The Pantomime Of Online Expertise And Jump Cuts

Let me introduce you to a foe of mine. Mark. He’s almost like Mike but just different enough to be effective. He’s closer than a friend because I was told to keep him so. So close in fact I know exactly what he’s going to say. At any given time. Which has made making hypothetical TikTok's about my expertise all the more effective as of late.

Mark used to make a gainful living as a strawman. He got to rub shoulders with your favourite blue haired liberals on the campus and was trotted out every time the college educated needed an easy opponent to disarm and flay according to the precepts of progress. Like I said, he’s closer than a friend. Heaven knows a conservative couldn’t get a friend to be that kind of fall guy. But the progressives can. And do. And it doesn’t really matter where they progress to. Mark will be there. Doing what Mark does best. Simply put, what you do, but poorly.

That’s why Mark is so handy. Ever need a level one bad guy to trounce? Mark’s your guy. Ever need a bad argument said by someone as if it looks like a good one? Don’t worry, Mark has a doozy waiting to laugh at and see through like it weren’t a glass clown.

In fact, every time Mark comes out, I look great. And all it takes is a jump cut, and some lighting changes, and you would never know I was stating opinions instead of providing arguments. Which is the main problem with sites like TikTok. Sure, you can post your opinions. But even the simplest minds has been taught by their respective Dude’s, to abide in the rhetorical argument of “That’s just your opinion, Man.” or whatever you’re preferred pronoun is these days.

But with Mark in tow, anything can be framed as a story of good versus evil. Of for you and against us. And dammit, don’t we all love a good story.

While we’re on the topic of TikTok, there was a time when we had a grasp of what technology was and wasn’t replacing, and how. We knew the cotton gin was replacing individual workers. Which was fine, we would put them to work elsewhere. We knew that the robotic arm welder was replacing workers. But that’s fine, we’ll get them to work elsewhere. But what we didn’t see alongside the technological replacements, was a technical replacement. One made of technique instead of metal and motion. That technique being the largescale exposure and adoption of pantomime and double role acting.

200 years ago, in order for you to see two people arguing you needed two people. You needed at least two people. And while a stage might make the argument entertaining, it was a feature not a bug. The two people were definitely needed, because one person arguing with himself would have been a spectacle and not a debate. One person arguing for and against themself would have been cause for concern. Because one person can’t authentically argue with themself unless they have two personalities.

You could chalk that kind of duality of man up to all sorts of mental disorders, even demon possession. But you would never accept that a single person was honestly arguing with themself. Something must be wrong with them. But then social media gave us all a stage the way Shakespeare said it already was, and the real craziness started. Because now everyone can argue with themselves instead of having to argue with other people. Or did you believe the obvious lie that arguing with other people online was a fruitless endeavor.

Want to make post about your hair brained theory on religion, why debate an actual Christian when you can debate yourself, but from the other side of the condo. A Christian on the side of the condo might be able to prove you wrong. The very same way a Christian on the other side of the internet could. You would never prove you wrong though. Right Mark?

If you’re feeling a little uneasy right now, it’s because I touched something I wasn’t really supposed to. The fourth wall is fidgety that way. When you don’t know it’s there, the things between the other three can get away with just about any fantasy you could think of. But put a single fingerprint of logical fallacy on that fourth wall, and nothing inside holds sway anymore. What happens when you realize that, for entirely too long, you have been watching and learning from people arguing for their beliefs with themselves. Demonstrably disordered mentally by their public actions but socially accepted because “Everyone’s on TikTok these days.”

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t matter what you search for on TikTok, you’ll end up finding naughty bits. Not because you’re looking for naughty bits. But because if people are crazy enough to talk to themselves for views, then they’re definitely crazy enough to mislabel mundane things for sexual attention.

In all of this, even Mark and I agree that listening to crazy people is likely a poor life strategy. So, take a good long look at who tells you what's real or true online. And ask yourself how that drama would unfold a dozen decades ago. Because if they would have been crazy then, they are still crazy now. You’re just more comfortable now that you know how nice the padded room is for ideological naps.

“Though this be madness yet there is method in it”

Polonius, Hamlet, William Shakespeare