in over your head » culture http://inoveryourhead.net social capital, trust agents, all that jazz Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:03:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 The Consequences of Advice Dog http://inoveryourhead.net/the-consequences-of-advice-dog/ http://inoveryourhead.net/the-consequences-of-advice-dog/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:55:40 +0000 Julien kind offensive nature people meme funny and social consequences people offensive pulled tribe strong extreme opinions aloud are alienating interacting online http://inoveryourhead.net/the-consequences-of-advice-dog/ Watch the video below before you read this. Or don’t, whatever. At least look here.

First of all, disclosure: A lot of people find this meme funny. Despite its kind of offensive nature, I think I’m becoming one of them, and so are a lot of people (look at the Youtube comments). My question is whether that’s good and, if not, what to do about it.

We’re watching things online more and more, with no social consequences from laughing, by yourself, at something that a lot of people find offensive. But what happens when we do it so much that we start to think it’s funny to other people, and start talking about it aloud?

Are we alienating ourselves from normal people by interacting online with those with strong, extreme opinions? What does this do to us as people?

Or is it the opposite? Should we let ourselves be pulled into whatever tribe we most connect with, and forget about mainstream opinion? After all, we might be happier, right?

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