Writing about Instagram is hard, I keep pausing myself before I consider actually committing to anything. It feels passé to even mention social media in an academic text, never-mind to take such a lowly-considered form of content seriously. But, I know this stuff will be important in the future. I don’t know why, I just know it will.
Why does a video of a giant axe, waiting to fall, before slamming into an Early Warning System style direct-address feel so compelling to me? Well, it broke me out of a loop. A repetitive, destructive behavioural loop that had me captured. I feel gratitude, because this short, weird little video just saved me 10, 20, 30 minutes of more scrolling. More absent-minded walking down a narrow alleyway beset by windows filled with temptation on both sides. The biblical themes don’t elude me.
is this type of post actually doing something interesting, or is it just the way that these platforms integrate their own critique - forming a kind of shield of complacency since we can always say, “look, the people on here know what they’re in for” - even when we know these things hijack our dopamine for the same reasons?