The Internet Has Made Me Too Cynical
Recently, I was watching my nieces trying to learn a dance routine in the garden. I guess they sensed my confusion at what they were up to, because they stopped to shout, “it’s a TikTok dance, stupid!” in that you’re so lame tone only young tweens can deliver with such venom.
I told them I wasn’t on TikTok.
Their response, which I assume was meant to cut me deep, was a very true reflection of where I am right now.
“Gawd, you’re a cynical old man.”
To clarify, I’m not that old, though I am old enough to have lived my entire youth free of social media. Let’s be honest for a second — they really were the good old days. I hate seeing how hooked this generation already is on the dopamine of social media, and without the knowledge and understanding to know it’s even happening. One niece once told me she’d die without her iPad. I’m going off on a tangent here. Back to my point, I’m not old old, but they certainly nailed the cynical part, even if they don’t quite know what they meant by it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my cynicism lately and how it got so bad. After some reflection, the answer is obvious: the Internet is to blame. Or, more specifically, the current form of the Internet is to blame — the social media era, Web 2.0, which came with the shift to the attention/engagement…
