I fell deep into the permission trap while on vacation recently.
We went on a summer trip. It was exciting. It was picturesque. It was the city of lights and every turn seemed like a new reason to point my camera and click the shutter. I took a lot of photos.
So of course… I posted a few of the best pics on Instagram so that my collection of friends and fam who follow on my private account could enjoy those same photos. And, genuinely, the first day that I posted the response was overwhelmingly positive.
But… well. I posted more pics on the second day, and a couple more on the third…
The following days were less positive. People had tuned out.
Fair enough, I suppose. Vacation photos while everyone is back home getting ready another work day. The patience for that is limited. I get it.
But we are funny to each other this way, aren’t we?
I’m not saying this to dive into a pit of self-pity about my social engagement. There are an array subtle social cues that are conveyed by modern interactions on social media platforms, and being shrugged off by one’s own friends and family, and I would suggest that a big one is the subconscious permission structure around sharing.
People are online. People are on these apps. People are scrolling, looking at advertisements and AI slop and influencer drivel, so in my own mind I am considering that I can offer something better by sharing: Me, a real person that the people on my private account all personally know, travelling the world and sharing his photos.
But then the permission trap emerges from the inaction of the masses: a fraction of the likes and indifferent shrugs and my anxious, approval-seeking artist’s mind reads that right to the thought of least resistance: people don’t want to see it. I’m oversharing. I’m boasting. I’m swamping the feeds of friends with a reality that breaks their comfortable slop-ridden, algorithmic vibe and I don’t have their permission to break into that for more than a single post.
I’m overthinking it, of course. Because that’s the trap.
Terms FROm this POSt
- algorithm
- The modern internet in all its forms is far too large for people to fully manage anymore without the help of automated systems. Any time an unseen calculation weighing our public profiles against what an app, website, or service chooses to show us, one of these automated systems is at work behind the scenes recommending product, ideas, politics, and friends. The invisible hand of fate has turned into a digital calculation so big we can’t understand it, and so complex it is often hauntingly accurate. If you are not afraid of the algorithm and what it has done to our society, you are probably not paying enough attention.
- influencer
- I think people assume because I post online so much that I’m trying to become an influencer, by which I mean the type of person who creates waves of content with the intentionality of making a living from being a kind of quasi advertising personality. I’m not that. I create because I enjoy it, crave it, live for it… and if people happen to read it, cool.
- overthinking
- No one ever accused me of under thinking much, but more than sometimes (especially when I get to writing) I follow the rabbit down the hole and dig into a topic way more than necessary. But, hey, if we don’t ponder the little ideas, we’ll just spend more time worrying about the big stuff we can’t control, right? Right?
- slop
- Maybe I’m just leaning into it, but it seems like this has become the de facto term to describe anything generated by an algorithm coupled with the soulless pursuit of creating for-profit content. Artificial intelligence is a complex technology with many positive uses, but making inhuman replacements for human expression is not one of those.
- social media
- You almost certainly found this post because it was posted on someone’s feed. The platforms are terrible, but as it stands they are about the only way to find an audience in this crazy version of the internet. I avoid the socials when I can, but to ignore their existence is to toil forever in obscurity.
- subconscious
- I sometimes think this is a popular pyschological concept that everyone uses but probably doesn’t understand. To me, I think it simply refers to the stuff I do without actively thinking about it, instinctively, or out of habit so deeply ingrained that it would take effort to do the opposite.
- vibe
- There are many words that try to encapsulate the ineffable feeling or aura of a thing or an idea. Vibe is yet another comfortable and trendy stab at trying to pin down a definition for something that is hard to define about those very things. It often implies an alignment, positive or negative, with the feeling given off by the subject of the vibe.
