If We Don't Care, Who Will?

Warm Up

The other morning, I turned on the New York Times podcast, The Daily, to learn more about the Los Angeles wildfires. I chose this medium because a simple google search no longer provides helpful information, and when it does, too many advertisements fill the page, making it entirely unreadable and unusable. However, there was, of course, an advertisement before the podcast began. It was for Petroleum. The ad was urging listeners to use American oil as their source of energy. I found this to be rather insensitive, considering that fossil fuels, like oil, are the largest contributor to global climate change, responsible for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, recent reports show that 2024 was the first year above 1.5 °C. This figure comes from the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty pledged by 195 nations, to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or, before the use of fossil fuels. Last year, 2024, the global average temperature was 1.6 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. A tenth of a degree more than the agreement allows. So, yeah, insensitive.

Coinciding with the issues of a warming world are the rising temperatures of the political climate. The rise being fueled under a guaranteed doctrine of free speech, where any claim on the internet is taken at face value. This issue has resurfaced recently as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has done away with it that on Facebook. However, that is not to discount the misinformation that has run rampant on the “fact checked” site. In 2023, researchers conducted a study looking at image-based political misinformation on Facebook. They collected over 13 million posts from 14,000 pages and 11,000 public groups from August to October 2020. Researchers found that 23% of the political images and 20% of images with political figures contained misinformation. Furthermore, right-leaning images were 5-8 times more likely to be misleading, as 39% of right-leaning posts contained misinformation and 5% of left-leaning posts did.

Zuckerberg has furthermore decided to take the Meta apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger), the most used platforms for communication in America, in a direction that follows Elon Musk. Meta’s hateful conduct policy has been updated, allowing users to refer to women as “household objects or property,” or to transgender or non-binary people as “it.” It’s time to say goodbye to these sites as they are no longer a safe place. Social media are public platforms, just like the real world has public spaces. So why is it that you can’t say “bomb” in an airport, or “fire” in a movie theater, but you can say anything you want on the internet?

Furthermore, the information that is learned on social media is now first being filtered by billionaires with their own self-interests in mind, enraging social media as that are reflected in the real world, between people. Where Elon’s posts are filtered upwards so to engage more people, and influence thought in society. Now, the information we have to work with about each other is not coming from our own insight, but from narratives that either side is promoting. This is keeping us from fighting any real problems we have, and instead allowing those problems to continue to grow worse. The problem is not that we are disagreeing on the same reality, but that we are living in: two different ones. Algorithms are made so people keep using these applications, and the more someone interacts with their feed, the more specific the algorithm gets.

While I’ll be the first to say it’s deeply upsetting that people chose to align themselves with a felon, the information that people had to work with was all false. And not recently false, it’s been false for the last three election cycles. During the 2016 US election, there were international media reports of a troll farm run by teenagers in Veles, a small town in Macedonia: “over 100 pro-Trump websites pushing fabricated news were registered in Veles, with one operator earning $16,000 US dollars in the last three months of the campaign.” Furthermore, the outrage of fabricated news led to a large amount of Facebook engagement and became “the basis of the business model of one Florida-based company that produced false and misleading content targeting both liberals and conservatives, across several websites.” It was after this that Mark first dismissed the idea of ‘fake news’ on his site, influencing the US election; however, he later decided to collaborate with fact-checkers to combat ‘fake news.’ Until now.

Utilization of the term ‘fake news’ was coined by the only convicted felon to become President of the United States, Donald Trump. In doing so, journalism began to lose credibility around the world as other leaders began to use the phrase. In 2018, Donald went as far as holding the ‘Fake News Awards’ to do further harm to journalism as he awarded several major news organizations, including CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Additionally, it has created major divides on science, where “conservatives are much more likely to be deniers of the scientific consensus than liberals.” Over the last decade, “while Democrats, Independents, and even liberal to moderate Republicans have increasingly accepted that global warming is happening and that it is worrisome, conservative Republicans have become less likely to see climate change as real and a cause for worry.” The introduction of ‘fake news’ and rampant misinformation is igniting literal fires, worsening our relationships with one another, destroying our ability to behave as a civil society, and having detrimental impacts on health. With this, the introduction of ‘influencer culture’ has paved the way for new avenues of both misinformation to spread and climate change to worsen, but I’m just warming up.

Culture, culture, culture

Society has always been influenced by the promotion of ideas. Take, for instance, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. A clever title to forward the idea that the American colonists should free themselves from Britain. This was at the time an idea many colonists were reluctant to agree with. It is worth mentioning, however, that America’s foundations on religious freedom gloss over the truth of its basis on Christian nationalism. Anyway. Paine’s words went “viral,” selling an estimated 500,000 copies, and helped gain support for the Revolution. His influence continued, and some of his ideas landed in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ironically, now, Common Sense criticized monarchy and a concentration of power in the hands ofa few, and instead advocated for equality and individual rights. Additionally, it argued that government should be based on the consent of the governed.

What we see now is the people being governed by an influence of ideas coming from a handful of people. The incentive to become an “influencer” is prevalent, especially amongst kids and teens who now view “influencer” as a job title. What becomes lost in translation is that influencers do not hold any power; they garner support for power. Influencers take to their phones to show their followers everything they got in their latest “haul.” Not only promoting brands with labor malpractices, like Shein, but also further adding to the over-consumption problem. This problem is at the root of the climate crisis, as “humans are using material and energy at unprecedented levels threatening global climate, biodiversity, soil fertility, and a host of other environmental factors.” However, the marketed need for overconsumption is brought to us by advertising that pries on social fears of exclusion. Advertisers promote their products as a necessity for societal acceptance, which only worsens the inequality between classes.

If we all need the latest technology to thrive in society, then it needs to be made accessible. The current age of technology has not improved the inequality problem; it has only brought it to a new sector, hence the “digital divide.” When everything turned online in 2020, it had large implications for school-aged children, as “36 percent of low-income students couldn’t complete their schoolwork because they didn’t have a computer compared to 14 percent of middle-income and 4 percent of upper-income students.” While this is an example to be taken more seriously, there are less serious examples that add to both the divide and the overconsumption problem. Examples of these would be silly bands and Stanley cups. Tell me, where are your silly bands now?

While a majority of marketing is geared towards women, which stems from the Post-World War II era to promote the housewife image again, so men could return to their jobs, men are also marketed towards. In sports, teams debut various new jerseys and uniforms throughout their season, have bobblehead giveaways at their games (what am I going to do with a non-starter Pirate’s bobblehead?) (no offense). Nonetheless, men are marketed to considerably less. Market research shows that clothing production is tailored to women’s spending power, where women globally spend the most on clothing. As I previously stated, the advertising towards women began after World War II, with a spread of misinformation that shamed women back into being stay-at-home. Following this, in the 1960s, advertisements would show women in two roles: a housewife, or a sex object, with goal of priming girls towards these images to sell products.

However, advertising also reflects the wants of the people. Once the popular running shoe brand, Hoka, made chunky shoes that non-runners decided were a fashion statement, many other brands followed. I worked in a running store during this time, and the chunky shoe look is not the best-fitting shoe for most people. Then came On, a newer running shoe brand that made the internet run to the stores just to wear them around running errands. Both of these examples are rather frivolous, but what isn’t, is Ozempic. People again fled to the stores to purchase the weight-loss drug. However, people who need Ozempic for health and medical reasons could no longer access it and experienced price hikes due to the increase in demand.

Additionally, advertisers must also reflect the movements of the people, because nobody wants to side with a brand that doesn’t support the people. In the 1970s, advertisements of the “New Woman” surfaced; however, despite the efforts to reflect the women’s rights movement, only 7% of women were shown in working roles in advertisements compared to 45% of men. In other words, advertising reflects half-truths of the public, maintaining their motive in getting consumers to purchase their products.

Furthermore, the mismatch between advocating and advertising is a form of disinformation in it of itself. You cannot be for the environment and continue to sell products that will end up in landfills or in the ocean. Currently, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is “1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.” Amazon has an estimated 11.95 million orders on one day alone, with a sales revenue of $1.6 billion. As of September 2024, the GPGP can be cleaned for $7.5 billion. The situation we’ve found ourselves in is both the result of our own reflections, as advertising works to get us to buy by reflecting our own behavior, and a lack of accountability.

What we have is a moral problem. First, to continue to create products that utilize harmful materials for the environment, like polyester and nylon, is a reprehensible action done by the person who puts business over humanity. Likewise, victims of the LA fires are currently experiencing price spikes as hotels and landlords continue to look for a profit. Second, it is perplexing that many companies will advertise to their customers about their sustainability and inclusivity, while still being a key part of the problem. Alongside the fashion industry is the development of new technologies. While big brands like Apple and Microsoft make strides towards sustainable efforts, they remain the culprits of the crises we face. According to estimates, “AI-related infrastructure may soon consume six times more water than Denmark…that is a problem when a quarter of humanity already lacks access to clean water and sanitation.” Additionally, one request made through ChatGPT consumes “10 times the electricity of a Google search.” Nonetheless, we as a collective do not stop buying, and we do not stop using these platforms.

Now, the ideas that are being pushed and hold influence over society are no longer in the interest of the public good. They are instead pushed by self-interest, as influencers only look to make money, just as the companies they are promoting. Constant self-promotion is leading to a selfish society, and that is only adding to the problem. Different from Paine, who wanted equality, our society now promotes a hierarchy of social influence. We’ve become the influencer and the influenced, with 61% of Gen Z and millennials saying they trust influencers, up from 51% in 2019. Influencers now give out incorrect health advice, can persuade their audiences into purchasing anything, promote unhealthy behaviors, and some perpetuate negative stereotypes. Whatever happened to “don’t believe everything you read on the internet?” Maybe, if we all still played by these rules, things would look different. Nonetheless, we don’t. This again brings us to the echo chamber of algorithms that people fall into. As the world leans into selfish behaviors, and we lose the community of third spaces (a place that is not home, work, or school), people search for community online. This is, in turn, giving rise to extremist ideologies all over the world. Despite the algorithmic life, the influencers are still being fed a stream of ideas and information almost constantly; it is growing increasingly more difficult to know which ones to care about and where to allocate our attention.

Do something, anything. The World IS on fire.

Today, anyone can capitalize on a moment because anything can be monetized. And isn’t that the American Dream? A viral video, such as that of the Hawk Tuah girl or the airplane girl, Tiffany Gomas, immediately gives people influence. However, it us as a collective that we take an interest. Our attention is being constantly demanded, and with that, information is moving faster than ever before as everyone competes for it. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to have a continual filter on as we swift through information. What’s made worse by this is that we are missing out on important information, as credible media sites are in the same attention battle as everyone else. Worse, teachers are now fighting for kids’ attention in class in ways they’ve never had to before, with 72% of U.S. high school teachers noting cellphone distraction as a major problem. However, this demand for our attention says something about us: where we’re allocating it. We are the ones not taking an interest in our own lives. We are the ones clicking on these articles, making people famous, and engaging with the content.

The request for us to move at the speed of information is unfeasible. Instead, we filter for information we want and fall into niches that put us into echo chambers. Then, when we do meet someone outside our circle, it seems unfathomable that someone would think the way they do. We might attribute this to the loss of third spaces, and where public places, like coffee shops, have become WIFI hubs for people to again return to their own devices. As a society, we no longer share common media, work with the same information, or converse with each other. We take more interest in one another than we do in the lives of each other. We drive on the roads distracted (distracted driving occurrences have increased an average of 30% per mile from 2019 to 2023), putting everyone at risk. Our own lack of interest in real life is leading us down an irreversible path of destruction.

This lack of interest makes for an incohesive society, where the largest fire to ever burn in L.A. will be a thing of the past next week. However, for the thousands impacted, that is now their life. Not only are their homes lost, but so are the jobs they’d go to. The misinformation claims spread by Donald about Hurricane Helene, such as that “the government used weather technology to create Hurricanes Helene and Milton, deliberately targeting Republican voters,” and “The federal government did not respond to Hurricane Helene and intentionally withheld aid to victims in Republican areas,” are dangerous. These are real people who are being directly impacted. The only people profiting from the spread of misinformation are the media, because reporting on these claims leads to clicks and generates revenue. Real lives are being lost in the crossfire of power-hungry people, and the only way to stop it is if we stop being an accomplice.

We are still the voice of the people; we can still decide the future. By saying what I just have, I’ve probably lost people who choose to believe that there’s nothing they can do because they don’t want to admit to being part of the problem. We can all sit and watch it get worse, or we can take actionable steps towards improving our lives. Continuing to reach for fast and easy solutions (i.e., same-day delivery and AI), and continuing to use sites and support brands that we fundamentally disagree with is ultimately the fault of our own. We must remember that we are the demand of the system. Furthermore, continuing to buy and use social media at the rates we do is only going to trend us towards elimination. It is clear that companies will always choose profit over a person. If we don’t care about our own future, who will? Without us caring about our own lives, we will continue to trend towards destruction. We have to care.

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