Social media mobs
The Guardian has an interesting read about “gossip surveillance”, specifically about the trend on the social media platform TikTok. Users are filming unsuspecting people in public spaces who are maybe dissing on another friend not in attendance or talking about those cheating on romantic partners behind their backs and then posting these videos, outing both the victim and publicly exposing the perpetrators.
As the article states, this is not a new phenomenon. “We saw this in the 2010s with ‘Twitter, do your thing’, shorthand urging users to hunt, expose and punish wrongdoers caught on video. These threads were dedicated to the comeuppance of racists, abusers and criminals.” The TikTok trend is more gossip than the lofty goal of exposing bigotry and racism, but it follows the same game plan.
Exposing injustice and shining a light on wrongdoings has always been part of an editorial cartoonist’s job description but finding out the facts is also an essential element before flipping that switch. The problem with much of this type online vigilantism is a lack of context. Combine emotional topics with groups of people and it very easily devolves into a mob situation. There’s a reason being described as having a herd mentality isn’t a positive characterization.
(There’s the background for my recent cartoon in the Washington Post. Here’s the concept sketch, rough drawings, and final)