Who Knew?About “The Internet”
So, trying not to simplify your argument in any way (although, uh, I already did by condensing the excerpt above) I would say this is kind of a classic case of “following the wrong people”. Whenever I get the sense that the media I’m consuming is perpetuating a sense of intellectual complacency or groupthink, I immediately start unfollowing and unsubscribing, cutting out anywhere between one third and one half of my regular media sources, and start looking for voices better suited to my current tastes and intellectual interests.I have been thinking about why Tumblr pisses me off so much lately. […] The problem is, in a word: triumphalism. The Internet thinks the Internet is great, and important, and either a reasonable reflection of the rest of society or some idealized version of what society could be. People on the Internet never seem to express self-doubt (except for boring Holden Caufield-y emotional self-doubt, never interesting intellectual self-doubt), they always think they’re right, and they only post things that either confirm what they already think or that are so outlandishly wrong that refuting them is merely an exercise in vanity. […] See, here’s the thing about triumphalism: it cuts off discussion of anything that’s not cheerleading.
I’m not here to read true things—it is, as Rachel would no doubt remind me at this point, still the Internet—I’m here to read interesting things, and so long as I can pretty much predict what people are going to say before they say it, this whole thing is of little use to me.
I think I do this every 18 months on average, and it’s incredibly rare that I stop reading someone because I disagree with what they say - I stop reading because I now find them boring. And so I guess the phrase “following the wrong people” is a bit misleading: there are tons of smart people who are worth reading but seep triumphalism into every post. So if you’re sick of those people (as I eventually grew to be), then find some new people to read. The Internet, including Tumblr, is a very big place.
Hilariously, I can’t provide you with a lot of examples of the kinds of online voices you’re looking for: I mean, I’m interested in media and the business of tech, which is not a place you can really find a respite from triumphalism. Usually, the best I can do is read relatively objective news sources like paidContent instead of opinionated bloggers.
But for someone who, as you say, expresses “interesting intellectual self-doubt”, may I recommend the excellent Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic? One thing I love about his blog is how you can see the refinement of his ideas unfold as the months progress, and how he uses the platform not as a soapbox but as a forum to write about his opinions and amend them after acknowledging opposing arguments from commenters and emails from his readers. For a topic as controversial and broad as race in America, it’s refreshing and enlightening to have him embrace the nuance and flaws in his beliefs and include his community of readers as a legitimate voice in a discussion.
