve got real outlets for political action. Therefore, their reach is far lower - if you’re not in that local community, you probably wouldn’t know they exist at all.
A lot of the most annoying castigating on Twitter imo comes from people who are overwhelmed by big problems, or are genuinely marginalized/traumatized in some way, but don’t have an outlet IRL to take action and therefore the Internet takes its place. It’s formed like an attempt at online political action, but really it’s venting. And considering that social media platforms are incentivized to widely spread ideas that make people angry - because that boosts engagement - it’s worth considering their reach online is much, much wider than people posting about measures on their local ballots, or organizing locally, etc.
I think of my friend Val, who teaches self-defense and organizes for collective defense of queer folks and their families. She’s just about the most sincere lefty I’ve ever met, and she’s not even remotely online because she has no need to be - her people are around her. I aim to take a page out of that book tbh.
I don’t disagree with you, but I do think it’s worth considering that there might be vastly more chronically online people than you think.
I don’t really have a sense for how common they are across the board - but ofc lots of folks are. I was myself at one point, and still am to some extent but in a much healthier way I think. It’s certainly something that can change over time and I think more and more people are experiencing social media burnout. I try to be optimistic because if there’s hope for me there’s hope for everyone else.
And it also means that I’m constantly surprised at the number of people I meet near me who are engaged and doing things for the community and I just wouldn’t have seen em online.