...and yet that's what I find most of the stuff on twitter seems to be there for - people trying to build a following, to get those dopamine hits that the attention (and money) brings. You can't be unbiased, or a real critical thinker, most of the time, if you want to build a following. If notoriety is what you're after then you need to take an extreme position and stick to it no matter what, and then you will get others in the same tribe following you. This immediately turns me off people who behave this way, they just don't seem genuine.
The fact that Silicon Valley and Hollywood are so far left for the most part is a real issue. Their influence on the internet and media is massive, so to have such a biased and politically extreme group in the public eye all the time is quite dangerous in my opinion. For example, actual critical and logical thinking about Trump is basically non-existent, because of these groups screaming hysterically all the time, about every little thing, and trying to tie it back to Trump somehow. Most of the criticism I see on social media or coming out of Hollywood is pretty laughable crap, and could be applied to american politics or past governments, in general. These people started looking at politics 5 minutes ago and seem to think that every single bad thing in the world came out of Donald Trump's playbook. It's hilarious, but very sad at the same time.
I was just thinking further about my comments here yesterday, the bit in bold, and then the final paragraph about Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Hollywood is basically a community of artists, and the thing these people have in common is that they aim to please, and they love attention. For most it's an ingrained part of their personality, and that's why they became actors etc. For others, creating was something they were good at and enjoyed, and they've now travelled down a career path of rejection after rejection after rejection, followed by a rare success which has propelled them to stardom and set them on their way. Both types of people have one thing in common. They're now basically conditioned for these dopamine hits. Getting attention, praise, and vast amounts of money is their fuel, it's what they live for. You do get your actors and artists that like to shy away from that, but they are rare - Hollywood is not the game if you're not into attention and fame.
So that type of person naturally lends themselves to heavy social media use and a craving for followers, likes, RTs and just attention in general. Social media is a new and easy way to get those dopamine hits.
Their general personality type also lends itself to being very far left on the political spectrum, and as a result they will often hold very idealistic, but unrealistic, world views. They aren't generally held to account on those views because they live in a city that is an enormous echo chamber. LA (and California) must be just about the least politically diverse place in the USA.
So these people speak with authority, and a massive sense of entitlement, because they are living in a physical echo chamber, and operating online in a virtual echo chamber as well.
And because the general public generally idolise and are in awe of these people, we listen, a lot. Even though they are largely uneducated in terms of science and politics, and don't have any experience in critical thinking.
I am sick of them, to be honest, totally sick of them. There was a video from an awards ceremony last year, maybe the Oscars, can't remember, and a woman said something to the effect of "the people in this room are the only ones that seem to understand what it's like to live a life". She was crying when she said it, the crowd cheered, it went viral. WHAT A LOAD OF SH*T. These people have zero understanding of what it's like to live a life! Their lives are totally outside of the norm.
Why are we listening to these people? They have literally nothing to offer us except a platform for a loud voice. And now we've discovered that their industry is totally corrupt, sexist, and that there's a culture of sexual abuse. We already knew that they suffer from very high rates of depression, mental illness, and that a hugely out-of-proportion percentage of them are on medication of some kind, prescribed or otherwise. This is a fake group of people, in a fake industry, and they are mentally troubled as a result. It's sad and they need help. They should be receiving advice, not giving it, and I'm sick of hearing their voices outside of the movie theatre.