Muskland & TikTok Ageism
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #147 ❤️
This week we discuss the global supervillain in the making Elon Musk’s worrying foray into town building, how TikTok has warped the way we see ageing, and the damning evidence that your phone actually IS making you depressed.
Plus why a humble money transfer app is ruining lives, and the newest dating site that you don’t want to sign up to.
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - Elon Musk Branches Out
As if he hasn’t already got enough on his plate with destroying workplace morale across the globe, Musk wants to become the mayor of his very own toy town.
The new community is called Snailbrook and he has described it as a “Texas utopia” where his employees can live and work. “Snail” is a reference to the mascot for his Boring Company (because yes, he has ANOTHER company) – which specialises in infrastructure and tunnel construction.
Musk has already moved to Texas from California, which was way too liberal and snowflake-y for him, to take advantage of the lack of income tax and more lax regulations in general.
Is he building a town of his own to allow him to get away with literally whatever he wants now? Looking at his recent track record, if you were an employee or Mr M (his new villain name) would you want to live in his town, where he’s the boss?
Sounds very Walt Disney, who as we all know was a totally great and not at all suspicious or hiding a very dark side…
#2 - TikTok Teenage Ageism
This fascinating article from Wired discusses how TikTok is changing what it means to be old and bringing ageism front and centre of the internet.
On TikTok, the youngest generation refer to those even a few years older than them as elderly, ancient, past it, and while teenagers have potentially always seen late twenties and thirty year olds as old, before social media they would discuss it amongst themselves – now it’s out there for everyone to see. For example the backhanded compliments from younger users about how good a certain creator looks and how well she’s ageing – she’s twenty nine.
And what makes TikTok different to other social media platforms is the extent to which it brings together people of all ages. While Facebook is famously for the over 40s now, and Instagram is squarely centred around millennials, TikTok as a platform is diverse enough to have attracted viewers and creators of all generations.
Another special way in which TikTok perpetuates ageism is with its filters. The filter “Teenage Look” does exactly what it says on the tin, while another popular filter allows the user to make videos as a wrinkled version of themselves talking to a teenage version of themselves – these videos are full of comments about how devastated these girls would be to be old.
The short-form lifestyle tips videos filling TikTok are also culprits in the overall scaremongering of aging happening on the platform. Viewers are advised to buy a special straw that you sip out of sideways like a flute to avoid mouth wrinkles, and not to sleep on their side incase their face droops (???).
The redeeming feature of TikTok here is it’s ability to unite people of all ages through certain niche interests, and if the elderly, i.e. anyone over 30, continue sharing their lives on the platform, the terrified youngsters may see that life doesn’t actually stop at 20, it may just be beginning.
#3 - It’s Official, Your Phone Is Making You Depressed
Recent data seems to affirm that people are at a record low of happiness and satisfaction with their lives, with teenagers faring the worst. One common theory as to why? Young people are depressed because they’re on their phones too much.
While there are of course many reason to feel a bit down that have nothing to do with your phone, the whole pandemic thing, climate change, the “cozzie livs” (cost of living crisis to you) etc., it cannot be denied that spending most of your free time staring at a little screen that has literally rewired your dopamine is not going to have a positive effect on your overall mental health.
With the average person spending almost five hours a day on their phone, and teenagers spending over eight hours a day on their phone, that has to take a toll on your brain, and your eyes.
Not to mention the dire state of what we’re looking at for those long hours. Social media is truly an endless source of “cheap unfulfilling entertainment designed to keep you looking as long as possible” and can fuel jealousy and constant comparison with unrealistic lifestyle and beauty standards, while the news of recent years has given rise to the term “doom scrolling”, and we all know what the state of twitter is like at the moment.
But what to do? This Vice article suggests some self-discipline, as hard as it can be considering the algorithm is literally programmed to keep you there, and set time limits on your preferred apps, block hashtags that you know trigger you, and turn off notifications. There’s no need to go cold turkey, but everything in moderation.
#4 - Why Venmo Can Destroy Lives
If like us, you though Venmo was just a platform to send and receive money, like PayPal, well you’re wrong. It’s much more than that. This article, which lays out various horror stories from users of the app, refers to it as a “sneaky social media”, because unlike PayPal, it has a home feed, where you can see who your contacts are sending money to, and sometimes why.
It is this home feed, which shows transactions between users, that has tripped up many a cheating spouse. Users often use emojis when sending funds, and one especially terrible story recounts how a girl caught her boyfriend cheating when he sent money with a baby emoji and a cross emoji to another girl. He was paying for emergency birth control.
While users can set their accounts to private, most don’t know that this home feed exists, and so see no reason to. This is how Buzzfeed reporters found Joe Biden’s account within ten minutes, where he apparently sends money to his grandchildren, and how a Florida state representative was caught sending money to an accused sex trafficker.
Why this money sending app was created with a social media function is a mystery to us, maybe it was a little joke on the part of the app creators, because it’s certainly caused a lot of havoc. Moral of the story, make your profile private, unless you’ve got nothing to hide…
#5 - Conspiracy Theorist Seeking Likeminded Partner
Conspiracy Theorists are now setting up their own dating sites.
Alongside the classic profile questions about hobbies and favourite films, users are asked which conspiracy theories they consider to be real, disclose the number of coronavirus vaccines they’ve had, and where they get their information about current events (Twitter, probably).
While we know the dangers of separatist thinking and have seen the fallout of such behaviour time and again in history, the way people meet has changed now and the way people exclude themselves from the mainstream has changed along with it.
From online spaces to meet and chat with likeminded (mad) people, and exclude other (normal) internet users, the next logical step is dating sites, considering the percentage of couples nowadays who meet on such platforms.
Honestly, maybe we should just let them get on with it. At least you’ll now be a lot less likely to end up sharing a coffee, or worse, a meal, with someone who thinks the world is flat, or the royal family are lizards.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
There’s an absolutely mad looking new television show out where a nun takes on an all-knowing AI who can control people’s minds.
With the rise of AI, this seems like a warning for the future, with the added bonus of starring a nun on a motorbike.
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