Why do I feel a flicker of pride when Reddit likes my comment, even though I know internet points are worthless? Is this a cry for help or just capitalism’s fault?
Why do I feel a flicker of pride when Reddit likes my comment, even though I know internet points are worthless? Is this a cry for help or just capitalism’s fault?
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I think people are wired for validation and socialization.
Even though it is just a black screen with lots of bots, there’s still a primal element of socialization going on
What makes you think it worthless? They’re not worthless, just because they don’t have monetary value. If someone who is your peer says that what you’re doing is good, That’s respect, That is fundamentally more valuable than money.
Don’t overthink it. It’s normal to feel at least a flicker, we’re not robots or perfectly logical beings. The lizard brain in us likes to see the 1 become a 4.
Even though it has no effect on your life, it still means somewhere a real person found your advice funny, or your joke helpful.
Nothing to do with capitalism, just a very basic human need for validation. We tend to get this from strangers on the internet now rather than from people we know IRL.
It’s dopamine but if you start to attach it to your self worth, it might be time to cut back on the amount of time spent online. I definitely need to.
Attention is a human need in a species with social survival mechanisms. It just means you aren’t getting enough attention elsewhere.
You’re chasing hollow validation if you let likes dictate your worth. Break free from the dopamine loop. True self-worth isn’t found in upvotes, but in creating something that matters.
Social acceptance? Validation of your intellect? Some other counter move to an insecurity you aren’t aware of?
For me, when stuff like this feels like it’s filling some hole, I take a closer look and see what the hole is.
Edit: also have to be careful who you’re absorbing validation from. Some people validate and promote shitty behavior for whatever reason. In short, don’t hang out with assholes or people lacking integrity.
They’re only relatively worthless because the moderation is often such dogshit. They’re supposed to have value because then you can say things that get you downvoted to hell but you have it to spend. However half the time the thread gets deleted or you get banned or whatever. Because just for starters a lot of subs you have to have so much karma to even post. So just that right there is big value. It’s a really good system of self-regulation but the jannies and everyone else are such a bunch of grubby little power mad losers that it just ruins it. Good job losers! What else is new? Losers make this world shit film at 11
Validation is human.
It’s a display of validation / actually being heard.
90% of the time, I feel like I just yell into the void.
Sounds like you have insecurity issues and thrive off of validation. Or you have an addiction to social media. Or it’s none of these things and you’re a product.of the times. Hard to say but worth exploring.
As a social species, we humans have an innate need for validation – to be reminded that our thoughts and feelings are real and worth paying attention to. We’re literally wired for it.
Social media does hijack this need to convince us to engage more – and thus we can be exposed to more advertising or whatever.
But the underlying brain wiring bit is natural. Maybe the healthier alternative is that you need more real friends, and focus on quality over quantity.
Dopamine
It’s the dopamine hit you get from validation. It’s also what has made everyone insane and tribal over politics.
Having lived in China, being a slut for the approval of strangers is a universal experience. All of communism’s rise and fall is marked by popularity politics.
it’s more a function of psychology than an economic system. Of course Reddit profits off it, but not the users. We just bear the burden of the psychological costs. Pride, shame, fear, and anxiety about the things we say here. Will we get up or down voted. Checking back often to see. All just normal human psychology that has been noted and now programmed into this site to take advantage of. We crave interaction and validation. Finding it nowhere else, we flock here
Fake internet points are yummy. They taste of validation that you contributed something useful. Those points are never worthless.
Dopamine.
Dopamine.
It’s a dopamine hit.
Its pretty simple. The very basis of the human mind thrives on mutual agreement with others. To have something to indicate such basically makes it easy to feel like whatever you posted had some value to it and by extension approval of your idea by another person.
Sure, upvotes are practically just a sorting system for comments to keep troll posts from being immediately visible, but like other social media a “like” count is a major aspect of it’s addictive quality and what keeps people engaged.
You get the validation that you are right, in whatever subject or opinion.
It’s a much bigger high when you create content and people like it
It’s just your brain hitting that dopamine slot machine, don’t overthink it. We all crave fake internet claps now, welcome to hell.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling that flicker. It’s nice to know sometimes that someone somewhere values what you have to say
Social media, through trial and error using literally billions of people, has zeroed in on things that keep the attention of our monkey brains.
You are human, and therefore the mechanisms deployed to keep you busy clicking, work
As much as I like to shit on capitalism especially given this late stage form. This is not its fault.
This is out little monkey-brain who receives a tiny amount of dopamine from a like because it feels validated. Would happen under any system as long as there is social media and a form to express a like.
Happens to everyone, I also get a little giddy when a witty comment I wrote gets 100+ upvotes.
You can thank dopamine for that feeling. Every time you post something and get likes your brain gives you a little dopamine as a reward. Dopamine is great, but you get addicted to it. This is how people get addicted to staring at their phone screens.
Being agreed with is a pleasant sensation, especially in a world of contrarians.
Lizard brain finds acceptance rewarding.
I got 1.5k up votes on a comment I made explaining my culture to a foreigner. Most “likes” I’ve ever gotten and I’m so proud and over the moon because total strangers read what I had to say and liked it
It’s not because of capitalism. (If anything, it seems anti-capitalist to care about something with no monetary value.) It’s because humans are social animals who care a lot about relationships and status. Internet points have no tangible value, but they have social and psychological value. Upvotes are a sign that people like you and care about what you have to say. It’s kind of like how the baby monkeys preferred the cloth mother to the wire mother: we want people to like us at least as much as we want food.
Certainly not capitalisms fault.
In what universe is this capitalism’s fault?
Capitalism’s fault? I swear everything is capitalism’s fault to some people, even their vein desire for boosting their ego.