What has Brexit taught me?
It has taught me how to push Remainers' emotional buttons on Twitter
It has taught me how to push Remainers' emotional buttons on Twitter
Quick cheap shots that play to visceral emotions
These were my "Top Tweet" for engagement in 4 months in 2019:
The tweets were not spiteful or hateful really
But neither are they thoughtful or ultimately helpful to anyone *either*
But neither are they thoughtful or ultimately helpful to anyone *either*
And all of them received more engagement than any of my work in the last 12 months that needed massive amounts of intellectual effort - each of those tweets was more successful than any #BrexitDiagram
Now don't get me wrong: I know why this is
I know how to play this game if I have to
I can trigger anger, angst, enmity in people
I know how to play this game if I have to
I can trigger anger, angst, enmity in people
But the problem is I actually find that unfulfilling
It'd be nicer to prompt reflection, to provoke collective action, to help understanding, or achieve excellence
But those things do not work on Twitter. Or work less and less well
It'd be nicer to prompt reflection, to provoke collective action, to help understanding, or achieve excellence
But those things do not work on Twitter. Or work less and less well
The question then is *what* do we do about this?
It's something I need to spend more time in 2020 thinking about - not in terms of the narrow confines of Brexit, but more widely
It's something I need to spend more time in 2020 thinking about - not in terms of the narrow confines of Brexit, but more widely
That emotional compulsive reaction might be OK to promote people to buy more of a product, or support a football team more fervently, but it's pretty unhealthy for political debate
So if you have good essays, books, articles about all of this... send them my way. I follow a bunch of experts in these fields, but send me your suggestions of who's good on these issues. Because this problem is not going to go away...
/ends
/ends
