Fighting for relevancy

Since humans are social animals, we are by nature also needy animals and whether we admit it or not, the vast majority of us want recognition, attention as some kind of receipt of existence. No one likes to be ignored, we all want to feel relevant and as the world in which we live and work doesn't always provide, many turn to the internet to satisfy the attention deficit they feel and for an increasing number, the attention monster inside is insatiable.

The increase is likely because we are designed to socialize on a small scale, a tight social circle but modernity has increased the space we feel we must occupy, whether it be knowledge about the world or how many likes we get on a social post, everyone is looking for validation. We extend ourselves out consuming more and more irrelevant and seeing more people getting attention and feel that we deserve a little piece of that too. We fill our life with and heavily reward celebrity and increasingly, the status is tied to shill, not skill.

Professionally engineered, manufactured and commercialized branding of a person into a public persona that the adoring fans created through repetition lap up, seemingly oblivious to the disconnection from reality as they celebrate a picture of their favorite product standing next to a Ferrari. Hoping that one day, it will be them but for now, D&G underwear for 30 dollars will suffice until the 10,000 dollar gown is within reach. They sell a hell of a lot more overpriced underwear and perfume, than dresses.

Combine this view with the hardworking employee struggling to make ends meet, ignored for promotion and continually being automated toward unemployment while living in a world of economic and political instability, previously smiling faces buried into phone screens and children too out of shape to run, and the problems of the world seem insurmountable. It is easy to see the problems and feel insignificant, irrelevant.

And the internet provides the perfect stage to voice opinion, let out the tension and even find support for the stand taken, the attention that feeds the beast. People think that the attention economy is about advertisers and marketers drawing us in but it is actually a two way street as we are trying to draw attention for ourselves out. The claim that it is "all for me" is obviously false for if it was true, there would be hard drives filled with text filling the attics and basements, not corporate servers. Our socialization needs want to be heard.

We are lazy animals that try to maximize our gains while minimizing efforts and the easiest way to find support that satisfies neediness is through common enemy, complaint about popular topic and offering solutions that one knows will never require personal action. The support group knows it too, they can jump on the bandwagon of complaint and feel like they are standing behind something knowing that they will never actually need to do anything.

Overlaying flag colors over a Facebook profile pictures to show solidarity is yet to stop a war and requiring a pink ribbon to consider donation to breast cancer research is a waste of valuable resources at a global level. Is that activism, is it charity? Or is it attention-seeking behavior, low-cost virtue signalling that never need amount to more than the signal? How long does the concern and care last when the cost to appear to "help" is so low? News cycles and short attention spans don't help matters.

The further we go into this new world of rewarded passivity the more our multiple and deep potential for skill degrades and, the less relevant we will feel. We want the attention but we no longer hold the ability to grab it for we are now unskilled, unemployed, inexperienced and isolated individuals living life vicariously through digital content served to our feed by algorithms that will continually narrow until we are all getting much the same.

When most people feel irrelevant there are two paths they take, increasing their voice or shrinking away into distraction so as not to have to think of how little they are valued. The third choice of becoming relevant is not a popular path for it requires activity, work and at least in the early stages, very little attention, let alone thanks. As more return for less, if all we want is to feel relevant, screaming into the void of an internet chatroom or burying oneself into a game to chase a high score can provide instant relief and within instant gratification habits the norm, few take the long way around.

It is a funny world we have created as while we fight to feel relevant in the eyes of strangers spread across the globe we will never know, we ignore the people who stand the closest to us. We want mass appeal but deny the affections of an individual. We know how to solve all of the world's problems while we sit unhealthy, lonely, depressed and irrelevant in our homes; working jobs we do not like for corporations that use us and governments that oppress us.

"I can cure the world, yet do not recognize it is me who is ill."
_{Pay attention to me for I know it all. I can save you if you do what I want you to.}

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]