one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with a lot of information every day is the heuristics you employ to manage and respond to that information. often this takes the form of memes, i.e, someone says "hambirder" and then you immediately comment "hambirder".
with similar frequency this happens with advice. someone posts about a difficult situation they're dealing with, and you respond immediately, providing your steps to fixing the situation as you understand it. here's a very common example:
person 1 posts on facebook about a situation involving her boyfriend. person 1 says that they asked boyfriend if he would be willing to stay up late to make sure that person 1 gets home from their shift safely. boyfriend said no.
you go on facebook and see person 1, someone you’ve known for years and are friends with, is asking for advice about this situation. immediately you are reminded of thousands of situations you’ve seen online that are similar to this (girlfriend asking boyfriend for small favor, boyfriend being fucking useless in response), and you chime in with the most common response you’ve seen in all of those situations: dump him.
another example: person 1 has a friend that can be very inconsiderate. person 1 was supposed to go to a concert with friend, but friend forgot about it and made other plans. person 1 now doesn’t want to go to the concert and posts on facebook asking what they should do.
you go on facebook and see that person 1 is asking for advice, and you comment your first thought, something that is a very common response in a situation like this: fuck your friend, go anyway.
this method of relating and responding to your friends is very natural on social media, and you see it everywhere. people pick up on the most common responses, and the most common types of responses, and then implement them, for comedy’s sake or because they think it’s truly good advice or because they want to contribute but can’t think of anything to say, it happens constantly.
one of the issues with this mode of interaction that i’ve recently run into in my own life is the issue of flattening other’s problems by offering these very static, unhelpful, obvious responses.
the flattening that occurs by using this type of method happens because you are ignoring the difficulties, the nuances, and the personal aspects of the issues. “dump him” is almost always good advice because men are fucking horrible, but changing your friend’s relationship issues from a dynamic two person problem that could be potentially resolved through communication, collaboration, and effort into a completely flat “boyfriend bad find new one” helps no one and often alienates the person who is asking for advice.
recently, someone i am very close with was having issues with their job. they were being treated poorly, and, as i viewed it, their job was being openly racist and attempting to force them out. i expressed that they should quit, because they happen to have someone who is willing to support them financially as they look for another job, and because the job was so deeply upsetting for them that it seemed like the best thing for them. what i didn’t realize, was that quitting was already, and always, an option for them. i hadn’t illuminated anything or provided new insights, i had flattened their experience down to “job bad. quit job” and then told them exactly that. by not working past my own initial understanding, and by not integrating my understanding of the situation into my advice, i had alienated this person and made them feel as though i didn’t know what they were going through, despite us having spoken about it for multiple hours.
fortunately, i realized i had made this mistake while still in the conversation. i said to them “i’m realizing now that by suggesting that you quit i am flattening the issue and ignoring the many nuances of the job and the situation that make it uncomfortable to simply quit, and i acknowledge that you must have already had the idea and inclination to quit, and if you were simply looking for support in that choice you would have asked for it. i know that this is a difficult and novel situation for you and i want you to understand that i’m here to support you and to help you figure out what is best for you”
later this person told me that they had really appreciated that because i had made them feel misunderstood, and like their problem was not a real problem.
i started this entry by asserting that an aspect of this phenomena is the amount of information we receive each day. that is, when you scroll twitter / facebook / instagram for 10 hours a day, you begin to develop heuristics to recognize / categorize / respond to things. it becomes easy to hit like on things when you are able to understand within a quarter of a second whether or not you ought to click like. it becomes easy to give advice when you understand within a moment of reading something what someone ought to do.
it is exhausting to spend minutes on each post, attempting to figure out whether or not you should click like, whether or not your advice is needed or good, whether your response is worth typing. it is certainly not worth doing these things every single time you interact with someone online.
for my friends, i’ve started taking that time, asking myself probing questions, working through what my goals in socialization / social media are and how i can reach them, and a few other things like that. it’s deepened my relationships with people and helped me become a better friend.
quick note about this playlist:
this is a playlist made entirely of artists signed to empire. i’ve really liked empire as a label for a while and i wanted to pull some artists and some tracks that i liked and put them together. not much thought went into order or theme. focus was on which artists
mega: https://mega.nz/folder/rJcASLJY#O27FFvlfMnqGctbMXQaIWQ
youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4bUgvWbrZGIhycTjDL6IYTCH46XGyDUe
playlist:
Haiti Babii - [Trap Art CD1 #01] Birthday Bitch
SOB X RBE - [GANGIN #01] Carpoolin'
Jay Nice;Fredro Starr - [Loud Pack from Paris CD1 #04] Wreck Boulevard (feat. Fredro Starr)
AllBlack x Daboii - [No Shame 3] Chevron 2
Jean Deaux - [Krash CD1 #08] Code drea the vibe dealer
AllBlack - [No Shame 3] DMX
Yung Bleu/Rylo Rodriguez - [Bleu Vandross 3 CD1 #07] Everytime I Blink
Jay Nice - [Loud Pack from Paris CD1 #05] French Inhale
J-Green - [Fvck Mainstream Codeine Funk #17] From The South feat 2.7.5. Denzel Curry prod by JGREEN
Afro B - [AfroWave #07] Gonna Do
AllBlack - [No Shame 3] Large White Tee
Afro B - [Afrowave 3 CD1 #08] Mad Mad Mad (Fiya Dance)
SOB X RBE - [GANGIN #07] No Discussion
J-Green - [Fvck Mainstream Codeine Funk #01] Northside prod by JGREEN
Haiti Babii - [Welcome 2 Da 9 #08] Period
AllBlack x Daboii, Cash Kidd - [No Shame 3] Pizza Rolls
Jean Deaux - [Krash CD1 #03] Deserve (More)
Jacob Latimore - [C3 CD1 #07] Real Love
Young Dolph & Key Glock - [Dum and Dummer CD1 #04] Summo'
Jay Loud - [Nap Town CD1 #05] Wait
Young Dolph & Key Glock - [Dum and Dummer CD1 #11] Water on Water on Water
Jean Deaux - [Krash CD1 #09] Work 4 Me feat. Kari Faux
Jay Loud - [Nap Town CD1 #04] Zoom (feat. Laza)