The Unreal Politics of Unreal Men
“Social media isn’t real life.” It’s a phrase we hear a lot. But is that really true? When Congress threatened to block China from controlling TikTok, the company riled up a mob of tweens to threaten Congress. If the Senate gives in, the outcome will be real enough. TikTok certainly is real life. If you doubt it, look at the rate of teenage girls who have themselves mutilated because of trans trends on the app, even younger girls who killed themselves over material in the app’s algorithm or the spread of verbal or motor ‘tics’ to teens over the platform. Social media isn’t real in the same way as the wind and the rain, or the laws of physics or economics, it’s an alternate reality spread through the internal realities of our minds. Before social media, there was just media, the concentration of mass media, radio, film and newspapers that wrecked much of the twentieth century and killed millions of people. It is no coincidence that some of the most destructive social and political movem