>>5332apologies if this gets a bit political/uncomfy but
my mum has become radicalised by twitter, facebook and youtube in the past few months and i absolutely hate it. it has turned her into a really bitter, ignorant, perpetually angry/outraged person, and i don't think she even realises it. she's constantly complaining and fearmongering about immigrants, trans people, etc despite hardly ever interacting with them irl. she's stuck in a massive echo chamber, believing damn near everything she sees online and not even willing to change her mind on a lot of things. it's almost always american culture-war crap too, which has very little relevance to our country.
even when she's not watching political slop, she's watching videos of paedophiles getting busted, or celeb gossip about scientology or whatever. obviously these things are more justified, but there's still that underlying misery/negativity behind them if that makes sense ("this guy was trying to groom kids", "this actor is in a cult and abuses his family", etc.). like she doesn't really watch anything innocent or harmless (eg: cat videos or something), it's always something negative, something outrageous, something involving someone to look down upon and feel better about herself, however justified or unjustified that may be. if that makes sense, idk.
i think the worst part is that she still has good intentions, that she's still a good person at heart. like i don't think she genuinely hates immigrants or trans people or whatever, but her concerns (however valid or invalid) are being exploited by professional outrage merchants and grifters who actually *are* legitimately racist/transphobic/etc, and that she's too naive to realise it.
idk where i'm going with this but i just absolutely hate social media and how quickly it has changed her, with zero signs of stopping. i can't even bear to look at her sometimes because it just makes me sad, and i don't know what to do about it. at least my dad feels the exact same way so i have someone to vent about it with, but my god it's depressing. can anyone else relate to this?