Deleted member 3373
This thread is based on a post I made about the recent massacres in the United States. A sort of sequel to my meme critique thread which got a surprising amount of attention.
Over the past decade I have found a lot of my social interactions to feel strange and stilted. Like the other person isn't really... there. There is no connection or any interest in connecting. In the past year or two there has been growing attention given to the concept of profilicity. To understand profilicity you must understand human identity formation. There are (to date) three forms of identity formation that have existed across human societies. They are as follows:
1. Sincerity
Sincerity is the most common form of identity having existed throughout most of human history. In sincere societies your identity is given to you by a village or tribe which assigns a role to you (often based on family ties) which you must then carry out. The more sincerely you carry it out (that is to say effort you put in and how much pride you take in your work) the better you are seen by a community. This is how humans have operated for most of our existence.
2. Authenticity
This is one that I imagine virtually everyone here will be familiar with. Authenticity rose with industrialisation which gave a person more choice in terms of consumption and activities as commodities and information became more widespread. Thus breaking down sincerity. Authenticity was defined more by how one was different from the people around them. Think back to any pre-school entertainment from say.... the 90s. Programmes like Barney the dinosaur liked to talk about how kids were "special and unique". A phrase that I would later go on to be mocked to no end. During this time period we saw various teenage subcultures like the goths, punks, grunge, and emo. The idea was to have the most diversified interests and to bond with people over said interests. This would result in social status and networking.
3. Profilicity
Today however we have fallen into a new form of identity formation called profilcity (although I sometimes like to call it relatability). This is a form that has arisen very recently but has already had a massive impact. It is heavily tied to social media and can be best described as follows. Imagine an artist paints a picture of the ocean. He then posts this piece of art to instagram. A person views this image and then proceeds fetch himself a glass of water. When the water is a clear fluid rather than blue he feels as if something is wrong as the water is not matching the artist's rendition as this person believes that renditions are a more accurate reflection of reality than well... reality itself. That is profilitic thinking in a nutshell. A focus on the hyperreal over the real.
In profilitic society people become obsessed with online identity groups. Politics, LGBT, memes, the works. This is a trend that I think was best exemplified on old tumblr. Many of the identities we see today can be traced back to this website. Agender, pansexual, a bunch of mental illnesses, etc. The people there grew very attached to their labels very quickly. Kins were among the more infamous and bizzare of them with some claiming to feel like an animal. However what does, say, a fox feel like? No one really knows as no human can experience the mind of a fox. And yet in spite of this you had a whole community of teenagers bonding over claiming to feel like a fox. "Fox" isn't even an emotional state. A fox has no single emotional state as a fox can feel a number of different feelings depending on the situation (as can all mammals). So this leaves the question of what exactly these people were bonding over. If "fox" has no consistent qualities then what is it besides a word? The answer to this question is quite straight forward. It is nothing more than a word. A word that has been given qualities by a "community" that has no real bond.
Over the past decade I noticed something of a shift in the emphasis of a lot of entertainment. Whereas in the past (as mentioned above) it was about being "special and unique" it has since shifted to "everyone is included". That is quite a drastic shift. Instead of all being different, everyone becomes included under a single umbrella. Advertisers love this as it allows people to literally identify with their products. But it's not loved for just that reason. I take the example of the Lego company. Lego requires no introduction, most of us will be familiar with that company and its' products in one way or another. Here we will compare two designs of their website:
This is the design that I remember most fondly. It was colourful and rather engaging. It features various Lego characters and themes arranged in such a way as to get a child's attention. It is a fairly straight forward advertisement. Now let us look at the modern design:
Well it's a lot more simplisitc for one. But even then things get more interesting if one is to look at the shop page. Of course I don't collect Lego but the front page of the shop interested me. As I scroll down the page I noticed there are banners for various sets that are currently in production. Of these however there was one very strange difference from the Lego of my childhood. It depicts humans. Not the minifigures, not the sets, but the humans (usually adults) constructing the sets. The focus is on humans and their reaction to these sets. This is profilicity in action. These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle. In Lego's more recent advertising campaigns there is a notable increase in use of humans. Simply compare the advertisements from the 2000s and the ones from the last few years and see the contrast. I have also since learned that the company now runs an app titled "Lego Life". No matter what way you look at it products are now being advertised as a state of existence rather than as just products. Hell, a lot of companies nowadays use the phrase "experience" to describe whatever they are selling. There was also a notable up tick in replacing the term "customer service" with "costumer care squad". Companies seem hellbent on promoting their products within the realm of hyperreality. "Owning this product means you are happy and awesome". Of course advertising has always done this to some extent but the idea is that consuming a product will create a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Now consuming a product is like having a family, a friend. An identity.
Ultimately though these identities are hollowed out means of dopamine. There is no connection to be had over them as they are simply words or products presented in a hyperrealistic manner so as to gaslight consumers into thinking that they should feel a certain way. It's why a lot of people now identify with memes. Because memes are (in many cases) a mere means of dopamine. People change their identities based on whatever brings dopamine in a given moment. I am reminded of the scene from Wall-E in which humans are presented with an advertisement telling them to change their colour to red because it is "the new blue" (or something to that effect). That is quite literally what we are seeing here. "This gender equals euphoria", "this product equals happiness", "this meme means you are popular". It is people bonding over dopamine instead of any kind of common action or ideal.
Because of this we now live in a society of people who cannot shift away from scripts prescribed by the internet. To shift away from them violates the identity. We can see this in pronoun bills in which an individual must have their pronouns recognised. You are legally required to re-enforce the thoughts in other people's heads. It becomes fundamentally anti-social as it negates one's self in relation to others. In effect we must now all validate the nonsense in other people's heads and may someday face legal penalties for not doing so. Life becomes your oyster and in the process you become nothing but a means to dopamine.
Feel free to ponder where this may go and if you think it's even real or not.
Over the past decade I have found a lot of my social interactions to feel strange and stilted. Like the other person isn't really... there. There is no connection or any interest in connecting. In the past year or two there has been growing attention given to the concept of profilicity. To understand profilicity you must understand human identity formation. There are (to date) three forms of identity formation that have existed across human societies. They are as follows:
1. Sincerity
Sincerity is the most common form of identity having existed throughout most of human history. In sincere societies your identity is given to you by a village or tribe which assigns a role to you (often based on family ties) which you must then carry out. The more sincerely you carry it out (that is to say effort you put in and how much pride you take in your work) the better you are seen by a community. This is how humans have operated for most of our existence.
2. Authenticity
This is one that I imagine virtually everyone here will be familiar with. Authenticity rose with industrialisation which gave a person more choice in terms of consumption and activities as commodities and information became more widespread. Thus breaking down sincerity. Authenticity was defined more by how one was different from the people around them. Think back to any pre-school entertainment from say.... the 90s. Programmes like Barney the dinosaur liked to talk about how kids were "special and unique". A phrase that I would later go on to be mocked to no end. During this time period we saw various teenage subcultures like the goths, punks, grunge, and emo. The idea was to have the most diversified interests and to bond with people over said interests. This would result in social status and networking.
3. Profilicity
Today however we have fallen into a new form of identity formation called profilcity (although I sometimes like to call it relatability). This is a form that has arisen very recently but has already had a massive impact. It is heavily tied to social media and can be best described as follows. Imagine an artist paints a picture of the ocean. He then posts this piece of art to instagram. A person views this image and then proceeds fetch himself a glass of water. When the water is a clear fluid rather than blue he feels as if something is wrong as the water is not matching the artist's rendition as this person believes that renditions are a more accurate reflection of reality than well... reality itself. That is profilitic thinking in a nutshell. A focus on the hyperreal over the real.
In profilitic society people become obsessed with online identity groups. Politics, LGBT, memes, the works. This is a trend that I think was best exemplified on old tumblr. Many of the identities we see today can be traced back to this website. Agender, pansexual, a bunch of mental illnesses, etc. The people there grew very attached to their labels very quickly. Kins were among the more infamous and bizzare of them with some claiming to feel like an animal. However what does, say, a fox feel like? No one really knows as no human can experience the mind of a fox. And yet in spite of this you had a whole community of teenagers bonding over claiming to feel like a fox. "Fox" isn't even an emotional state. A fox has no single emotional state as a fox can feel a number of different feelings depending on the situation (as can all mammals). So this leaves the question of what exactly these people were bonding over. If "fox" has no consistent qualities then what is it besides a word? The answer to this question is quite straight forward. It is nothing more than a word. A word that has been given qualities by a "community" that has no real bond.
Over the past decade I noticed something of a shift in the emphasis of a lot of entertainment. Whereas in the past (as mentioned above) it was about being "special and unique" it has since shifted to "everyone is included". That is quite a drastic shift. Instead of all being different, everyone becomes included under a single umbrella. Advertisers love this as it allows people to literally identify with their products. But it's not loved for just that reason. I take the example of the Lego company. Lego requires no introduction, most of us will be familiar with that company and its' products in one way or another. Here we will compare two designs of their website:
This is the design that I remember most fondly. It was colourful and rather engaging. It features various Lego characters and themes arranged in such a way as to get a child's attention. It is a fairly straight forward advertisement. Now let us look at the modern design:
Well it's a lot more simplisitc for one. But even then things get more interesting if one is to look at the shop page. Of course I don't collect Lego but the front page of the shop interested me. As I scroll down the page I noticed there are banners for various sets that are currently in production. Of these however there was one very strange difference from the Lego of my childhood. It depicts humans. Not the minifigures, not the sets, but the humans (usually adults) constructing the sets. The focus is on humans and their reaction to these sets. This is profilicity in action. These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle. In Lego's more recent advertising campaigns there is a notable increase in use of humans. Simply compare the advertisements from the 2000s and the ones from the last few years and see the contrast. I have also since learned that the company now runs an app titled "Lego Life". No matter what way you look at it products are now being advertised as a state of existence rather than as just products. Hell, a lot of companies nowadays use the phrase "experience" to describe whatever they are selling. There was also a notable up tick in replacing the term "customer service" with "costumer care squad". Companies seem hellbent on promoting their products within the realm of hyperreality. "Owning this product means you are happy and awesome". Of course advertising has always done this to some extent but the idea is that consuming a product will create a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Now consuming a product is like having a family, a friend. An identity.
Ultimately though these identities are hollowed out means of dopamine. There is no connection to be had over them as they are simply words or products presented in a hyperrealistic manner so as to gaslight consumers into thinking that they should feel a certain way. It's why a lot of people now identify with memes. Because memes are (in many cases) a mere means of dopamine. People change their identities based on whatever brings dopamine in a given moment. I am reminded of the scene from Wall-E in which humans are presented with an advertisement telling them to change their colour to red because it is "the new blue" (or something to that effect). That is quite literally what we are seeing here. "This gender equals euphoria", "this product equals happiness", "this meme means you are popular". It is people bonding over dopamine instead of any kind of common action or ideal.
Because of this we now live in a society of people who cannot shift away from scripts prescribed by the internet. To shift away from them violates the identity. We can see this in pronoun bills in which an individual must have their pronouns recognised. You are legally required to re-enforce the thoughts in other people's heads. It becomes fundamentally anti-social as it negates one's self in relation to others. In effect we must now all validate the nonsense in other people's heads and may someday face legal penalties for not doing so. Life becomes your oyster and in the process you become nothing but a means to dopamine.
Feel free to ponder where this may go and if you think it's even real or not.