Comment by pavlov
8 years ago
Regretfully I agree. There’s a lot I like about Twitter, but it’s clear — just reading my own feed — that for many it’s primarily about seeking that quick fix of outrage. I get carried away too, retweeting some screenshot of someone being an ass in a discussion about gun control or whatever, and later I feel ashamed.
Twitter is the closest thing to Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” in 1984. Scroll through your feed for two minutes and build up a righteous anger about how stupid the leftists/NRA/FBI/reactionaries/whoever really are.
"Twitter is the closest thing to Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” in 1984. "
That's a great analogy. I almost tweeted this. Almost.
I tweeted it.
You will be hated.
1 reply →
> Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate”
That's what I think of the top popularity celebrity accounts. They show us some message, millions of people see it and then some of them post agreeing/disagreeing tweets. There's no new information in them. It's just shouting into the void, where someone/something sometimes responds with a knee jerk, not because they want a conversation specifically.
It's two minutes of hate with people hating for/against the idea sitting in rooms separated by a thin wall so they can hear each other.
> Twitter is the closest thing to Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” in 1984.
I guess this means that Orwell was too much of an optimist. If we only could reduce Twitter usage to mere two minutes a day...
I see outrage - often inflated - far more often than I see legitimate hate. I also see a lot of naivete; the type that sucks up propaganda and echo shamelessly.