Report Finds Social Media Reached Its Peak When Everyone Spent Months Talking About A Harmless Viral Video

EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | Contact

As algorithms are now filled with culture wars and political content to divide the masses, it can now be confirmed that social media platforms collectively hit their peak in 2016, and has been plunging into a cesspool of hatred ever since.

Researchers at Betoota Polytechnic University have studied the past fifteen years of social trends, and can now confirm that 2016 was the last ‘year of innocence’, as content has shifted from being light-hearted and silly, to more insidious.

Speaking to Moira Radley, the head researcher on the project, The Advocate learns more about this interesting phenomenon.

“The darker side of the internet has always existed, and there were always alt-right figures and rabbit holes young people could go down”, explains Moira, “however, a lot of the hatred that we’re seeing out in the open today was confined to select groups on Reddit and 4chan. It was hidden away.”

“There was also more of a monoculture, where everyone was talking about the same viral videos. This sometimes happens now, such as the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl, but TikTok has practically obliterated monocultures.”

Radley says that one great example of a viral video being milked for all its worth would be the 2016 viral video ‘Chewbacca lady.’

The video, simple in its premise, features a middle-aged woman sitting in her car, laughing her head off as she wears a voice-changing Chewbacca mask.

“If you were on Facebook or Instagram at the time, that video was everywhere”, says Moira, “not only did it circulate for months, but the woman in it also did the rounds on talk shows – Ellen DeGeneres, James Cordon. You couldn’t escape the Chewbacca lady.”

Moira blames the influence of the US and Mark Zuckerberg’s changing of the hate conduct rules on Facebook and Instagram, which has now allowed the ‘floodgates of hell’ to open.

“The enshittification of social media is well and truly underway.”

More to come.