Sunday, January 19, 2014

Observation?

Like, I'm willing to guess, most people on effbee, I'm "friends" with a variety of family members, both pretty darned liberal and pretty darned conservative.  And I think I've observed a difference in the sorts of items and links they share.

My more liberal family are more likely to share links to more liberal news sites such as the H*Post, and so forth, especially posts about income inequity, racism problems, bank fraud.  My more conservative family members are more likely to share links that are cautionary in nature, the sorts of ones that warn women not to get into their car if a van is parked next to it (that one was part of a list my cousin shared this morning), and so forth.

In both cases, a lot of the shared stuff says that the world is a very dangerous place.  But the source of the danger is different: in the liberal sites, the source of the danger is usually corporations, and sometimes policing agencies.  The danger's there, but hard to defend oneself against as an individual, and the danger isn't as overtly violent, but more systemic.  In the conservative sites, the source of the danger is a bad person who's aiming to violently attack, and especially to violently attack women.  The danger can be avoided or prevented, if just the woman (almost always) is careful and alert.  She can keep herself safe.

Have other people noticed something similar?

(And both sides share lots of cute animal pictures and rescue animal stuff.)

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:57 AM

    Totally. We're either doomed because Obama is a socialist or we're all about to fry under the ever intensifying rays or the sun. Or else there are dangerous men lurking in vans vs. terrifying secret info about shady corporations ruining or food supply. Or whatever. Also, nobody has an eye for satire. People on all sides of the political divide accidentally post fake news items and react to them as if they were real. Not only that, when pressed, they'll admit they were duped but inevitably follow up with "it could almost be true." That's how scary the world is.

    Everybody can agree the sky is falling?

    Anastasia

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  2. I have a couple of friends (not family) who like to post Christian-y stuff. Some of it pretty ugly - both in terms of aesthetics and message. And one particular friend adds to hir Xtn stuff those conservative 'scare 'em into conforming' things. Yeah. I notice.

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