A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Callard’s theory of the uni-context: the idea that we’re all existing in one big room now, and that one of the consequences of that is that we focus on negativity because it’s a universal experience that everyone understands. We see that everywhere with technology platforms. Enragement leads to engagement, and so our diet online is increasingly geared toward content we hate, rather than things we love.

I was thinking about that this week as I read Kate Lindsay’s piece You are what you hate read. She says:

Hate reading is one of the fundamental pillars of the internet. Social media introduced us to a wealth of uniquely horrible (or just mildly annoying) people we’d never otherwise come across, and it can be hard to look away. The 2010s term “bitch eating crackers” described people who were triggering even when doing something as simple as, well, eating crackers. Snarkers in online forums will often use “BEC” to refer to bloggers and influencers, who irk them for, admittedly, no real reason (“She’s my BEC”).

But as she goes on to conclude:

I’m not immune to the hate follow. I’ve been trying to figure out why some things that make me feel bad are so irresistible, and I think it’s a matter of validation. It feels good to confirm that this person sucks exactly like I thought they did. But they’re still innocent—they’re not forcing me to consume their posts. If I know the very premise of their content is not for me, then it’s my problem if I keep successfully seeking it out in order to feel angry.

I’ve been thinking about that as I realise that my quasi-academic interest in tinhats had lead to me hate-reading more conspiracy content than was helpful. I know, from years of work on this topic, that nothing is going to change these fans’ minds. So me continuing to consume content that makes me furious just to check that … what, they’re still there, still posting the same nonsense? That’s unhinged behaviour on my part.

Reading this shit inspires in me strong SOMEONE IS BEING WRONG ON THE INTERNET energy, but a person who hasn’t even bothered to change their tumblr handles between conspiracy theories is not going to be reformed. So what I am I doing here?

Years ago, when twitter was still a place you wanted to be, I tried a little experiment with myself.

Everyday, before I let myself post on socials, I found and shared one good thing. I kept it up for over a month before I talked about it. And it was genuinely hard. Hard both to find a good story to share, and hard to break the cycle of immersing myself in the negativity.

Now, of course, I don’t really post much on social at all, which means I don’t have a handbrake on my consumption. Over on bluesky I find a pretty steady diet of hatereaders and hatesharers, who are determined to let you know how mad they are at what elon or trump have just said or done.

And while I can keep myself out of that muck, I do find myself screenshotting a particularly egregious linkedin post, or a rambling insta caption from a BEC and sending it to friends who I know will find it just as annoying as I do. Its our unicontext. We might not all be having a great day at work, or in our relationship, or with our finances, but we can all agree that this person is the worst.

I’ve just started to realise how unhealthy that is. Like Kate’s vegan who keeps going to a steakhouse. What am I doing here? Last week I went on a blocking spree to remove a whole lot of tumblrinas from my eyeballs and it felt great. I unfollowed two regular hate-reads on insta. The world has enough rage in it, I don’t need to rage myself up. Hate reading is an industry. People are making massive amounts of money off our natural instinct to be mean about one another. I don’t need to be part of that economy.

Being more intentional, choosing queue over feed, not consuming digital food that makes me feel a bit sick. It helps to clear out my dash so that it fills up with people super-excited about Harry’s new tour dates. Not with people catastrophising about whether he’s retiring after this, and why isn’t he coming to their city, and how bad the ticket wars will be.

I’ve always said it’s up to each of us to curate our own online spaces, but it’s helped to realise some of the stuff I was choosing to see as a kind of delicious junkfood, really was just rotten at the heart. I’m going to try and improve my diet.

more good stuff

• speaking of harry and the ticket wars, it was gratifying to see his team announce a transparent approach for the 2027 dates, including “unpredictable fun tickets” for twenty quid.

• while working on my book I need to hit up usenet a lot and finding your way around what’s left of it is a bit of a dark art, so I was encouraged to see this set up. Usenet-Rewind is a searchable archive of 982m posts going back to 1981.

• for a little while after covid it was genuinely hard to find somewhere to have a drink when you spilled out of a Broadway show, and so I have in fact twice had drinks at the rooftop bar of the Times Square Margaritaville. I loved this article.

finally, in my lego city

Forward this to your BEC, I dare you.