(This is the last post you can comment on for September)
Is this writer overreacting to a few youtube videos, or is
this a real problem, or, even worse, part of a larger problem? Have people always done outrageous things for
the thrill of risk and to draw attention to themselves, or is this a symptom of
the diseases of our times, narcissism and individualism, as the writer claims?
Whether we like it or not, the internet is a place where anyone can get discovered. This makes it an excellent outlet for people that are looking for attention, whatever the reason may be, ranging from boredom to a deep-rooted psychological issue. For this reason, we really can’t pin these attention seeking phenomena on the so-called “diseases of our time” like narcissism. Attention seeking, especially when stemming deep from a disturbed psyche, has always been something people have done. The difference in this case is that the Kiki Challenge, being a popular challenge (at the time of this article being written), provided a very effective way of drawing attention to oneself by potentially risking one’s life.
ReplyDeleteHumans are competitive by nature. In many aspects of life, both substantial and completely meaningless ones, we’ve always tried to one-up each other. The contending nature of the Kiki Challenge makes the next participant do something one notch more ridiculous than the last one - jump out of a moving car, dance on top of a bridge, among many other. The important question is: does the Kiki Challenge induced competition fall into the substantial or the completely meaningless category?
The use of social media messes with our brain’s reward center in a very addicting manner. The exciting novelty of every scroll, every message and every notification sound gives us a rewarding hit of dopamine, making us come back for more and more. And what better way is there of getting your daily dopamine fix than posting a video of you dancing on top of a moving train and watching your phone blow up with notifications?
Abrasions are meant to be fun. We live in a society, where people like to do stuff that earns them the attention and admiration of others. However, we also live in a society where people like to overthink, overanalyze and assume, that every recent problem is a part of a bigger, more complex one. You can easily say, that people posting funny videos of them dancing is because they are love-deprived, narcissistic and empty people who lack the attention of others, as the author suggests. In my opinion, these videos are just a trend. When people hear a catchy song, made by a popular artist, they want to jump on the popular-wagon and try to involve themselves in it. There is nothing to it. We don't need to make a bigger problem of it than it actually is.
ReplyDeletePeople get hurt doing it by their own stupidity. We should take jumping out of cars and dancing on the roads into our own responsibility, even if we are trying to shoot a funny video. It is a dangerous action still. It isn't written anywhere that you should put your own life at risk while doing this challenge. The author compared this challenge to the Blue Whale challenge, where the final task is literal suicide. I think its unthinkable to compare these two challenges, where in one people are getting hurt by their own stupidity and one where people have to harm themselves in order to be successful in the challenge. The author has a very exaggerated point of view when comparing these two challenges by putting them on the same weights.
This article showed the way how the older generation thinks of millennials. People did stupid things since the beginning of time, especially young people. Just because the older generation didn't put it on the internet, doesn't mean that things like these didn't happen.
People seem to be self-centered and narcissistic these days, but why is it so? Author Pulkit Sharma conveyed an important message in his post saying that it is the “twisted manifestation of our unfulfilled needs and desires” that make up our self-centeredness. The whole article deals with social media, challenges, and why people tend to seek attention through social media. However the topic I would like to point out is mentioned in the last few parts of the article, which gives it a larger scope than just some social media issues.
ReplyDeletePeople want happiness, however a scientific study conducted by Robert Waldinger has proven that in most cases fame and money doesn’t give happiness. If we take this into consideration, then gaining fame, acceptance or even money from YouTube videos participating in life-death experiences won’t cut it. People these days have the tendency to do these challenges for each other, however it seems “we have forgotten how to be there for and with each other “. An ordinary family dinner consists of food, people and phones. Everyone is staring at their phones, oblivious to the environment around them, only caring about the food in front of them and when they can finally go to their room.
In the past people have been talking to each other and actually communicating with each other more frequently. People are self-centered and because of social media, YouTube and any other attention seeking media they miss out on so many activities that they lost for these things. Happiness doesn’t exist in narcissism, but in real exchanges of conversation between real people.
Tomáš,
Deleteas much as I agree with you regarding the self-centered nature of our society, you are attributing happiness only to exchanges of conversation between real people which I believe isn't right. Saying that our society is devoid of happiness because of a lack of human to human contact is unjust because preferred sources of happiness vary from individual to individual. And more importantly, happiness is illusive and completely relative. One must sometimes feel depression and sadness to be able to feel happiness. Because of this, I think what our social media driven, short-term satisfaction seeking society really lacks is fulfillment. Don't get me wrong, one can derive fulfillment from interacting with others and spending time with their family, but that is only one component of a completely fulfilling life. Living a life that one is truly content with also involves goals, aspirations, hobbies, interests, satisfying work among many other things.
I`d say people always wanted to draw attention to themselves. For example, politicians are doing this for hundreds of years. But doing stunts like this Kiki challenge? Well, in history, there are some bright examples of doing things like this. The famous medieval knight tournaments, where men were trying to tumble the opponent from his horse, or famous Commodus` fights in ancient Roman Colosseum. So, people were always risking their lives to get some social respect.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author's opinion that we are attention-addicted creatures but I am not sure that this applies only to present generation. Our ancestors in the 18. century were as big attention-addicts as we are. However, they had to spend more time feeding themselves. Today, when we do not have to work 16 hours a day and worry about an unfair landlord, we are able to spend some time with self-realisation. This is described in the famous Maslow pyramid of needs.
In my opinion, this particular problem is not that serious. Some people may get injured or possibly killed, but I see no possibility how this could harm the society, except causing a massive traffic jam and thus preventing emergency services from passing. This issue was probably caused by the spread of social media, which are probably responsible for some medical and psychological issues mentioned in the article.
Nevertheless, restrictions on social media wouldn't help to solve this problem because even in history, ambitious parents were encouraging their children to achieve success, for example, Percy Grainger was educated by his mother Rose. I believe that human beings are born to be ambitious, and whenever human sees a possibility to gain respect, there is nothing to stop him or her doing it. Doesn`t matter one sits in a car on the highway.
Adam,
Deletefirstly, I as well can relate to you saying people have always wanted to draw attention to themselves. For me the most obvious example of this really being ingrained in our nature are children, who too do not want be left unnoticed from early age. However, to say Kiki challenge is “not that serious” and follow it by “some people may get injured or possibly killed” sounds like a contradiction to me. Plus saying “this issue was probably caused by the spread of social media“ may be an analogy to “money is the root of all evil“. I would claim social media {money} are just a means of doing something, thus cannot be harmful themselves, it is up to us to decide how we use it. Therefore maybe try to allow for Kiki challenge actually be somewhat serious problem. Again, I am not saying it must be, but try to consider it.