War in Our Pockets

What is war, today, if not compelling content?

What follows are a few scattered thoughts about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and social media’s role in it. I have neither the time nor the energy right now to write a long exploration of this—like I would love to analyze how Ukrainians have been using social media, I just can’t right now—so I apologize if this feels a bit disjointed. That’s sorta intentional as I’ve had a few thoughts that aren’t all cleanly related.

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I’ve been glued to a handful of sources on the ground in Ukraine to keep updated on what has been going on over there in the last week. I cannot overstate how grim, and yet important, it feels to me to keep tabs on the Russian invasion of Ukraine via social media. As I’ve tried to watch some television news while keeping track of the events via verified, trustworthy sources on the ground in Ukraine, it has been stark how far behind television networks appear to be, or how little information they have, even as they have reporters on the ground.

A Terrible Necessity

If you have been trying to follow the events on social media like I have, I cannot overstate the importance of finding a couple of accounts you know you can trust and only paying attention to those. There is so much misinformation flying around that you really shouldn’t trust anything you see if it isn’t coming from a source you can verify is trustworthy. I can’t tell you the number of video clips or images I ran across in the first 24 hours of this war that I later found out were recycled from past conflicts. I locked down my sources then and have basically not trusted anyone outside of the couple that I chose.

It feels like this moment has a perfect example of both how awful and helpful social media can be. It has provided an easy avenue for misinformation and scammers to prey on others, and yet it has proved a necessary lifeline of information regarding the events on the ground in Ukraine. This is the first modern conflict of this scale that we have been able to witness live on social media. Wild. Scary. Yet, better than being in the dark?

Now…This

In 1985, Neil Postman wrote in Amusing Ourselves to Death:

The viewers also know that no matter how grave any fragment of news may appear (for example, on the day I write a Marine Corps general has declared that nuclear war between the United States and Russia is inevitable), it will shortly be followed by a series of commercials that will, in an instant, defuse the import of the news, in fact render it largely banal.

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We have become so accustomed to [television news’s] discontinuities that we are no longer struck dumb, as any sane person would be, by a newscaster who having just reported that a nuclear war is inevitable goes on to say that he will be right back after this word from Burger King; who says, in other words, “Now…this.”

One can hardly overestimate the damage that such juxtapositions do to our sense of the world as a serious place.

And now…this:

That’s just the thing, Neil: we don’t think of the world as a serious place quite as much anymore.

Everything that happens is content. Missiles hitting Ukrainian schools is content. Air sirens going off in Kyiv is content. A cringeworthy clip of air sirens in Kyiv followed by an Applebee’s ad is content. A farmer stealing a Russian tank is content. A comedian-turned-president’s rousing speeches, former acting performances, and previous dancing competition clips are all content. Memes of Putin are content.

Every single part of the human experience from dining to schooling to entertaining to dating to wedding to dying has become content. Everything is content, and when everything is content, nothing feels important—it feels like entertainment.

What is war, today, if not compelling content?

On the brink of what feels like the end of days, we meme tyranny to cope with tragedy.

God have mercy on us all.