An "Informed" Opinion

I was glad that Colin, at least in passing, mentioned the all-pervading influence of social media in class yesterday. Processing the veritable shit storm (or, as Bokonon puts it, pool-pah) of thoughts, images, and sounds that we’re bombarded with everyday makes it that much more difficult to actually formulate an original opinion. Usually, I feel like I do a pretty good job of sifting through the flotsam and jetsam that social media outlets provide for me. Sure, they influence me to an extent, but at the end of the day, it isn’t difficult to convince myself that I possess my own views, that I reach my own conclusions, that I make my own decisions.

Of course, it’s then embarrassing and infuriating when I find myself regurgitating word for word some everyman blogger’s opinion I read online the other day when conversing with someone about, say, an electronic music producer’s latest 12” single. I was kind of amazed the first time this happened, especially after realizing that I didn’t really believe in the opinion I was so adamantly sharing. I thought I’d been avoiding the accumulation of biases. In fact, I’d made a point of trying to find new music on my own, molding my own opinion on different genres and scenes as I skimmed along the surface of the blogosphere. It was disturbing, knowing that this wasn’t the case, and it made me doubt the validity and origins of my opinions in all other sectors of thought. Sure, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the adoption of biases if you’ve been exposed to them repeatedly over a long period of time, but I thought I was, for lack of a better word, stronger than that.

I know that, being a child of the Internet, I’ll almost always glean perspectives from the many mouths of social media whether I like it or not. With that said, here’s to hoping that I won’t end up like Mr. Robert Childan, a man wholly subservient to the whims of popular opinion, no matter how bogus or perverted.