How do we build a culture that makes this shit obsolete? We can’t just keep pointing at the problem. We need to imagine a world where this kind of attention-seeking loses its grip on people, where sexuality exists without being reduced to cheap engagement bait, and where some things are simply no longer socially rewarded.
I’m browsing RedNote from time to time, sourcing dancing videos for my future music label clips. And what I noticed, the way chinese girls express their sexuality there seems noticeably different. There’s dancing, aesthetics, all kinds of self-expression, but I haven’t seen the same kind of ass-posting that dominates western social media. Maybe it’s cultural, maybe I’m just not seeing the full picture. Still, it makes me wonder how much of this behaviour is actually inevitable and how much is a product of the environment we’ve built.
We need cultural alternatives, different incentives and probably some boundaries around what platforms reward and promote. The goal shouldn’t be to shame people. It should be to make this entire feedback loop less powerful.
Are we capable of imagining something better than the system we’re currently trapped in?