It’s what we all drive for, we want our content to be liked. Because if you share a photo or an article that you wrote, and no one likes it; well how will you feel? Am I actually not attractive? Do I really write like a 3 year old with crayons in his mouth talking?

Personally, I haven’t got a care in the world; I’m used to having my ideas silenced because a few attractive females jumped to some conclusions, because they feel hurt, which is the equivalent to oppressing them (or similarly, punching a baby in the face). What happens next, well let me tell you young man; I get repeatedly yelled at, ostracized with finally a group of their friend publicly humiliating me. Blocked.

People used to like my posts, my pictures, they would think, but now through a various subset of cognitive biases, insecurities and mob mentality; the entire culture of online interactions have changed. (I recently got banned from a subreddit for joking about the feminist movement)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmUM_caATxZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The psychology behind it is fairly clear, the like serves as a reward system, like praise for a job well done (now that I think of it there probably is a reason why I’m not getting likes). It’s almost like a token economy, the same economy that rewards desirable behaviour. I have come to notice, that is how a lot of people, now treat other people!

You know it was once said that social media is dominated by females, but recent facebook server shows that women slightly outweigh men; but the do infect outweigh men. When you think of 6% of 2 billion people, that’s a lot; and 83% of women and 75% of men whom use the internet, use facebook. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of people who can influence the behaviour of another group of people, and have most of the targeted group unaware of what’s going on!

Whomever thought of this 3rd wave feminism, ingenious. Yet I believe they largely lost control, and feminists are unwilling to admit that this movement has holes; pockets of tyrannical corrosion of the idea that this movement represents equality.

So this may get misinterpreted, I don’t mean that some women in the world don’t need help, and I don’t mean that some men don’t need to be regulated. But here in Canada, in the States? Please, don’t be ridiculous; women in the west fare a lot better than women in less developed countries.

Yet, this like button has become so engrained within our self esteem and our well being, that it’s makes kids upset that they don’t get. The worst part is, my parents generation don’t understand this. Maybe, I am the one missing something, maybe there was something that was psychologically like the like button, or this reward system. Or did we come so far technologically from our parents that these are all new concepts, that  nothing in the past was as destructive to our social culture.

There’s a plethora of articles on the psychological effects of social media, the internet and platforms such as Instagram, or Facebook. I just wanted to touch on the fact that this culture of “Liking” (which now has changed so you can systematically design your reactions to let the original poster know how you feel instead just an arbitrary “like”). You know can say “that issue makes me angry, and if it makes you angry too, we can now form groups (or “tribes”) to combat the other people with a different opinion than us; we may even falsely label them trolls so our tribe will no longer talk to these people.

— AA (By the way, 20 likes is a lot to me)