And so, as a young adult, I didn't see much use in professional sports, and thought investing in a city team a terrible waste of money. Over time I started to notice that watching sports was one of the few civic bonding activities we had. Oh. Maybe this kind of entertainment serves a useful function after all...
Cat videos are a byword for triviality. But in seas of rancid virtue-signalling, perhaps they represent something we can bond on--at least a little. They aren't much at all, but every little bit helps. I won't sneer.
I have a sister in law whom I treasure for a lot of things, but partly because she uses her Facebook page almost exclusively to post photos of her family, attaboys for things like "My daughter got a leading part in her school theater production!", recipes she'd like to try, and similar things. Unlike seemingly all the rest of Facebook, it is free of rancidity, of that tone of hectoring and demanding "Agree! Agree with me! Signal your agreement or be cast out!" that makes me hate Facebook.
ReplyDeletePeople want to argue* and signal and persuade, and that's fine, but there should be parts of everyday life that are free of those things.
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*Like I'm one to talk!