“Things Just Go On” – More Theses on Doomscrolling

“That things just go on is the catastrophe” – Walter Benjamin.

One of the risks of declaring victory is the possibility that your declaration will prove to have been premature. Thus, in the late spring/early summer of 2021, many proclaimed that the pandemic was coming to a close and there was no longer cause for concern. This prompt to “stop worrying” was not a response to the actual virus, it was more clearly aimed as a retort to the ongoing social response to the pandemic. Indeed, in the late spring/early summer, many people remained hesitant to embrace the return to normalcy. Certainly the vaccine rollout was going well and case numbers were dropping, but many people still felt some caution was necessary. And yet the response to those who remained concerned was “stop doomscrolling and go eat in a restaurant!”

When the histories of the pandemic are written, it is likely that a term many scholars will wrestle with is “doomscrolling.” It is a term that evocatively captures the way that many people experienced the pandemic: a deluge of disturbing news that was mediated primarily through a screen. For much of the pandemic, especially its first year, it seemed like doomscrolling was pervasive. And yet, as the pandemic wore on, doomscrolling became something that was treated as though it was blocking the return to normal. For doomscrolling’s focus on everything that was still going wrong, prevented people from concluding that everything was now okay. In the late spring/early summer of 2021, against the backdrop of genuine improvements and a broad campaign on the part of influential figures to urge a return to normal, it truly seemed for a moment that doomscrolling had peaked, and that it was steadily being replaced by a variety of newer scrolling modes.

And then, of course, there was Delta. And then, alas, there was Omicron.

Insofar as the causes of doomscrolling persist, so too does doomscrolling. Nevertheless, we are no longer in the early days of doomscrolling. And thus it is necessary to once more attempt to think about what doomscrolling is and what it means to doomscroll.

Editorial note: this piece is a continuation of an earlier effort to formulate Theses on Doomscrolling, therefore these are numbered in a way that picks up where the previous piece left off.

 

11. When someone says they are “still doomscrolling,” the key word is “still” not “doomscrolling”

As an activity, doomscrolling begins as a response not only to things going wrong, but to an unignorable wave of information loudly declaring that things have gone wrong. Thus, doomscrolling is a reasonable initial response to feeling overwhelmed by that deluge of dreariness. Nevertheless, at the moment when the doomscrolling starts, there is a sense that this will not need to go on for too long. After all, the horrible events that are giving rise to all of this doomscrolling cannot possibly last for more than a couple of weeks (or months at most), right? Right?!? Alas, the longevity of doomscrolling is bound up with the world conditions that give rise to that doomscrolling—and contrary to a disaster film that must wrap everything up neatly within two hours, the disasters that trigger a doomscrolling response can last for years.

At first, for a person to say that they are doomscrolling is to say that they are taking part in a widely shared activity in response to the crisis. However, once they shift their description to note that they are “still doomscrolling,” their statement shifts from being primarily an admission of the activity itself, and instead becomes a way of expressing a mild sense of disbelief that the crisis is “still” happening. There was always a self-deprecating sort of dark humor around the admission that one was doom-scrolling, yet at the outset such sentiments were couched in a sense of a temporary obsession that obviously would not last long, because the problem would obviously not last long. Doomscrolling was supposed to be a sort of strange trend that we would all look back on and laugh about, doomscrolling was not supposed to be something we were “still” doing nearly two years later.

For someone to say that they are “still doomscrolling,” is for that person to quietly acknowledge that they thought they would be done doomscrolling by now.

 

12. Doomscrolling can become banal, but it can never truly become normal

Even at its most omnipresent, doomscrolling remains a sign that something has gone very wrong. After all, the fact that a special term needed to be coined to describe the experience is a signal that doomscrolling represents a break from what we had been doing previously. Whatever it is that doomscrolling may be, one thing that it is decidedly not is “normal.” This is because doomscrolling exists in opposition to whatever we would be scrolling through online in “normal” times. Of course, even in supposedly “normal” times, bleak headlines would occasionally disrupt our feeds of cute animals and updates from acquaintances—but in those times the bad news was always a dark cloud in an otherwise clear sky, whereas in times of doomscrolling it is the cute animal picture that provides an unexpected break of sun between black clouds. It is not so much that doomscrolling becomes a new “normal,” as it is that doomscrolling serves to make us nostalgically long for whatever “normal” it was that we were inhabiting before we found ourselves doomscrolling. Doomscrolling cannot truly become a new “normal,” for there is too fervent an unwillingness to allow it to become “normal.” Granted, this rejection tends to have more to do with the experience of doomscrolling than to do with the real-world events that give rise to doomscrolling.

And yet, after a certain amount of time many people really do become accustomed to the scream of the fire alarm that doomscrolling represents. The overload of apocalyptic information initially gives rise to doomscrolling, but overtime it just becomes banal. Even in cases where there genuinely are new developments (new variants, new records being broken, etc…), these eventually come to feel humdrum and hackneyed. This is not to say that these events truly become “normal,” for they still have the power to inspire worrisome headlines, and still result in people generating ominous comments that keeps injecting doom into your scrolling routine. Nevertheless, even if you still shudder every time you see the daily death toll, after a while that ghastly number feels rather predictable. It still is not normal. For even though it can be difficult to genuinely define all of the characteristics of the halcyon days of “normal,” one feature of those days was that there was a pleasant lack of updates on daily deaths.

To the extent that a person realizes what they are doing and names it as “doomscrolling,” they are recognizing that they are doing something that is a breach from what was once normal—even if the doom through which they scroll no longer seems fresh.

 

13. Doomscrolling is only socially acceptable for a brief duration

At first, doomscrolling operates with broad social approval. It’s like the latest viral meme, popular online game, or dance craze—”check me out I’m doomscrolling!” Suddenly everyone is doing it and you don’t want to be left out. As a reaction to a sudden deluge of horrid information, doomscrolling puts a name to an activity that lots of people feel they are engaging in, and by putting a name to the activity it allows people to feel less alone in what they are doing. Rather than a shameful or antisocial behavior warranting opprobrium, the fairly playful name that is bestowed on the activity makes it feel permitted, an appropriate reaction to the state of the world. If you were to find yourself mired in a seemingly endless flux of bad news from which you could not look away, you might seriously begin to wonder if you were suffering from depression, but if you can slap the label “doomscrolling” on your activity you can rest assured that it isn’t just you! Rather than ignore all of the pressure that is building up, doomscrolling functions as a sort of release valve, that allows people to vent a certain amount of anxiety by letting them admit that something is going very wrong.

However, it is only acceptable to doomscroll for a little while.

In the beginning, when the threat is novel, when everyone is overwhelmed, when the media is still obsessively covering the issue, when politicians still care about the issue—you are allowed to doomscroll. Indeed, even the influencers, blue-check accounts, and prominent columnists, may be willing to admit that they too are doomscrolling. But this does not last. After an initial period, doomscrolling falls out of style. To admit that you are still doing it is to show that you have fallen behind the times—there’s a new game, a new dance craze, a new topic to argue about. At the outset, doomscrolling is seen as an appropriate reaction to bad news, but if you continue to insist on doing it after the initial period ends you will find yourself accused of wallowing, alarmism, defeatism, fatalism, or being addicted to the apocalyptic. In the beginning, we are all doomscrolling together, but after a while anyone who is still doomscrolling is just admitting that they are not able to adjust. Once the influencers, blue-check accounts, and prominent columnists decide that it’s time to move on, those who do not move on with them wind up getting tarred as weirdos.

The essential thing to recognize here is that doomscrolling losing its social acceptability has very little to do with actually existing conditions, and everything to do with influential figures deciding that they are “done with it” or that it is “time to move on.” Importantly, once these figures decide that doomscrolling is passé there is very little that can be gained by arguing with them about things like rising death numbers (or reminding them how often their sunny predictions have not been accurate). In the moment of initial social shock, doomscrolling is seen as an appropriate reaction; however, after that initial shock has passed doomscrolling starts to be treated as a behavior that must be mocked and shunned.

Or, to put it another way: when a society needs people to minimize going out, doomscrolling is accepted; but once a society decides that what it really needs is for everyone to go shopping, doomscrolling is lambasted.

 

14. Doomscrolling turns social media from a comedy into a tragedy

Social media is not a joke, but it is a comedy.

After all, one way of looking at narratives is to suggest that they all ultimately boil down to comedy or tragedy. In this binary system a comedy is defined not by laughter but by a focus on the continuity of life; whereas a tragedy is not defined so much by weeping as by the inevitability of death. Put another way: in a comedy the characters get married, in a tragedy the characters die (at least that’s how Calvino summarized it). And though this juxtaposition is often applied to narrative fiction, there are also thinkers who have broadened out this duality as a way of thinking about human existence more generally.

To say that social media is a comedy is to suggest that it is a technology that is generally about the continuity of life. Consider: silly dances, baby photos, graduation pictures, news updates, vacation images, engagement announcements, fun games, wedding pictures, celebrations, nights out, information about events, activist organizing, thirst traps, personal updates, cute animals, memes, the list goes on. Social media platforms vary in their particular affordances and in the content they solicit from their users, but this content tends to overwhelmingly be focused on people living their lives. And though some social media platforms certainly provide a more airbrushed version of life, across these platforms users can see plenty of evidence of what it looks like to be alive. To be clear, quite often this looks vicious and terrible, but what is on display is nevertheless life going on in all of its various forms (some of which, alas, are vicious and terrible). Somber updates and announcements are there as well, and yet they appear within a broader stream of content that always serves to overwhelm the tragic content by placing it solidly within the broader context of life. The announcement of a loved one’s death is seen, but it is surrounded by even more content that attests to how life goes on. Even in instances when a death (such as that of a celebrated [or loathed] public figure) occupies a great deal of attention, that death is either being honored or mocked in a broader focus on life. Death is certainly present on social media, but it is safely placed into a corner wherein it cannot overly disrupt the broader focus on the continuity of life.

Doomscrolling attempts to turn social media from a comedy into a tragedy. The question of whether or not it succeeds varies from one individual to the next, but it makes the attempt either way. While the aforementioned list of standard social media fare certainly still exists, as the doomscrolling wave grows in height it steadily washes away much of that life affirming content and replaces it with a flood of dispiriting reminders that death is inevitable. Or, to put it slightly differently, one of the things that is not a normal feature on social media is regular updates on the daily death count caused by a pandemic; however, in periods of doomscrolling the matter of death becomes inescapable. Furthermore, whereas death on social media normally consists of attention to particular well-known individuals, in the midst of a crisis that gives rise to doomscrolling, death is everywhere. And because so much of that death becomes anonymous it becomes possible for the individual social media user to think that before long their life may be included in that daily death count. While social media often reacts with shock and horror to one-off calamities that claim lives, such events are easy social media fodder as the deaths remain safely sequestered in the specific “over there, not here” where the calamity took place—but the events that give rise to doomscrolling spread death everywhere.

While this is not the place for a lengthy delve into the rise of Web3, it does seem curious that the rise of Web3 has really accelerated at the same time as doomscrolling. With its attempt to jumpstart the techno-utopian narratives that have fallen somewhat out of fashion, Web3’s celebrants seem to want to rescue the Internet from the pollution of doomscrolling by presenting a shiny future where everyone gets rich by buying and selling NFTs while floating around in the metaverse. It is hard not to recognize that the attempt to sell people on an entirely online world (reachable through a VR headset) is occurring at a moment when many people are feeling anxious about physically gathering with one another. This is not the time or place for a lengthy discussion (or takedown) of Web3, yet it is worth noting that at a moment when social media is awash in doom and gloom, the advocates of Web3 represent some of the few people who seem to be optimistic about what comes next. Of course, grifters always need to sound optimistic about what comes next, otherwise they won’t be able to recruit their next round of rubes.

To understand doomscrolling it is necessary to recognize that one of the things it does is force people to think about death. The deaths in their society, the deaths of people they know, the deaths of friends, the deaths of loved ones, and even their own death. When confronted with so much evidence of mass death it is hard not to think about your own mortality. And in that moment doomscrolling pushes a tragic sense of life into social media feeds. It does not manage to completely displace all of the content about the continuity of life (at least, it doesn’t manage to do that for long), but for at least a moment it overwhelms social media feeds with a reminder of the inevitability of death. Insofar as the goal of social media companies is primarily to keep people scrolling, it is not fair to suggest that doomscrolling represents a genuine disruption for it definitely keeps people scrolling. Nevertheless it alters the ambient tone amidst which that scrolling takes place.

Whether or not doomscrolling will one day be seen as an aberration, or if it has managed to permanently alter the leitmotif of social media, remains to be seen. And yet, in the period when doomscrolling has been at its height, it seems to have been able to alter the dominant background narrative on the places where we scroll.

 

15. Doomscrolling is repetitious.  Doomscrolling is repetitious.  Doomscrolling is repetitious.

The novelty of doomscrolling does not last particularly long. Fairly quickly it settles into a pattern of monotony. Haven’t you already read that headline? Didn’t you just watch that epidemiologist on the news? Aren’t these “new” guidelines the same ones that you’ve been observing for months? Weren’t you just rolling your eyes at that columnist? Haven’t you already seen that chart? Aren’t the arguments being made now identical to the ones that were being made (by these same people) a year ago? Don’t these stories from friends in classrooms and hospitals sound just like the stories they were telling before? Doesn’t this all just seem like it’s happening again and again? It isn’t that these things have become normal, but they trigger a wave of déjà vu.

Things genuinely do change, of course: new variants emerge, policies really do change, different people get sick, new deaths occur, waves grow, waves peak, waves recede, and then we watch helplessly as the next wave grows. While doom in the form of a genuine apocalypse might bring with it a decisive conclusion, the doom through which we scroll is always changing even as it seems to always remain the same. That doomscrolling feels so monotonous is a reaction to the way that the crises that give rise to doomscrolling become monotonous. In the midst of doomscrolling one can react with “haven’t I seen this before?” to almost everything, and yet this does not change the fact that in many cases you really have “seen this before.” And what makes it even worse is the suspicion that you are going to wind up seeing it again.

Doomscrolling is repetitious.

The novelty of doomscrolling does not last particularly long. Fairly quickly it settles into a pattern of monotony. Haven’t you already read that headline? Didn’t you just watch that epidemiologist on the news? Aren’t these “new” guidelines the same ones that you’ve been observing for months? Weren’t you just rolling your eyes at that columnist? Haven’t you already seen that chart? Aren’t the arguments being made now identical to the ones that were being made (by these same people) a year ago? Don’t these stories from friends in classrooms and hospitals sound just like the stories they were telling before? Doesn’t this all just seem like it’s happening again and again? It isn’t that these things have become normal, but they trigger a wave of déjà vu.

Things genuinely do change, of course: new variants emerge, policies really do change, different people get sick, new deaths occur, waves grow, waves peak, waves recede, and then we watch helplessly as the next wave grows. While doom in the form of a genuine apocalypse might bring with it a decisive conclusion, the doom through which we scroll is always changing even as it seems to always remain the same. That doomscrolling feels so monotonous is a reaction to the way that the crises that give rise to doomscrolling become monotonous. In the midst of doomscrolling one can react with “haven’t I seen this before?” to almost everything, and yet this does not change the fact that in many cases you really have “seen this before.” And what makes it even worse is the suspicion that you are going to wind up seeing it again.

Doomscrolling is repetitious.

 

16. Doomscrolling is something we do together   

There is something vaguely hermetic about the figure of the doomscroller. We do not imagine them as a bearded loaner living in a cave clad in sackcloth robes, but we imagine them as unshowered hunched over at home and wrapped up in a blanket. The act of doomscrolling is something a person does alone, staring at their personal computer screen, down at the screen of their smartphone, logged into their various social media or legacy media accounts. In many respects, doomscrolling seems to be an overwhelmingly individualized experience; and yet unlike those forest dwelling hermits, the doomscrollers are highly interconnected.

By its very nature, doomscrolling is a high-tech activity, that requires access to a range of computerized devices and a moderately strong Internet connection. And the experience of doomscrolling winds up being highly influenced by the unseen algorithms lurking behind the shiny facades of social media sites. Scholars have discussed the hazards of these algorithms: the ways in which they try to keep people scrolling, the way that they try to serve up more of the same content, and the ways in which they often elevate inflammatory content. Indeed, as is noted in a different thesis, the platforms on which doomscrolling occurs are complicit in giving rise to the world situation in which doomscrolling occurs. And yet, without wishing to spare the platforms from their share of responsibility, as we sit wrapped up in our blankets scrolling through doom it behooves us to think about our acquaintances sitting in far off places who are doing the same. Once you start doomscrolling, the algorithm might be quite content to keep serving you up more doom, but the algorithm is getting that doom laden content from somewhere.

Doomscrolling is not simply a reaction to terrible news, it is a reaction to large numbers of people in your social sphere simultaneously reacting to that terrible news. Of course, there are bleak headlines—but who is sharing them? Of course, there are politicians to denounce—but who is denouncing them? Of course, there are woebegone pronouncements to be made—but who is making them? Of course, there are experts sharing their assessments—but how is it that the words of that expert wound up on your feed? Your doomscrolling is contingent upon whether or not the people you interact with online are also doomscrolling, and the extent to which you are doomscrolling will also have an influence on them. Your decision to repost that article (perhaps with a gloomy comment) or your decision to share that bleak cartoon or ominous meme—these things become the doom past which someone else scrolls. Sharing such content functions as a way of demonstrating that you are doomscrolling and that you are concerned, but it also creates the material necessary for other people to continue their own doomscrolling.

The act of doomscrolling may make a person feel quite isolated; however, in order for doomscrolling to occur it is necessary to have a large enough community of individuals creating and sharing doomscrolling worthy content.

 

17. Doomscrolling varies from location to location

In moments of crisis, it is not uncommon to hear some variation of the refrain “we are all in this together.” And for a time, doomscrolling can present a powerful sense of that sentiment. While the doom through which a person scrolls is always likely to emphasize the particular hazards in their own area, the broader background against which the doomscrolling takes place tends to be national (and international) in scope. As such, doomscrolling can recognize that the crisis is not limited to a single place, but that it is everywhere, and the individual doomscroller can experience a strange sort of solidarity in recognizing that just as they are doomscrolling so too are there people all over the world who are sitting at their own screens doomscrolling.

And yet, at a certain point, doomscrolling begins to diverge depending on the location of the doomscroller.

Early on in the midst of the events that give rise to doomscrolling there can be a widely dispersed sense of anxiety about what is occurring. However, as time goes on, different regions respond to the situation in ways that significantly alter the experience of doomscrolling. Or to put it simply: a person who is in an area that is successfully managing the crisis may feel less need to keep doomscrolling than those who are in areas where the crisis is still raging. These location based reactions vary from country to country, but they can also vary within a single country. Indeed, the crisis can be getting worse in one part of a country even as it is improving in other parts of the same country. Thus, though “doomscrolling” may refer to a particular activity, that activity does not look like just one thing. And though doomscrolling may fit within an early moment of “we are all in this together,” overtime it becomes clear that “this” varies widely, and as a result the “we” and “together” become stand-ins for a smaller and smaller “we.”

In the midst of a crisis it can be tempting to lean too heavily on the term “we” in an attempt to generalize an experience wherein “we” stands for all of humanity. And yet the location specificity of doomscrolling reveals the hazard of applying that “we” too broadly. Some people may look around themselves and lament how much reason they have to persist in their doomscrolling, while people in other regions may find themselves gazing at those still doomscrolling and wondering how it is that other places are continuing to bungle the crisis so badly.

 

18. It is possible, for some, to stop doomscrolling

Disastrous events in the world tend not to really care what a person thinks of them. Someone can declare they are “over it” or “done with it,” but the event they are responding to will not be aware of these responses. And insofar as such a response can involve abandoning any precautions, this sentiment can create the space for the calamity to get even worse. You can decide when you’re “done,” but you can’t really decide when the crisis is “done.” However, you can decide that you are “done” with doomscrolling.

In the first weeks when doomscrolling takes off it may feel as if you have no choice in the matter. All of a sudden doom filled content is everywhere you look and no matter what platform you go on you will find yourself scrolling through it. Yet, after a certain amount of time, doomscrolling becomes a choice. After all, you can always decide to mute the words that are commonly used to talk about the crisis, you can unfollow the topic (and related ones), you can unsubscribe from the list, you can unfriend the offending accounts, you can mute the accounts of your friends who are still talking about it, you can decide not to watch that next recommended video, you can click “not interested,” you can choose not to click on the headline for the article, you can stop hitting the assorted “like” buttons that tell the algorithm to serve you up more of this, and you can stop following all of those new figures you began paying attention to in order to keep yourself informed. Really, it’s pretty easy to stop. And if you feel uneasy about the idea of stopping altogether you can always try to balance out the content on your feed by following more accounts that mainly disseminate cute animals, celebrity gossip, and memes so that the amount of bleak content gets largely drowned out by pictures of kittens and Chancellor Gowron memes. When you first found yourself doomscrolling it likely became something you were doing without having really intended to start, then it became an activity that you were somewhat committed to (out of a feeling that you needed to stay informed), but at this point anyone still doomscrolling is doing so because they are choosing to do so. Lest there be any doubt, this is not to mock or denigrate people who find that they are still doomscrolling (the causes of doomscrolling are still quite real), but in trying to understand why it is that some people seem to still be doomscrolling while others seem to have stopped it is worth recognizing that some people have stopped doomscrolling because they have decided to stop doing it.

Doomscrolling is about paying attention to things going wrong, and a person can always decide that they are “done” with devoting their attention to such matters. Though it is essential to remember: choosing to stop doomscrolling, does not mean that the crisis has ended, it means that a person has decided to stop paying (as much) attention to it.

 

19. Not everyone can stop doomscrolling

As a descriptive term “doomscrolling” tends to flatten out significant differences. On the one hand, this is precisely what makes it a useful term, as it is a catch all that can be used by many people—even as each of those people scrolls through a different set of algorithmically generated horrors. On the other hand, the experience of doomscrolling varies from individual to individual not merely because they are seeing different content, but because they are positioned differently in relation to that content. Insofar as the ongoing pandemic remains the primary spigot of doom at the moment it is essential to recognize that this information is going to look one way to a healthy person in their early twenties working from their apartment in a major city and a very different way to an immunocompromised individual or to a person who is the primary caregiver for an aging relative or to the parent of a child under five or [this list could go on indefinitely]. Attempts to define an ongoing crisis as reaching a stage of the risk-averse vs. risk takers fails to properly consider that many of the risk-averse have very understandable reasons for their aversion to those risks. From a societal perspective that looks more favorably on the risk-takers, the risk-averse are seen as a barrier to getting back to normal; however, for many of the risk-averse the rush “back to normal” may very well equal their death.

It is easy to stop doomscrolling once you feel confident that you are not going to wind up amongst the doomed. But for those who are aware that they (and their loved ones) are still very much in danger, it is not so easy to simply move on. Furthermore, the recognition that much of the rest of society has decided to move on, can lead to a heightened need to focus on the still worrisome news for others. When practically everyone is doomscrolling, there is some small comfort and safety to be found in the sense that lots of people are taking the necessary precautions, but as much of the society abandons precautions it shifts the heavy weight of safety back onto those most at risk. In the early moments when everyone is doomscrolling it may become easier to obtain the necessary accommodations that allow those most at risk to function safely, yet amidst the cry of “back to normal” those most at risk are forced once more to fight for the accommodations they deserve and need (even as they are met with less understanding and support). As the larger society moves on from doomscrolling, those who are still at risk cannot so easily move on as they are still very much in danger.

Some people can choose to stop doomscrolling. But not everyone can.

 

20. After a point, to doomscroll is to bear witness

Initially, doomscrolling is a socially acceptable response to a bleak world situation. Then, as that scenario persists, the admission that you are doomscrolling becomes a way of showing solidarity with others by noting that you are also concerned (it is a way of saying “I am here too”). But, even as the crisis continues, once those in positions of cultural/political/economic authority decide that the time has come to move on, to still be doomscrolling is to be accused of wallowing in woe. You may be doing everything you can not to exacerbate the crisis, but suddenly your aversion to risk and your recognition that those risks still exist, becomes framed as preventing things from getting back to normal. To suggest that continuing to doomscroll is an act of defiance would be overstating the case, nevertheless at a certain point the decision to continue doomscrolling represents a commitment to bear witness to the ongoing catastrophe.

Early on, there is no shortage of worrying information, and there are plenty of groups and individuals sharing that information. Yet, as time goes on, one increasingly needs to be willing to take a few extra steps to find that information. Put another way: at first it takes a genuine effort to avoid things like daily death figures, but after a while it takes a genuine effort to find those daily death figures. What makes doomscrolling so easy at the start is that so many people are doing it, resulting in there being so much material through which to doomscroll; however, as time goes on the doomscroller can feel increasingly like a lone figure howling in the desert. After enough people have stopped doomscrolling, to be one of the people who is still doomscrolling is to feel a sense of isolation. The bad news is still there, it might be getting worse, but where once drawing attention to that grim information was met with a reassuring “I am here too” gradually the doomscroller is increasingly given to believe that they are one of the few people still there.

Thus, to continue doomscrolling, becomes an act of bearing witness to what is taking place. It is a small act of refusal in the face of the societal desire to ignore mass death. It is the rejection of “get back to normal” when “getting back to normal” is just another way of saying “get used to the catastrophe.” It would be impossible to learn the names of each person who has died each day, and it would be impossible to learn the names of every person who is still struggling amidst the crisis; however, it is very much still possible to be aware that people are still dying. To continue doomscrolling is not just to be aware of this in a sort of ambient way, it is to force yourself to remember it—and to feel compelled to remind those who have moved on that the calamity continues. Of course, a time will come when it is possible to stop this activity, but that time has not yet arrived. And until it does, the problem is not that some people continue to be mindful of the darkness, but that so many people have become convinced that the darkness is actually the light.

In a situation where the concerned individual may feel as though there is very little that they can really do, at the very least they can still pay attention. Or, to put it slightly differently, they can keep doomscrolling.

 

Related Content

Theses on Doomscrolling

What Comes After Doomscrolling?

The End of the World?

Theses on Technological Optimism

Theses on Technological Pessimism

About Z.M.L

“I do not believe that things will turn out well, but the idea that they might is of decisive importance.” – Max Horkheimer librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com @libshipwreck

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