I have always said that the positive and negative of social media is it has made the world a smaller place.
On one hand, you now hear from people on global issues actually affected by them. A broader viewpoint from across the globe. On the other, you now get to read the view from people who you would not normally converse with and have no interest in.
I recently saw a fun little video on TikTok which summed up my issue with social media.
In school, you are split up into sets. You then go through your education based on your intelligence, with those in top set having top set conversations with fellow students of a similar high intelligence. And then those in the bottom sets having bottom set conversations with fellow students of a similar low intelligence.
Then you go off to university (or not) and the segregation continues as the more intelligent students go to the top universities such as Kings, LSE, Oxford or Durham. Those in the middle go to the likes of Essex, Sussex or UEA. And then those who really do not have the intelligence to go to uni (but want to get £30k in debt “for an experience”) end up in UEL, London Met or Middlesex University.
Further segregation of thoughts happen at university with the courses you take, with those most intelligent taking law or maths, and those least intelligent taking geography, business or something to do with the arts.
Again, throughout your university life, you naturally have conversations with those on a similar intellectual plane as you. Your friends become those who you are at uni with, and often those on the same course. You rarely interact with those at other uni’s, and therefore are not involved in conversations with people who are intellecutally above or below you.
As you enter your work life, the segregation continues.
Many people end up in their job based on their intelligence and ability to think further beyond their nose. And again this leads to a segregation of thought as the doctors, lawyers and traders have different conversations to the recruitment consultants and IT guys. And then you get the secretaries, the day labourers and electricians, and so on.
Even if you work for a major company that employs a wide spectrum of people, you often end up socialising in smaller groups. Thee lawyers will not really socialise with the secretaries (unless they are trying to shag one of them). The traders won’t socialise with the IT guys. And the builders are there to work, not to have a beer with.
Whilst some of you might find this insulting, life is split up into these groups, and it is mainly based on intelligence. You therefore go through life spending most of your time conversing with people of a similar level of intelligence.
That all comes to an end with social media.
Posts are put in front of you by the algorithm from people you would not normally converse with. You end up with bottom tier’s trying to have a discussion with top tiers on top tier topics which they have no real understanding of.
It also works the other way, with top tiers having discussions with bottom tiers on bottom tier subjects. This mixing of the minds leads to bottom tiers sharing their simplified viewpoint beyond their intellectual equals, and top tiers becoming increasingly frustrated with the stupidity of the world.
This is further exacerbated with the fact that social media is global. You get people in countries with poor education systems, and with a lower than average IQ, joining conversations with those with a much higher IQ and better level of education. But the narrowing of the world makes everyone think their view is equal.
I sometimes wonder how Arsenal and Arsene Wenger would have fared in the social media era. The era where those with a low IQ have been given a platform to share their simple viewpoints, with an inability to grasp a subject properly.
Last night we lost to Villareal by a single goal. The same scoreline against Tottenham. This has led to those bottom tiers shouting from the rooftops about how Mikel Arteta should be sacked, about how we have gone stale and that he is taking us backwards. They have all ignored the fact that it is pre-season, and that all teams treat pre-season games differently.
How would these people have survived back in the summer of 2003?
2003 saw us lose to Peterborough United, and fail to beat barely-professional Barnet, SC Ritzing, Celtic and Beveren. The uproar would have been unprecedented. But then we all know what happened that season.
Likewise, I wonder how Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp would have got in during the social media era.
Following his failure to score last night, the pile-on to Viktor Gyorekes has already started:
Two games, no goals
Hooked off after 60 minutes
Replaced upfront by a defensive midfielder
These are such a simplistic, bottom tier take that is being forced onto the feed of those far more intelligent than those making the comments. It is the sort of comments that you would not hear in the school, university or work. And if someone said it to you in the pub you would just laugh and walk away.
It is pre-season. Gyorekes has been at the club for about 12 days. He has probably had half a dozen training sessions during that time. What were these people expecting? Hat-tricks in every game? Him to play a full 90 minutes?
And you could only imagine the uproar from the same fans if he played 90 minutes last night, when clearly not fully fit, and picked up an injury!
Pre-season, as most of those who are not bottom-tierers know, is a time to get fit. And Gyrorekes is 2 weeks behind in his fitness. The fact he got through 60 minutes of work should be seen as a positive – had he played in our first pre-season game he probably would have only last 45-minutes after wholesale changes were made at half time.
And then we come on to the goals.
Being criticised after not scoring in partial pre-season appearances, as he is regaining fitness and learning to play in a new team, is a new level of idiocy.
Dennis Bergkamp failed to score in his first 8 games for Arsenal.
Thierry Henry did not score until his 7th appearance.
These are two of our greatest players of all time. Imagine them in the social media era and the criticism they would have received for their slow starts? It just makes no sense.
But it does make sense to those who have gone through life in the bottom set, or from countries with double-digit average IQ levels. Their sort of thinking is the norm around their contemporaries. And the issue is not that they have their deeply flawed view, but it is now pushed out for the world to see.
Back decades ago, these fools would have been laughed at. They would have been the court jesters or just mocked in the pub. They were the Gumbo’s of the group.
But social media has changes all that, and now many of them believe what they say is gospel because they have thousands of fellow bottom-tierers following them, creating an echo chamber.
Being the smartest in the bottom tier is not something to be proud of. But they celebrate it. And rather than better themselves and increase their knowledge, they would rather stay in the bottom tier, continuing to play to their audience on YouTube and X and get those e-likes.
It used to be easy to block out uneducated viewpoints. You just would not work or socialise with them. But with social media these days, you now have the view of those less educated shoved in your face. And this is beyond football. It is politics and global news as well.
People having their say on the state of the UK, on Palestine, on climate change. Complicated subjects. And sharing that low level viewpoint with the world thinking they are contributing to the debate. And even worse, the media put these sort of people front and centre and use them as if they represent everyone else in a community.
It simply makes a mockery of those who are not bottom tier. Everyone is then tarred with the same brush, and held to the level of the bottom tier’s viewpoint.
The media act like all Arsenal fans share the opinion of a coked-up benefit scrounger, a divvy YouTuber in Spain, or some random from Nigeria who will never go to the game.
These people are no the true representatives of the Arsenal fan base. Nor are they the true representatives of any group on other political discussions. But social media has created a world where those with bottom-tier views are shared widely and promoted as representative.
Some of you will be upset reading this blog. I would have offended you. This highlights somes lack of understanding as the issue is not that people have different views, the issue is that social media now forces those views on everyone else, no matter how idiotic they are.
Enjoy your Thursday.
PS: I was top tier in a very working class East-London school, went to a mid-tier university (Essex), studied law and became a recruitment consultant. I also do not proof read my blogs so do not care if there are spelling errors.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 