Ok, so what the hell does that mean? I woke up an hour ago due to my apartment being 9 million degrees because I left the heater on last night. So, I get up, go get a glass of ice water and start scrolling through dtube. As I was scrolling through I had a thought about what we choose to consume. I'm not claiming to invent fire here but I do think it's important to remember we are in more control of what we consume than we think.
My youngest daughter is 14 years old. Last Saturday she asked my if I had seen the last instagram post that she had sent me, which of course was a puppy. She's lobbying hard for a dog, lol. Sitting next to me on the couch and watching me as I fumbled though my insta she said, "You've got a really boring instagram", which of course made me laugh. Of course my instagram full of resellers-amazon sellers, ebay sellers, shopify ads, etsy sellers, etc is not at all poppin to my 14 year old. The picture above is a pendant I sell in my etsy store-how can she not find that fascinating???? (Luckily she didn't see any of the foot fetish girls pictures, that's not a conversation we need to have-ever.)
It got me thinking about those less than scientific studies you hear about regarding your social feeds. In particular, how if you send three different people with three strongly different world views to google to search the exact same thing-more often than not they will be rewarded with what google (and facebook and others for that matter) think they want to see, BASED ON WHAT THEY REGULARLY CONSUME.
Extremely ridiculously cliched example time:
So, let's say you are an extreme-righty and feel all black dudes are thugs and you watch fox news all day, when you type black teens in the search you will most likely get rewarded with some teen in handcuffs-because it fits what you regularly consume. By the same token if you are mega-lefty and feel all rich people are inherently evil and you regularly watch, comment and like msnbc joints you will probably get stories that fit the rich equals evil narrative. You've all experienced it: you search for a gag gifts on amazon for secret santa with your raunchiest friends. You read extensively about gummy bear bag o' dicks. Oh, how hilarious this will be when they get a bag o' dicks in their mailbox. You click on 5 different listings for bag o' dicks on amazon. You dont purchase cuz you gotta get to work. While at work you happen to stumble across your facebook feed somehow (cuz nobody checks facebook at work) and lo and behold, there are twenty seven ads on the right side of your feed for bags of dicks. How did this happen?
Again, I'm not finding new worlds here, but it is important. Just like the sugary goodness of Bubbalicious gum from back in the day, in the short term it's all good-but the decay is slowly taking root. If you've ever owned a pool or lived in an apartment building with one you learn that there needs to be a filter and your pool needs fresh, new water regularly or it goes stagnant and green with algae. It's important to break the bubble, it's important to not be so firmly in our feedback loop that there is no room to consume or even taste the smallest of nibbles of what we don't know.
Have you ever met a person that has no curiosity? It's awful. Miserable. They suck the life right out of any room. I'm a Taurus (why did I just type that? jesus christ.) I am very fond of having a fixed position on most of my opinions but I'm aware that my opinions are just that-opinions. My opinions. One man in a very large world of human beings. Some of the best moments of my life have been hashing out differing opinions with others. Give it a shot. It can be like trading in that tooth rotting Bubbalicious for some sugar free gum.
Peace,
Dominic from verbalmilk
Remember: Verbs are action words.