how social media subjugates us

You’re hunched over on the toilet, pants around your ankles, watching me on TikTok. Or maybe you’re curled up in your bed under the thick embrace of your warm blankets; maybe you’re crammed into a subway seat with your AirPods in.

The point is that you’re watching my videos from a state of vulnerability. You’re perceiving me from a weak, passive position—submitting to my control over your attention.

I, as an influencer, do not appear this way. I show up on your feed exactly as I wanted to present myself: bold, upright, bathed in the authority of my studio lighting setup. If you’re familiar with my videos, you’re acquainted with the brick wallpaper in the background and implicitly understand that I hold the same command I did in the past.

I am deliberately projecting this image of confidence. I will retake parts of my video where I stumble over my words, or where I feel as though I’m not assertive enough.

Throughout this parasocial interaction, we’ve both adopted social roles that come with an imbued set of norms and behaviors. You, the viewer, are in an assigned role of docility. I, the influencer, am in an assigned role of dominance. With each repetition of this dance, we internalize our roles a little bit more. Even though I started out as some random guy yapping on the internet, my role over time is mutually legitimized and I begin to take on greater credibility in your mind.

I’ve written before about how scrolling on social media can be understood as a kind of ritual, in that we frame it as a separate version of reality and then repeatedly engage with that frame. As we do, we circularly create and draw meaning out of it.

In her influential book Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, the theologian Catherine Bell argues that ritual restructures our bodies through the very act. Now that we’ve established this arena for understanding reality, we behave a certain way; over time, those behaviors become part of the arena itself.

Consider a subject kneeling in front of a king. The act of genuflection doesn’t merely communicate subordination: it literally produces a subordinated kneeler. The ritual, which started out as a social premise, becomes embodied in our behaviors. As we reinterpret the situation, the subordination becomes more real.

I’m not calling myself a king here, but social media produces a ritualized environment akin to a throne room. It has its own social expectations that are then replicated in our actual bodies, circularly reinforcing those expectations.

If you want to understand media—the containers of meaning—you have to remember that the human body is the first and final medium. All meaning passes through us before it is communicated and understood. Platforms like TikTok only function when they can count on your submission and my dominance.

To be clear, I as an influencer also submit myself to the platform, much like a supplicant to a ruler. I need to replicate “viral-looking” mannerisms and expressions; I need to perform for the algorithm by submitting to its constraints. My studio lighting and “influencer accent” are forms of aesthetic labor validating the platform’s priorities. Then you perceive my message on the toilet and do the same, and we both give more power to the technology mediating our interaction.

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Other news:

• I’m so unbelievably excited to announce that my book Algospeak debuted at #2 on the NYT Bestseller list!!! Thank you all so much for your incredible support - this has been a stressful yet exciting journey. If you haven’t purchased the book yet, you can do so here.

• Gave such a fun talk at WordHack last night in NYC!! There’s still time to catch me and Aidan Walker in Washington DC tonight at 7 pm - more information here. Come to hear a cool conversation and get your book signed :)

• New coverage in Reuters and on NPR.