People Don't Exist

Online, you hear a lot about what people are saying, or that “people” think this or that, that “people” are calling out someone or other, or have some belief or stance or some such.

The thing is, these “people” don't exist, really. And they certainly don't exist online.

In a very real and meaningful way, a way McLuhan could explain in more elegant prose than me, something tweeted is not something said. The same sentence you read on X, if said to your face at a conference or a party or on the street, would be wildly different in experience. And in fact it just probably wouldn't be said.

So when a reply comes in to your tweet, it's a stretch to say the replier SAID that: it's not a person, it's a Twitter account, an extrusion of humanity through a tweet shaped tube.

And if ten replies come in, or even 1000 tweets share a sentiment, it's not quite reality to say that “people are saying” or even that “some people said”: tweets happened, but little else.

In the electric swarm environment, individuality gets kind of lost in the sauce.