Sentimentality, support and social media.

[Felicity]

Hi, Felix here for new forum goers. I migrated to discord so I'm not much of a forum presence, so if this by chance catches a new eye, hi. Posting here for a more thought out post.

 

So something I have been noticing on twitter and here on the forums for months and years is people's tendencies to offer support and well-wishes. This, at face value, is a good thing, right? I have for a long time been a strong, strong believer in people's capacity to be kind to strangers, I believe it's as close to altruism as you're going to find in the world and that is something I consider valuable.

 

The thing is, and my point with this whole post, I'm finding myself questioning some of the methodology that people are using to try and get this support across, these nice sentiments that may or may not help a stranger to feel better about the world or adjust their viewpoint or whatever you want to do with your posts. I feel like approaches such as the topic Reborn Support Group are flawed, and I'll explain that further in a moment and then maybe if someone wants to offer their view on the topic, you can go ahead.

 

At this point I want to be clear that I'm not out to disparage anyone who wants to put any well meaning messages out into the internet. If you genuinely just want to make someone feel better about their day, that's a great thing to aspire to. You hold onto that, it's great, just consider the how first.

 

So, what specifically is standing out as a flaw with occasional messages of well wishing? The issue I believe is one of repetition. At first glance, consistently putting out good vibes seems like it would naturally lead to a general positive upswing in the people who look at what you put out and so repeating these sentiments in varied formats or phrasings is a good way to bring about that consistency and achieve what you want, right?

 

Well, maybe not. This is where things get subjective for me, I believe that the repetition of an idea or a sentiment erodes the power that sentiment has. It's like currency in its basic sense, if there's a lot of a currency out in the world then the currency will lose value because there's so much of it out there. Conversely, fi that currency is hard to come by, the value correspondingly goes up. If all your life, you're beaten down and then you're told things will be OK, you're either going to refuse to believe it because it's too good to be true or you're going to latch onto it like a life preserver. On the other hand, if you're surrounded by people who promise you things will go your way, when someone says things will turn out well for you, you're not going to fuss so much over what they're saying.

 

So what does that mean for putting out positive vibes on social media? What I've gathered is that it is best to be precise in when and where you share a sentiment to get the best effect, the best bang for your buck to continue to currency metaphor. But of course I'm human, I can be wrong and it's not like the way we interact with social media isn't nuanced, so I was wondering if anyone else had thoughts, or maybe had thoughts in favour of constant, low effort posts encouraging feeling good.

 

At the very least, maybe you think twice about what you're putting out into the world.

[ArgenHyuu]

True, especially the losing value part. I sometimes feel that saying 'Congratulations' to every graduate in social media is making the word lose value for what it's really meant for. Same goes with saying 'Condolences' to every person with a dead loved one, or 'Happy Birthday' to every person with a birthday.

 

But then again, it's all within the perspective of the individual doing the well wishing and the person receiving it. 

[Candy]

On 6/1/2018 at 7:04 AM, ArgenHyuu said:

True, especially the losing value part. I sometimes feel that saying 'Congratulations' to every graduate in social media is making the word lose value for what it's really meant for. Same goes with saying 'Condolences' to every person with a dead loved one, or 'Happy Birthday' to every person with a birthday.

 

But then again, it's all within the perspective of the individual doing the well wishing and the person receiving it. 

Kinda late, but I think the examples you gave have more a social expectation attached to it than it is to make a person feel happy. It's expected that if you have a fren whose birthday is today, you should say happy birthday to them. Those acts are, in other words, showing that you are a friend to that person.

 

And back to the original topic, well I'm no expert on positive thinking, because I am a hooman of reason and logic. (Realistic thought often turns into pessimistic stuff because for most things, it's easier for things to go wrong than right). I think there's no flawed way to give support, however, because (and I'm assuming this) empathy works in the way that if you see a sad person, you should say what would cheer you up if your places were reversed. In my case, I tend to give advice based on experience or statistics, but others may feel that a mere "everything will be ok" would be supportive. 

 

In my view, I think the problem is exactly what OP mentioned, but instead the fault is in the receiver. Just because your currency is not valued, doesn't mean it holds no value. People in Zimbabwe use their currency. Likewise, just because we live many days in a human life, doesn't mean every day is not valuable. If you don't value that another human being, who might as well ignore you and carry on with their life, is not helpful because their support doesn't come in the way that you think should be coming in, I think it's just you being narrow minded

And this is coming from a hooman with allergies to receiving support lul but if ppl wanna give me support, in whatever way, I'd value it because their time is valuable

 

It's an interesting discussion topic though. It's a shame very few replied rip