When traditional success feels out of reach, platforms offer an alternative: validation, belonging, identity, even money and status, if you perform well enough.
It looks like a new meritocracy. It isn’t.
It looks like a new meritocracy. It isn’t.
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It offers the illusion of empowerment. Likes become validation. Followers feel like influence. Monetisation looks like success.
But the rules are hidden. The platform decides what rises and what vanishes.
You don’t control the tools, the terms, or the outcomes.
You perform endlessly, hoping for reward, but the real value flows upward.
You are the labour and the product.
Use something FOSS-y and federative whenever possible. And encourage each and every constituency you're part of to leave the Bad Place(s).
I want agency and privacy. The price for this is having to think for oneself and act on it.
But in reality, it’s a performance inside someone else’s machine.
But you’re reacting to incentives you didn’t choose, inside structures you don’t control, for outcomes you can’t secure.
It feels like freedom, but it's self-exploitation for someone else's profit..
People need to make sense of it.
They need meaning.
They need an explanation.
They need someone to blame.
That’s where disordered discourse enters.
I find it odd that so many people have deep beliefs based on no evidence, but this is as old as history & didn't start with the iPhone
Powerless means not being able to do things
What's the 'gap' here? I don't see the 'emotional pressure'
Do you mean the frustration of being allowed to do things, but not being able to do what you would like to do?
I have no idea what you are getting at
It turns frustration into certainty.
It tells you you’re not failing, you’re seeing what others can’t.
You didn’t lose, the system was rigged.