In The Line, Andrew MacDougall finds something good to say about social media:
“Automotive Social Media Marketing” by socialautomotive is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Say what you will about social media, but one unalloyed good is the future Edward Gibbons’ of this parish are going to have no problem piecing together precisely how our society went down the toilet.
Future historians will not only know what happened as we cratered, but, thanks to our ubiquitous digital sketch pads, they will have all of the horrific micro detail. They will know how many times we circled the bowl, what we were saying about circling the bowl as we were circling it and which streaks we were or weren’t arguing about as we went down. Social media is an infinite canvas home to a limitless number of voices and — while we might not be richer for it in the present — our future societal homicide detectives will be forever grateful that we left so many stains to analyze.
For example, when historians consider — as they surely will — whether the moment Canada truly began to crumble was when a WestJet cabin crew allowed Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to grab the conch and address a planeload of (mostly) Conservative Party of Canada delegates on his way back from a successful party convention, we will have a panoply of voices to consult. From all walks of life and social stations, too. What, for example, did a famous singer like Jann Arden have to say about the whole episode?
Well, thanks to our good friend ex-Twitter we don’t have to guess; we know. And what Arden said was: “Hey @WestJet you and I will not be doing business ever again. This is so ridiculously disappointing.”
In life, I try my best not to be insensitive, but imagine having so little going on that this is considered a good use of your time? Imagine possessing such a delicate constitution that you would rather chain yourself [to] the be-vomited reclining seats of Air Canada than ever fly WestJet again. When you live in Calgary. And what has to be going on to then quote-tweet a bunch of nasty replies and joust with a network of digital cretins, as Arden went on to do. Dozens of them. Who stirs the sewage and then pins the best turds to their page?
As someone who has spent (far) too much time wasting time on platforms like ex-Twitter, I feel I speak from experience. I’ve picked a fair few fights I didn’t need to pick. Both with randoms, and rock stars. I have fed the trolls and I have done performative tweeting. And you know what I’ve learned? The only people who win are our algorithmic overlords. People like Arden are the modern-day Olds-and-Milner lab mice hammering the dopamine reward button — look at me get likes and retweets! — until they (metaphorically) die.
