Nolan96
Mage
- Feb 12, 2022
- 506
I made the mistake of going on social media again (Twitter).
I never participate, I just scroll until I feel awful and then leave.
I really am getting so sick of laughter.
So much of the content on there seems to follow the same formula. Low-status user tries to say something clever. High-status user responds with the most banal, paint-by-numbers response possible, ie. "lol cringe", crowd goes wild with their lmao's and laughing emojis, low-status user responds, high-status user throws out another thoughtless paint-by-numbers response "lol do you need more copium", the end. It's even worse when it's videos than it is over text.
What bothers me is that I don't think people are just "pretending" to find the idiots funny to fit in. They really are funnier to our lizard brains.
It was the same thing for me in high school. I would laugh at every little thing the high-status dreamy cool boy said, no matter how stupid, to the point where I had to work hard to suppress myself because people were commenting on how much I seemed to be drooling at his every word.
In my workplace, I analyze laughter and it's like clockwork that the people who are "funniest" are just the ones at the top of the pecking order.
Laughter is such a primitive, ugly, bestial hooting sound. Does it exist among apes? I imagine that our ancestors evolved it just as a hierarchy-sorting mechanism and it became more complex as we became more cognitively advanced.
I realize that this whole post basically belongs on the Unpopular Opinions Thread and that in the age of the internet this is pretty high on the list of the most unfashionable opinions you can have.
When I'm in a slightly better place sometimes I even look back on how shiver-down-the-spine disgusted I was by laughter in my lowest moments and think I was being ridiculous. But isn't that just more evidence that I was right? Am I not just "lol cringe"ing at my own pitiful depressed self?
I don't want laughing at other people or at myself to be my way of staying afloat and not feeling so bad about myself. It makes me nauseous. I'd rather just feel plain bad.
I have so much respect for kind, sincere people, and I feel like they're very hard to come by and society doesn't value them very much.
And for the record there are still funny people I'm fond of, including on this site, and I'm not trying to judge or condemn anybody. I'm just venting about how I feel and seeing if anyone else feels similarly.
I never participate, I just scroll until I feel awful and then leave.
I really am getting so sick of laughter.
So much of the content on there seems to follow the same formula. Low-status user tries to say something clever. High-status user responds with the most banal, paint-by-numbers response possible, ie. "lol cringe", crowd goes wild with their lmao's and laughing emojis, low-status user responds, high-status user throws out another thoughtless paint-by-numbers response "lol do you need more copium", the end. It's even worse when it's videos than it is over text.
What bothers me is that I don't think people are just "pretending" to find the idiots funny to fit in. They really are funnier to our lizard brains.
It was the same thing for me in high school. I would laugh at every little thing the high-status dreamy cool boy said, no matter how stupid, to the point where I had to work hard to suppress myself because people were commenting on how much I seemed to be drooling at his every word.
In my workplace, I analyze laughter and it's like clockwork that the people who are "funniest" are just the ones at the top of the pecking order.
Laughter is such a primitive, ugly, bestial hooting sound. Does it exist among apes? I imagine that our ancestors evolved it just as a hierarchy-sorting mechanism and it became more complex as we became more cognitively advanced.
I realize that this whole post basically belongs on the Unpopular Opinions Thread and that in the age of the internet this is pretty high on the list of the most unfashionable opinions you can have.
When I'm in a slightly better place sometimes I even look back on how shiver-down-the-spine disgusted I was by laughter in my lowest moments and think I was being ridiculous. But isn't that just more evidence that I was right? Am I not just "lol cringe"ing at my own pitiful depressed self?
I don't want laughing at other people or at myself to be my way of staying afloat and not feeling so bad about myself. It makes me nauseous. I'd rather just feel plain bad.
I have so much respect for kind, sincere people, and I feel like they're very hard to come by and society doesn't value them very much.
And for the record there are still funny people I'm fond of, including on this site, and I'm not trying to judge or condemn anybody. I'm just venting about how I feel and seeing if anyone else feels similarly.
