The internet is making us insufferable

Have we lost the plot?

Here’s a hard pill to swallow: not everything is about us, and not everything is for us.

I don’t mean this in an elitist way—I’m a firm believer that we should have the freedom to explore and experiment, and have the chance to dictate if something is for us or not. Sure, there are things that I innately know are not for me, but this idea of having someone else judge and determine if we belong somewhere, or if we have the right to consume and enjoy something, really gives me the ick. Specially when that someone doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know my values, my beliefs, my taste, my likes, my dislikes, who I am as a person, what I stand for, what I enjoy, what I don’t enjoy.

Image reads, “Today I discovered that the world doesn’t revolve around me. I don’t recommend it, it’s horrible”. Via Lela Brandão on Instagram.

What I mean when I say that not everything is about us, and not everything is for us, is that we—you, me—are not at the centre. And we’re most certainly not the centre. It’s a common misconception when every piece of content, art, and information we consume is meticulously curated for us. We start to believe that everything is made specifically for us, leading to the but what if I don’t like beans? theory. You know, that hysterical episode where that one girl on TikTok made a highly specific bean soup and had her comment section flooded with questions like, “but what if I don’t have beans at home?”, “but what if I’m allergic to beans?”, “but what if my local grocery store doesn’t carry those beans?”, “but I hate beans, can I use something else instead?” (Was common sense not an option?)

The bean soup is just one of many (way too many) examples. “Here’s my ponytail tutorial for thin hair”; “but my hair is thick”. “If you’re struggling to make friends, try joining a running club like me”; “but my doctor says I can’t run, don’t I deserve to have friends, is that what you’re implying?”. “This is the best movie I’ve seen all year”; “lol, fuck you, that movie sucks”. “I make this bread every week and it’s delicious”; “but I’m gluten free, why do you hate people who are gluten free?”.

Here’s an insane idea. Why don’t you just skip this content that wasn’t made to cater to your every desire and need, move on with your day, and search for something that you’ll actually like and is available to you? Also, why not let the people who actually appreciate said content enjoy it in peace, without having to deal with your snarky comments and “wHaT aBOut ME” attitude? Crazy that we can choose to not engage, right?

Via @showerthoughtsnyc on Instagram.

As psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explains in Are You a Digital Narcissist?, technology has normalized narcissism by legitimizing public displays of entitlement and self-centeredness. It’s what many have dubbed the “what about me” effect—this idea that everything we see must be 100% catered to us; and if it’s not, we’ll find a way to make it about us. One of the best accounts I’ve seen about this topic is from Sarah Lockwood, who perfectly explains how the “what about me” effect is a combination of “individualistic culture” and “being chronically online”. It’s this illusion that everything is about us, and that everything we consume must tick all the boxes, otherwise, what’s the point of even consuming it in the first place? It’s giving critical thinking has left the chat.

To me, the ‘what about me’ effect lives in the same world as main character syndrome, where the internet (which is now little more than algorithmic hell) has put us at the centre of it all, and made us expect that everything we see on our feed must be perfectly tailored to us. This expectation has made us extremely self-centred, unable to cope with other people’s circumstances, and was not the original goal of the Internet (after all, it was called Internet Explorer, not Internet Show-Me-Everything-I-Already-Know-And-Agree-With-er.)

From Shit You Should Care About

Like someone very smartly wrote, “the Internet is where common sense comes to die”, and I couldn’t agree more. All this “what about me” discourse is making us lose the ability to have constructive conversations and healthy arguments. The internet—and social media / the algorithm in particular—is making us insufferable and arrogant. It’s turning us into snobs. We don’t know how to talk to people who don’t agree with us, and we don’t even want to listen to what they have to say in the first place. We love to publicly share every opinion we have about everything, but we can’t conceive the idea that someone might not feel the same way, or share the same view. We can’t wrap our head around the fact that someone disagreeing with us is not a personal attack, and that something not being for us is not an insult. I get the whole idea of protecting our space from idiots, and filtering the hateful or harmful speech (and I obviously stand behind it), but that’s not really the point here.

Remember Barbie, the movie? I know, beaten up example, eye-roll, bla bla bla. One of the main critiques to the blockbuster was its surface level idea of feminism. It added little (nothing?) to the discourse, giving a very basic account about girlhood and womanhood. For a lot of people, America Ferrera’s speech about how it’s impossible to be a woman wasn’t powerful—it was painfully obvious. As for myself, I enjoyed Barbie. I watched the movie twice in theaters. I cried and I laughed. I felt seen when Margot Robbie had her whole meltdown / existential crisis. That whole Depressed Barbie bit? Hilarious. And because I understand nuance and context, I also think the feminist critique is more than valid. But here’s the thing: not everything seeks to be complex, and not everything needs to be complex to be enjoyed. I’m not framing this in the “it’s not that deep” sense—questioning and critiquing is and always will be an essential part of consuming anything. But it’s also important that the way we question and critique goes beyond the “you’re so dumb for liking this, this is trash, and so are you for thinking this is good” argument. Just because we don’t appreciate or see the value in something, doesn’t mean others shouldn’t.

There are a million different phenomenons out there that I don’t really understand (Gracie Abrams—it’s just Taylor Swift for the cool, indie girlies; It Ends With Us, both the book and the movie; Stanley cups; Sonny Angels; most influencers; being a hater of anything that I don’t understand), and a million different things that are probably not for me (Gracie Abrams; It Ends With Us, both the book and the movie; Stanley cups; Sonny Angels; most influencers; being a hater of anything that is not for me). Maturing is realizing that our perception of good and bad is subject to our context and references, to the taste we developed over time, to what we consume and what we allow into our mental, emotional, and physical space. I think this applies not only to the one consuming the content, but also to the one creating it. I’ve spent so much time wondering why hasn’t this person shared my newsletter, are they embarrassed to be associated with me on this level, why hasn’t that person said anything about my writing, do they hate it, is it cringe, only to come to the peaceful conclusion that maybe it’s just not for them (or maybe it’s bad and I’m genuinely untalented, who knows, who cares). Maturing is also understanding that we don’t have a free pass to go all intellectually superior on people who haven’t reached the same degree of knowledge as we have. Everyone needs to start somewhere, and not everyone will start with a copy of The Second Sex. Should that take away the merit?

This snobbish attitude of shitting on anything that we don’t like, and anyone that doesn’t like what we like, only accomplishes one of three things. Actually, when done right, it accomplishes all of them. One, it pushes people away, leading to the anti-intellectualism sentiment that we all hate and fear. Two, it gives off the impression that every time you admit to not knowing something, or confide that you are still learning something, there’s always a finger waiting to be pointed at you, like a silly little second grader mocking that one kid during playtime because they did something stupid. Three, it makes you look like an asshole. And no one wants to look like an asshole. Have you learnt nothing from our demure bestie?

While writing this, I came across two things that stuck with me, and they both pretty much summarize my whole point. The first was a TikTok video (yes, I love TikTok and most of my references these days come from TikTok; sue me) from a Portuguese creator called Rita, talking about her favorite books. For her last recommendation, she mentioned something along the lines of, “After listening to this man on the radio, I was curious to learn more about him, because I thought he was quite interesting. After looking him up, I realized that most of his ideas and beliefs are very different from my own, but I think it’s important for us to read things that don’t necessarily align with our ideas and beliefs”. Mind. Blowing. You can argue that we won’t be here forever, which means that spending time, energy and money on books that don’t align with your idea of the world is a waste of said time, energy and money, but isn’t that the whole point of learning, growing and evolving? Being exposed not only to things that enrich our own existing views, but also things that we couldn’t disagree more with? The second bit was from a comment under a Substack note about thought daughters, which questioned if you could be a thought daughter if your thoughts weren’t your own. The whole comment was great, but for the purpose of the topic at hand, this is the part I want to highlight:

No one works independently because as social animals, we can’t. What I thought of today, Dostoevsky wrote and published in White Nights years before my parents were born. Whatever you think is tired and dusted, might be a novel idea for someone else.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Once you’re done, go make some bean soup. Or don’t. I’m sure the right soup recipe for you exists out there, lost in an algorithm that will never know your every want and need (isn’t that a reassuring thought, that nothing in life is perfect, not even the most sophisticated of things?) And no, you won’t have to hate on all of us bean lovers to find it.

---