I have somehow got myself into a very bad situation. And it is really bad!
And it’s not just about me, it’s about everyone around me. But I am not concerned about everyone, of course. I am concerned about myself. How do I not get influenced by this wide spread phenomena. And how do I get out of it if I am already engaged.
Firstly, let’s know about what we are looking for, it’s called brainrot. It sounds terrible already, it is more dangerous than it sounds!
I have seen people within my surroundings being a victim of it, and it is not a one time thing, it will stay with you for life. It started with kids, and it generally starts with kids, watching stupid animated poems and cartoons non-stop. Then as they grow up, they start watching facts videos and stuff. A bit more and it changes to roast videos and other funny videos, then podcasts and stand-ups and what not. For boomers, it is generally news and other such stuff.
If we try to fund some common ground between all the age group’s preferred content, we can find a similarity which is very striking. We get a false sense of education, we feel like we are learning something, we feel like we are getting educated about vast subjects but it is useless, at the end of the day.
I have spent thousands if not hundreds of hours on Youtube and I do not remember most of things that I watched, it was all a mere timepass. If I am not mistaken, there is a word for it, it is called infotainment.
I am not against it, to be very honest it is good, but it is a double edged sword. I would love to be “infotained” about the stuff that I am learning right now and maybe tangential subjects around it, but infotainment on the internet is vast and wild and about anything and everything.
The biggest culprit here, I think, is the suggestions section. There is very little that I have consumed due to ‘someone sent it to me’ and there is very much that I have consumed because ‘it came into my feed’.
Well, it is fixable I think, with conscious effort and “don’t suggest this” kind of buttons, we can get rid of unnecessary subjects on Youtube. Yes, I was talking about Youtube all this time. I don’t even want to talk about Instagram, it is a shitty place. It is one of the worst places on the internet. Full of wannabes and full of shit. I had it installed to be updated with some of my favourite dhh artists. But the design somehow takes you there, the brainrot feed.
I do not want to talk about the generation and the kind of people that exist on the app. I am not interested in it, I feel like that’s a timewaste in itself. This generation is doomed and the coming generations are going to be doomed even more.
We should aim to be better and different from them, disconnect from them or maintain safe distances. Mentally and Physically. I am embarking on this journey of defeating brain rot. Let’s see where it takes me.