I mean to me this feels “correct,” but this analysis is kind of mid. Like, obviously the world is a waking nightmare and the demonic “communication tool” that monopolises all of our free time is a coping mechanism. But I’m not sure “logging off” is the solution when there is no “reality” to log off to. The internet bleeds over into “real life.” And “real life” hasn’t been “real” for decades now. This article could benefit from speaking about the Spectacle, spectacular life. Get some Debord and Baudrillard in here and you’re really cooking.

The internet is, in my mind, an information delivery service. It has made me more aware of worldwide tragedies. It has also made me more aware of the causes of those tragedies; without the internet, I would probably be a pro-American liberal.

Not deeply emphasizing with all of this is not necessarily a flaw. Humans aren’t built to deal with that on a regular basis. Not engaging with things that don’t affect you is normal. For most of human history, that’s not an issue, but with the world’s information at your fingertips, it suddenly is.

The author has decided to do this by logging off. That’s fine, and it’s probably the correct response if the internet is significantly damaging your mental health. I don’t think it’s required for most people, though, and modern people being more aware of the world is a good thing - it’s hard to imagine a generation of Americans who are generally critical of capitalism, and yet here we are. I hope this weird new enlightenment leads to people that are more ready that previous generations to fight back against systems that are transparently unjust, but only time will tell.

So, from skimming the article it kinda frames it like, you are either traumatized or not and you should “act” like it all the time.

I’m of the opinion, from various life experiences, that a traumatic event is kinda like a bullseye. The center is where those most immediately and severely impacted are at and every “ring” emanating from the center is a group of people who are impacted less and less directly and severely.

Things like 9/11/2001 in the USA only really had a small number of people at the “bullseye” and the rest of us were way out in the rings. Sure there were effects to my life but nothing really traumatic so there really isn’t anything that needs to be dealt with. Me making fun of it, is less about dissociation and more about how the event doesn’t deserve to be memorialized in the way to be a thought terminating cliche.

I remember being in high school and it seemed like, for a pretty small down, one high school aged kid a year at a minimum died. It was kinda sad, but unless you were a friend or family, there really wasn’t anything to be traumatized about. All of the teachers were acting like we were all supposed to be terribly upset, some of the students acted like they were really upset, and it was kinda expected that you were to play along and be sullen and quiet.

My mom told me a story about when she had to tell her coworkers that she had cancer and then had to spend days consoling everybody else who was upset that she had cancer. She hated every minute of it. Then I had to deal with the same thing when my mom died of her cancer, I told my bosses at work (as warning that I might need to duck out of work at random times to deal with paperwork stuff), and then had to deal with some uncomfortably long situations where another employee was very very VERY upset… for me. It was exhausting and time consuming and after dealing with dozens of people for various “executor of an estate” reasons I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at people who said “sorry for your loss”.

I understand the impulse—to meme-ify this thing that has become a symbol for the cynical, trauma-mining jingoism of American life. But I also think it’s a way to do what I did, what all my friends did, after 9/11—to minimize its impact on us. Because whether you were there or not; whether you were born before or after, that event has deeply and tragically affected our lives—taken away your personal freedoms in the form of the Patriot Act; put blood on your hands and guilt in your hearts in the form of endless war on foreign soils. We’re all trying to put it behind a screen; to make it a movie.

this is where the left-libs’ “9/11 was a tragedy, I’m only mocking how it was used afterwards” position takes you: viewing anti-americanism as just an ironic performance, done by people trying to sublimate their cynicism from their fundamental love of country

but when I make fun of 9/11 I’m not using gallows humor to cope with cognitive dissonance. there’s nothing gallows about it bc I don’t particularly view 9/11 as a tragedy. I just hate this country and find the blowback for our crimes a bit satisfying

Okay I had a chance to read it. I appreciate the perspective and agree with it but I also think it’s pretty on-the-nose and just reminds me of something a mental health influencer would say, with a bit of leftist language peppered in. Scrolling is absolutely a coping mechanism for unresolved trauma and any type of mental illness, really. Double that for someone who’s autistic or has ADHD; it can be soothing and is a dopamine machine so that HAS to make it even more alluring. But there are many self destructive coping mechanisms that a traumatized person can turn to. If you are simply in a state of coping, that in and of itself is not healing the trauma. Therefore I think any way that you decide to cope with traumatic events is simply prolonging it and that’s not exclusive to internet addiction.

Before cell phones, I had drugs and booze and my iMac. Before drugs I had videogames. An entire lifetime of coping mechanisms to help me avoid processing my feelings. Would you not describe the experience of dissociation from substances as some sort of simulacrum?

I’ve gone to therapy for 10+ years. It has helped to untangle a lifetime of traumatic experience for me, but it was not something that magically cured my need to cope in whatever ways I can. I am still mentally ill. I’m still neurodivergent. Still living in a capitalist hellscape as we all are. Not everyone has access to therapy. So, then what do you do? Get rid of your coping skills, no matter how harmful, to just sit with your thoughts, not knowing how to work through them and let them eat you alive? Fuck that, give me cute capybara videos to scroll through please.

I agree that internet addiction is a real problem, and the access we have to it can make it a real hindrance to being in community. I’m experiencing this first hand. But I think the conversation is more nuanced and I wish the writer would have taken it farther.

Just a friendly reminder that there should be a way to archive links when creating a post that can get around paywalls. (It might take aminute or two to do the archiving thing).

It pops up for me right below the “URL” textbox with several options for archiving.

I also can’t read it in full. Maybe putting the PDF on Google drive or Mega would be good?

It cut out for me. As someone who’s terminally online I wanna read it!

You can skim through if you need to.

I want to know how you all feel about this one.

Here’s the article in Google doc form:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dOqCfsJEA_Vp4BJa_gLhZpxR3PIduDZX/view?usp=sharing

Can anyone read this in full?

Good read, I don’t know why people are being so defensive about it. I agree with what the author says about the polarization of 9/11 reactions online. People pretend to be either nihilists or nationalists, which feels redundant to an extent because both sides cynically exploit other people’s trauma for the sake of establishing their highly performative political personas. There’s no room for mourning in our culture. Genuineness is seen as disingenuous. You’re either make memes that joke about 9/11 jumpers or ones demanding that the middle east be nuked.