Messing around on Facebook recently, I was appalled to see a man I used to work with gleefully posting about Trump’s election win. I went through a mixture of emotions. First, there was the shock that I had allowed myself to be friends with such a man, because my capacity to make everything about me is impressive, even for a comedian. Second, I couldn’t believe that he could have the temerity to post something that disagreed with what we had all agreed on Facebook was “The Official Viewpoint”. Third, I realised that I probably shouldn’t be on Facebook at my wife’s birthday dinner.
What I should have done was thank him. It was the first time in ages that I had felt anything approaching an emotion on Facebook. Because I’ve only made friends with people who think like me, my newsfeed is nothing but the sound of people high-fiving each other for having the same opinion. It isn’t even an echo chamber. I am basically part of a Borg hive, speaking in unison on everything. If anyone disagreed with me, I would send them to unfriend exile, as if I were running some sort of Facebook North Korea, or Trump’s America.
But if there is anything worse than pointless Facebook posts, it’s pointless Facebook posts that operate under the belief they are important. I would much rather see a picture of someone’s favourite BLT than yet another post from someone writing something banal such as “Racism is really out of order” before sitting back to watch the likes stack up while composing their next post: What’s worse – Bieber or slavery?
I get it. The world is a scary place and posting condemnation or worthy quotes enables us to feel OK about doing absolutely nothing about it. I am as guilty as anyone. I once donated £10 to a water charity and the next time the TV appeal came on, I shouted my support as if I had been involved in digging the wells.
I noticed a similar phenomenon following the Paris attacks. I imagine it was hugely warming to Parisians to know that so many of us had changed our profile pictures to the French flag. I took the radical step of assuming that all my friends knew that I probably condemned terrorism. To ignore it seems equally callous. It does look pretty bad when everybody is expressing grief about a tragedy and you share a link to “Why we should all be eating heirloom tomatoes”.
I regularly post my thoughts on Facebook. And it does feel good when people agree with you. I said something about the arguments for Brexit being misleading, and then basked in the glow of people telling me how spot on I was. I tried to ignore the fact that I was craving this approval more than the love of my family.
What was much more enjoyable, however, was when I posted something pro-Brexit. I declared that labelling all Leavers as thugs was offensive. What followed was invigorating. People called me stupid, and asked if I was in favour of racism. My likes were minimal, but the comments went through the roof. My blood boiled as I defended my argument, checking my feed every few seconds and striking blow after blow against my attackers. It was so exhilarating that I realised that I didn’t need my family at all.
It is not just left-leaning social media which are guilty of this. I recently visited the Britain First homepage and watched a video of some (and I paraphrase here) “patriots challenging the vile practice of halal meat”. I commented to say that I felt that the video looked more like a small group of misinformed people annoying some Indian restaurants. My comment was deleted and I was blocked from the group. Which I assume is the digital equivalent of being told to go back to where you come from – your homepage.
The answer to this is, of course, to mix up the people that you are friends with online, try to engineer a more balanced mix of opinions on your timeline, and obtain a more realistic gauge of how people see events and issues. It also combats apathy. There is a strong argument that everybody was so convinced by Facebook that Hillary’s ascendancy was a done deal, that they didn’t bother to vote. Ditto Brexit. I believe there is a far more interesting way to recalibrate your worldview: defriend everybody who agrees with you. Fill your Facebook with people who oppose everything you say. Suddenly you’ll become some sort of social media freedom fighter, working behind enemy lines. Engage with people, and try to open their minds to a different way of thinking. Be the guy who enrages people; subvert from within. Plus, when the first thing you wake up to in the morning is an anti-immigration Facebook post, you’ll find you won’t need that double espresso.
A friend of mine recently shared a borderline offensive post from Britain First about keeping British jobs for British workers. Instead of dismissing him, as I might have done pre-epiphany, I asked him about his views, and explained how and why I disagreed. And so, what I found by engaging with him was that he really was in fact as racist as I had initially assumed. So I blocked him. Some people actually are just tools.
Romesh Ranganathan’s Irrational is out now on DVD and digital download
