Sanshray Vakkalagadda Week 1 - Losing Yourself
Identity is such a powerful tool that everyone possesses, but is so easily squashed under the influence of those with enough “power” to preach to others what to believe. I think that more of us need to start respecting our identities. I especially hate to see people replace their own beliefs with propaganda promoted by some slop media company.
At the same time, I’m not saying that people should have a rigid set of beliefs and thoughts, but people should think critically about the media they consume and persuasive ideas that they come across. When people let themself outsource their idea and belief generation to someone else, they lose important parts of their identity that they might not be able to get back. Once they stop creating their own sense of identity, are they the same person they were before, or are they nothing more than a product of their algorithm? Is their algorithm even tuned to them at that point or tuned to what a media company wants them to see?
Losing yourself may seem like a far off outcome, and something that only happens to gullible people, but it can happen in more subtle ways than you might think. As of recent years, the US government started to use memes to spread their own propaganda and to desensitize the public to important issues. These memes help the government move the Overton window, influencing the general masses, changing the way they think, changing what they believe, and by extension, their identity.
Past propaganda, people can lose identity through other means. In a rapidly changing and livestreamed world, we are able to see much more of the horrors around the world than we could have seen a few years ago. Today, the horrors of genocide and worse are being uploaded and shared around the internet, exposing many to some of the worst sides of society. Although this is a good thing, with the sheer amount of content of heinous things happening and being put to the light, many, unfortunately including many of us as well, are becoming desensitized to smaller, but still significant evils.
This flood of propaganda changing beliefs and desensitization pushing the Overton window is the same as losing part of one’s identity. As a society, we need to make sure that we do not lose our identities, since the moment we do that, we open the door to officials to fill in our blanks for us.
Hi Sanshray, I like the topic you chose for the blog as it relates to the present-day conflicts in our society. I agree with you on all your points, especially on the topic of how we should not lose ourselves in the desensitization of the media. I've personally came across the stickers used in Instagram comment sections and can confirm that people indeed joke about these horrific acts. The memes I usually see are in relation to 9/11, Epstein, or the issues between Isreal and Iran. I think it's quite awful how people are so comfortable joking about these horrific events. I find it sad how society's desensitization to the media gives the elites or higher ups more power in controlling and manipulating the way we view or interpret the crimes and horrors going around in the world. I also hate how people feel comfortable behind the screens to post or comment such things. I hope that Meta's new rules in enforcing limits for underage users will decrease the influence of desensitization on the youth.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the topic of your blog and I think you bring excellent points to light. That question about being a real person versus a product of your own algorithm is honestly pretty scary to think about, but it’s equally as eye opening.
ReplyDeleteI feel like us as a society have reached a point where people don’t even form their own opinions anymore—they just copy their favorite personality off their feed and claim it as their own identity. The meme propaganda geared towards gen-z also gets under my skin because it's so sly. They hide serious topics and political agendas behind memes designed to make you laugh and completely forget about critical thinking. Next thing you know, you are chuckling at a post without even realizing your boundaries for what’s normal or acceptable just shifted by a mile. I agree that bringing the horrors of the world to light is great, however; the contrast of scrolling through videos of families being ripped apart only to be faced by a “Gucci Morty” cosplay next thing can really mess up your brain wirings and desensitize you to things you were not meant to see in the first place.
I enjoyed reading this blog and writing this response!
I do agree that more people need to respect their own identities, but I would also point out that even though there definitely are some—perhaps many—cases of people losing sight of who they are because of propaganda, there are certainly going to be situations where such campaigns actually allow people to recognize different parts of themselves and actually grow as a person. Once again, I would not necessarily disagree with you, but there are more sides to the equation.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the questions you pose, I do believe that they are not quite the same person they are before—I’m not even the same person that I was yesterday, having grown a little since being who I was back then. If they do get lost so much that they just relay all the ideas they are given, I would agree that they are basically just a spokesman for all the different companies they encounter. The algorithm question, however, is really interesting to me and I would have to tentatively agree that they might just have their algorithm being what a media company wants them to see, which might actually might even be the case for people not so far gone.
The thoughts you have on the more minor tragedies really paint a picture of how dystopian society is becoming. Sometimes, comparison of trauma or tragedy eliminates the realization of the everyday horrors, even among those who are suffering. They are suffering so much more than me, so I’m fine is certainly an ideology even people our age probably think, in situations different from these, but still somewhat similar.
Hi, Sanshray! I hope you are having a great day! Your blog brought a lot of important questions that are super relevant to the modern age as social media and algorithms keep growing and getting more advanced. This type of "losing your identity" that you talk about reminds me of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and his concept of imposed nonage; introduced to me last year by my English 10 Honors teacher, Mr. Howard. Kant describes imposed nonage as the state in which people become dependent on other authorities to think and make judgements for them. I believe that algorithms are the modern authority drawing us to a state of nonage. I do not want this comment to be all dystopian and "Shon thinks technology is going to take over the world". I truly think that algorithms curate a constant, specifically targeted feed, controlling the information that we take in. We gradually surrender some of our ability to independently think while our AI overlords take over. I'm joking… slightly. This blog made me really question if I had autonomy over my identity in a world where social media is so prevalent and actively made me question who is behind the scenes shaping my beliefs and perspectives.
ReplyDelete