Schadenfreude – noun – pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.
There is one rule or observation that I have noticed in life is that the world is made up of 95% good people to 5% dickheads. But this rule appears to reverse when one enters the Twittersphere. It is within this space where the glories and wonders of the human psyche are on full display. Or to borrow a quote from the great Obi Wan Kenobi:
‘You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious’.
Obi Wan Kenobi
Twitter’s mission statement was ‘to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers’. But the vision of today, at times, feels like a gun-shop with no employees that only has a self-serve checkout.
Now, the premise of this article is not to advocate any censoring of ‘ideas or information’.
Hell no.
It is more of an observation into the human mind when there isn’t a dress code. To be honest, small fragments of schadenfreude are present in everyone’s brain. But when you throw in a fake avatar on Twitter, one potentially creates an alter-ego that gives a person the confidence to let schadenfreude run wild, when in real life, the vast majority of us would be more cautious.
Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash
But today we live in a polarised world, and from this triggering we create somewhat of a binary opposition amongst each other – Us vs. Them – that is in a constant state of motion, and Twitter is the battleground. The end product of this constant state of motion is lots and lots of schadenfreude. If dark energy makes up the majority of the universe, then schadenfreude takes up the majority of mass on Twitter.
Whether it is issues relating to politics, social issues, gender, sport, or pretty much anything that slightly goes against one’s beliefs, you know damn well there will be that portion of society, whether they are left, right, environmentalists, feminists, dudes, older people, dickheads or whatever else, that are all itching at the bit to drop some heavy schadenfreude on Twitter.
Take Trump for example. Now, let’s throw in Greta Thunberg. Take Trump ignoring Thunberg at some event. Now look at Greta’s face when Trump walks past.
This scenario is the perfect trigger moment for all layers of society to unleash some heavy schadenfreude, especially Trump supporters. Why? Because they don’t care if he was right, they just want him to win and when witnessing Greta’s angry-face, they would have considered this a monumental victory. And, one that needed to be celebrated as they flooded Twitter with copious amounts of schadenfreude.
Likewise, when Thunberg shrewdly replied with a tweet to the former president, the same tweet that Trump originally used against her, the Twittersphere almost collapsed in on itself with the schadenfreude generated from the left.
Sport is another dimension in which schadenfreude loves to run amuck. For the majority of tweets, it can be considered harmless banter at one team’s expense over another. Or when a cocky trash-talking UFC fighter gets knocked out, the schadenfreude that comes with it can be quite humorous. But there is also a dark-side to schadenfreude on Twitter. One that brings out the cowards and the racists.
In the recent Euros football competition, three English players – Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka – were subjected to racists tweets after they missed penalties in the final. Even when Simone Biles pulled out of the gymnastics individual all-round competition at the Olympics to concentrate on her mental health, there was that stratum of society that took to Twitter to mock her decision, even though many of those probably didn’t know who she was or any of her accomplishments.
Then there is the COVID vaccination commentary and, in a time, when ideally, we should come together, this debate pushes many apart. In fact, it can send many into a state of paranoia. With every stat, there is a counter stat. One politician will tell you this, another will preach the exact opposite. And, whilst the schadenfreude is far less discreet in this debate, it is still present. Its presence hides within tweeted statistics that either are played up or played down according to the opinions of the agenda-setters.
But schadenfreude will never end. People like to revel in the misfortunes of others. For every attempt at some type of successful endeavour, there is always a crew that are waiting for its failure, thus schadenfreude will appear. For every attempt at progression, whether socially, or whatever else, there will always be the traditionalists that counter it and vice-versa. That is the way it is, and everyone that enters the Twittersphere understands now that Twitter is just schadenfreude on steroids.
