The Shaming-Industrial Complex

Thought this article was very interesting on many levels, but particularly thinking about shame as a structural issue, rather than an individual, personal emotion. Takes some of the self-blame out of working on my shame circuit to think about the fact that certain industries rely on shame and benefit from my feeling it.

And, it helps to think about the context where I feel shame and realize that not everyone shares in those values or feelings.

“Shame, canonically, is the sinking sentiment that attends deviation from widely endorsed mores, whatever they happen to be. You can be sad or elated for any reason or for no reason, but shame requires a shared social context. The emotion in question arises not because you violated a standard that you set for yourself but because you violated a standard that your milieu (perhaps policed by Twitter) imposes on you. Because shame is a means of enforcing whatever values are operative in a given society, whether it proves salutary hinges on the merits of the moral system in which it is deployed…”

And this -

“The idea is to get away from thinking that emotions are only or primarily ‘inner things,’ ” he writes. “Instead, it would be better to think of an emotion as an event” or, better yet, as “a sequence of events,” with characteristic causes and consequences. In particular, emotions follow “scripts.”

Scripts - like a tapping script! I’m thinking of @Jun_Rong’s post about - It’s ok to run away. Tapping helps me see shame “scripts” and consider my option to RUN AWAY from the source trauma.

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There is a lot to absorb in this article @Dru that I needed to read it twice. What jumped out for me was this:
"The lesson O’Neil is keen to impart is that the primary drivers of online scandals are not isolated cyberbullies, tapping out vindictive screeds in the privacy of their home offices, but The lesson O’Neil is keen to impart is that the primary drivers of online scandals are not isolated cyberbullies, tapping out vindictive screeds in the privacy of their home offices, but machine-learning algorithms that optimize for traffic. The more divisive a meme or a story, the more engagement it generates; the more engagement it generates, the more time it induces people to waste feuding online; the more time people waste feuding online, the more they idly reveal about their browsing habits; and the more they idly reveal about their browsing habits, the more precisely they can be targeted by advertisers. Public shaming attracts the kind of attention that yields big profits, so social-media platforms are in effect “engineered to spur these lucrative disputes, the more divisive a meme or a story, the more engagement it generates; the more engagement it generates, the more time it induces people to waste feuding online; the more time people waste feuding online, the more they idly reveal about their browsing habits; and the more they idly reveal about their browsing habits, the more precisely they can be targeted by advertisers. Public shaming attracts the kind of attention that yields big profits, so social-media platforms are in effect “engineered to spur these lucrative disputes.”

I always thought of it as being cyber bullies tapping stuff out on their computers because they were enjoying venting. So I’m not sure what this means "but machine-learning algorithms that optimize for traffic. " Do the machines tap out the bullying remarks or do they take some remarks and spread them further? Maybe someone can explain in down to earth, easy to understand words how it works? I am rather naïve to say the least.

I like to watch The Pioneer Woman shows on the Food channel and years ago I came across a site that absolutely hated her. They had a large following of others who just posted the nastiest comments about Ree Drummond. It was sickening and heart breaking to read and I read some of the posts with my eyes wide opened in shock. Now I wonder if this was machine-learning algorithms or real people. And why. If we dislike a TV show why not just leave, why created a hateful page with so much rage?
Maybe I veered off the subject here I don’t know. But I sure would dislike being in Wal-Mart smiling and have someone take a picture of me with my missing tooth, putting it out on the internet saying nasty stuff. I so dislike the shaming pictures of people posted.

I recently read Going There, book by Katie Couric, a well-known news caster. She wrote about all the nastiness that goes on in TV news which just about cured me of ever watching national news again. Yes I have RUN AWAY from so much lately because it just activates trauma responses.

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Let’s say I like your fun page… which I do. But someone criticizes you and I see it. I reply defending how much I enjoy it. I spend time writing the reply and really get into it.

Now that I am “emotionally aroused” my primitive brain sees the ad they place right after the scroll, and I click on it and buy – because I need something to soothe my emotional state.

The algorithm has now figured me out! I am an emotional buyer. I stay on the site longer when they reveal comments about things/issues/people I really like (click LIKE a lot, or LOVE now), so as long as they do it without pushing me away (which they can and do monitor!), they can sprinkle outrageous conflict into the feed and get me to engage… and also click following ads to generate their money.

If I click on something I might be afraid of, they also track that and will expose me to all related fears that they have mapped our psychoactively.

Humans are actually damn easy to map. We avoid pain and seek pleasure, for the most part. (Those that seek pain and avoid pleasure are also say to map, and the algorithm takes that into account, too.)

So there we are. Any and ALL advertising driven services USE US AGAINST OURSELVES. Why? Because in order to be “free” they need to manipulate people into taking action.

Why did ads on the major networks always happen when we HATED that they stopped right there? Because we were activated… NEEDING to see what happened next… and what happened next was a series of ads. Our brain is open to “what’ going to happen???” and the ads flow in, impacting our psyche in ways that are profound and impactful.

I believe deeply that the less time we spend on advertising driven channels, the more emotionally free and clear we can be. We’re human, we’re for the most part susceptible to emotionally being “played,” and such external being played interferes with our own heartistry and choice.

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Edward Bernays is the man usually credited with bringing modern manipulation techniques to propaganda and advertising campaigns. It’s probably not coincidental that he was a nephew of Sigmund Freud. I’m certain his understanding of how to manipulate human emotions so that we are motivated to take action in a manner that benefits the manipulator is the foundation of how these modern internet algorithms are designed to work. We are indeed, as Rick stated, incredibly easy to manipulate. Bernays was used by the CIA and as well was admired and influenced The Third Reich for his techniques of manipulation using propaganda. It’s a very interesting and important bit of history I think.

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That is so so fascinating, thank you.

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