Dr. Jordan Peterson and My ‘Social Dilemma’
Just to be clear, it’s going to be a very personal review of Netflix’s The Social Dilemma in case Dr. Peterson is confusing you.
Well, he confuses me too.
Believe me, it’s not going to be about lobsters, although I’m positive I have the tendency to turn it into a random roast. No, I choose not to. Again, thanks to the social media networks that I am exhausted to see his amateur fans and foes discussing the selective awkward references from his book. Why won’t they prefer discussing not-so-cute lobsters? After all, it’s hashtag-able. After all, they are either twelve-year-old conservative caucasian fanboys looking for a male role-model who understands their abstract growing-up feelings or they are socialist know-it-all teens bombarding them with logical fallacies of his content. I am obviously biased. Sorry. It’s a pity his Instagram campaign beautifully embraces all that nonsense about lobsters and clean rooms. Actually, I kind of buy clean rooms. Very mature.
Kids, just talk to your parents. #BoysWillBeBoys #Parenting #MyHashtagGameIsntStrong
Okay. It’s going to be pretty random. But trust me, everything happened. And it’s happening with you too. It’s confusing. No one can pinpoint what’s actually wrong with how online platforms manipulate you when it’s actually you who chose this manipulation. You chose it. Right?
The former employees of the big guns of the social media companies also were reluctant to put it into words, and pinpoint when they were asked: Is there a problem? And what is the problem? Chuckles, confusion, Uhs, and Ums.
So, I thought I should also add to the debate. The debate on the issue we all like to discuss but don’t know what to do about it. Why not? This is what we do.
Okay. Renters Dr. Peterson. This time seriously. I only know and remember this particular example because I told one of my friends about it while discussing his theory of hierarchies, structures, yin yang, and of course, lobsters. Edit: Facebook Friend.
So, how I came to know about hierarchies, structures, and lobsters? I wrote for a client, obviously online, about Dr. Jordan Peterson’s New York Times Best Seller: 12 Rules for Life (free promotions).
The next day (roughly) I got in my Facebook newsfeed a video that a university fellow shared. It was Dr. Peterson bashing a feminist interviewee (eye rolls). He tagged me in the video he shared as he thought I’d be interested in the argument for the alleged fallacy of the whole monolithic feminist worldview which he couldn’t have, for sure, made on his own. “Jo Bat Hai,” he added an alternative of JBH in Urdu. I clearly showed annoyance like Dr. Peterson would have: Read more! And pretty much ignored it.
Then I got suggestions on YouTube about Dr. Peterson’s channel.
Then another Facebook friend commented on a post in a group we were both members of and it showed in my Newsfeed. It was again about Peterson’s book. I couldn’t resist but comment. I wrote a long unwanted paragraph telling them what I had to go through just to finish that book for work.
So, now I am being shown the ad of Dr. Peterson’s official YouTube channel on Facebook almost regularly. My mistake.
I was so fed up scrolling down and seeing the same ad that I commented on the video ridiculing Facebook about its algorithm and reported the ad as Spam.
Then I took a break from Facebook.
Watched the Social Dilemma on Netflix, and started writing this piece on Medium. Kept it as a draft. The next day when I had totally forgotten about the Facebook report, I got the following message:
No promises. It still continues to come up once in a while.
Yep. It’s all on me. Social media and the internet have almost made me spend more than 30 hours of my life on something I’m not even interested in, from which I didn’t get any value or growth except frustration, annoyance, and wastage of time.
No, it’s not about you Dr. Peterson. It just became all about you. Thanks to Facebook, YouTube, Fiverr, (add more), and their very friendly collaboration in annoying me.
And frankly, Medium too.
