<\/p>\n

In my imagination \u201cThe Internet\u201d descended from the deep reaches of the universe and settled upon our planet like a mist. We began to interact with this powerful and mysterious entity without any real understanding of how it was going to effect us, or even if it was going to effect us. Most of us just assumed it was going to make things better, amplifying potential in a good, rather than harmful way.<\/p>\n

However, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The astonishing gifts we’ve enjoyed have come with tremendous penalties, the primary of which might be a massive, unacknowledged mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

I don’t know about you, but I have never seen as many declarations of anxiety and depression in my life as I now see on a regular basis online. It’s not at all uncommon for me to have multiple chat windows open at once, each one a conversation with a friend in crisis. This is highly subjective of course, and that people now have the means and social sanction to communicate their feelings might be something to celebrate, or, as my intuition suggests,\u00a0\u00a0it could be something in the disembodied interactions we’ve been reducing ourselves to that’s causing this articulated spike in mental health problems.<\/p>\n

It seems that the more we inhabit the abstracted realm of The Internet, the more certain we become of our beliefs. This is highly ironic to me, because we all know that amidst the spin and swirl of disinformation, fake news and uncanny algorithms, we should be as skeptical of claims to truth and certainty as we’ve ever been.<\/p>\n

Take the White Power symbols that have been in the news.<\/p>\n

As you may be aware, the symbol that you always thought meant \u201cOK,\u201d might now mean White Power.<\/p>\n

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This transition took place about a year ago on 4Chan, where it was conceived as a conscious lie. What I mean by that is that it wasn’t a White Power sign. The intent was to take an existing symbol and change it’s meaning, thus confusing the public and media and further eroding the idea of public trust.<\/p>\n

Regardless, once this meme was in the blood stream there was no way to know what the use of the symbol meant. Did the person know it was a white power sign? Were they just saying “OK!?” Were they making a joke? Were they communicating racist ideology?<\/p>\n

The first instance of this that I saw was of White House Advisor Zina Bash during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n

Based on this image, people thought she was a White Supremacist.<\/p>\n

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Bash is of Mexican and Jewish heritage, and this photo that was widely circulated was a high resolution screen capture of a video, so she was in motion, not in a fixed, posed position. Claims that she was communicating a racist message seemed to me ambiguous at best. But people I know, like and respect saw this photograph, and others like it,<\/p>\n

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as crystal clear evidence of racist intent. Where I saw nothing but ambiguity, they saw none.<\/p>\n

It felt like looking at the Neckar’s Cube, like some optical illusion was at play and the mechanics of our brains were prohibiting us from seeing the same thing.<\/p>\n