Popular perception says that social media is the reflection of society. However, social media not only reflects the more extensive societal discourses but also creates them. It implies that social media is not just a product of social reality; it also actively produces and reproduces the social reality. This is to say that content creation on social media also creates larger societal narratives.

However, popular social media opinion will contest that putting content creators and the consumers of their content on a trial is going too far; it is the result of 'wokeism'- another word from social media trolls' vocabulary. Being woke became villainized as it became uncool to be civil and compassionate, as social media dictated 'sigma' to represent a desirable individual. Being a sigma came to be defined as glorifying misogyny and hiding vulnerability through idealizing toxic masculinity.

Dark jokes became the new comedy genre where one can mock anything or everything; mockery of the most severe and gruesome event is allowed as these are just jokes. However, political jokes, attacking the ruling class and elites, became a dull genre of comedy as dictated by social media trends.

It is just a joke, and it means nothing. Nevertheless, these jokes, which are supposed to mean nothing, translate into something, especially when the consumer is an alienated, frustrated, ill-informed and confused individual who lives on dopamine shots provided by social media algorithms.

Echo chambers amplify negative discourse

These changed definitions and the consequent content, along with the social media algorithms that aim at decoding an individual's consumption pattern, created a machinery of manufacturing echo chambers. It created echo chambers of all sorts, of all ideologies. Whether you are ill-informed or an expert on any subject matter, these echo chambers and the consumption cycle will re-assert your worldview and reassure you that your worldview is the best of all. Nevertheless, this machinery is not just aimed at reassurance; it can change your worldview, given that someone is promoting their content or if it is in line with the dominant narrative.

These echo chambers created discourses that gave trolls a grand stage to spread their agenda, thus waging a war against civility and compassion. Even when social media seemed united against a tragedy, the resistance aimed at satisfying the conscience of a society that does not want to change itself; it just wants to satisfy its hunger for speculative and revengeful justice. Structural change is not part of this narrative, as society is never on trial. Social media is not on trial, which helped perpetuate the hatred and violence. Instead, the machinery of social media creates an alternative narrative that denies the structural change.

#NotAllMen is one of many such vicious campaigns aimed at evading collective responsibility to bring structural changes in Indian society. This campaign, the pretext of claiming that not all men are sexual predators in the context of "fake" sexual harassment cases, completely ignored the contribution of every individual in promoting and sustaining the present structure and divided all men into the binary division of sexual predators and nice men.

Compassion and civility are victims

However, the campaign forgot to attack the media trial, in which social media actively participates, which causes mental trauma and fear to the alleged accused, mainly in the absence of evidence. The media trial is one such result of the echo chambers of social media, completely ignoring the structural reasons; people attack the alleged accused even when there is no compelling evidence to fulfil their responsibility, which gives them meaning to their meaningless doom-scrolling. 

Media trial results from a tendency to satisfy the vicarious yearnings of society to settle scores without themselves getting involved. All notions of civility are sidelined, and people discuss in gory detail the exemplary punishment that should be inflicted upon the accused, all the while liking and sharing the content that sustains the pernicious rape culture. 

Compassion and civility are not only sidelined; these values are mocked and seen as lesser traits that characterise a weak man. Nevertheless, these are just jokes; the content creators declare this most of the time, decrying the critical analysis of the impact of their content. However, this unstoppable gigantic machinery is being fed on their content, producing distinctly different echo chambers for all kinds of people.

Many of us spend hours on social media doom scrolling, which then ceases to be just a source of recreation; it becomes an alternative world where algorithms and trends decode and shape individuals. Individuals, who are often confused and estranged, puzzled by the meaninglessness of the impersonal modern society, find a place in social media where they are heard and their views are shaped and reaffirmed. They have a meaning as they can access and interact with the world, otherwise becoming more interconnected yet impersonal. The ill-informed and frustrated individual becomes the victim of trends and virality, which in turn crushes the individual's sense of civility and compassion. Civility dies; compassion dies. However, the machinery sustains itself, becoming more powerful day by day and feeding on the psychological vulnerabilities of individuals.

(The author is pursuing an MA in Applied Sociology from Christ (deemed to be university), Bangalore. Views are personal. He can be contacted at saditya299@gmail.com )