Social Media Politics with Maggie McPhee

An essay in Common Measure Vol. 1

“The corruption at the core of the four major communications monopolies, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Meta — the data mining, the addictive slot-machine designs, and the homogenizing algorithms — harnesses users' creative energies and rewards them with anxiety and depression.” 

—Maggie McPhee

We will soon be publishing an essay on social media politics by the writer Maggie McPhee in Common Measure Vol. 1. Woo! In it, you will read about the capture of contemporary politics by social media companies. 

Maggie takes us on a journey in “MY TEN-YEAR TUMULTUOUS AFFAIR WITH AN IPHONE APP.” She starts by experiencing social anxiety as a young adult looking at pictures of her friends doing stuff. She deletes the app, but gets back online in 2019 to do politics via social media. Initially hopeful of the radical potential of decentralized media, it takes only a few short years for her hope to turn to disillusionment, as she recognizes that her social anxiety online has morphed into political anxiety online. 

Maggie writes:

“What the world has lacked in tangible changes since then, Instagrammers have made up for with infographics,”

and

“I was doing a whole lot more representing myself as a political person than being a political person. And despite doing very little, I was exhausted.”

The essay evinces maturity and self-awareness, and is a critical reflection on the way many people engage with politics on the internet. It is a dirge for The Community that has been replaced by The Following.

I can’t wait to bring you the full text in Common Measure Vol. 1!