Oversimplifying Politics

Thanks to social media, political information has become significantly easier to access. Governments, political parties, newspapers, and more have all joined the popular online craze, providing media coverage of policies, elections, and scandals. With political discourse so widespread, lots of information has become simplified for easier and quicker access. However, with published news subject to the publisher, one must wonder what information is being missed out or altogether biased. If news can be condensed to fit into a 280-letter tweet, does this not lead to the greater understanding of politics being diluted?

With information at our fingertips, making world news increasingly accessible to scrutinise from the comfort of your own home, everyone can feel like a politician now – but should they?

The ability to argue from faceless accounts can be excellent, but sometimes only enforces the narratives of those who are unwilling to even consider another’s viewpoint. A lot of this condensed information is altered, compressed for easy access at the cost of important context. Choosing the parts that suit does sound like a positive, but at the cost of a controlled narrative. You wouldn’t miss the middle of a book, then afterwards attempt to dominate discourse over its themes. Politics can be complicated, so it’s great to have a base understanding, but so much is being taken out. In 2022, people celebrated the price of petrol going down, but many appeared quick to forget that, on average, it’s still 40p dearer than a mere two years ago. Are people reading enough into the news, or are we interpretating losses as minor victories, just taking what we can during cost-ofliving difficulties? Now that we understand the simplified version, why not simplify more? If the trend of skimming already compacted information continues, we risk many important messages being lost.

As highly condensed information is subject to the author’s desire, the reliability and trust of social media news is harder to decipher; different media sites can have different agendas, with strong, diverse opinions from left- and right-wing sites contributing to the divide of the general public. In 2021, 69% of the British public thought the ‘media is not doing well at being objective and nonpartisan’. If large portions of social media are biased, what can we trust? The idea that social media news aims to assist in educating us, slowly diminishes when one sees that social media profits from keeping us engaged with our own opinion– algorithms are designed to show us recommended entertainment, to keep us scrolling with media we like and agree with. By doing so, we are only entertaining ourselves with information that prevents us from seeing other opinions, making us unable to leave our own echo chambers. Sure, we may not agree with each other’s opinions (for instance, differing cultural beliefs or personal values), but just understanding another’s viewpoint gives you greater world awareness and assists in developing your own arguments and rebuttals to those of others. There are, of course, many accounts pushing for positive, progressive change through social movements – but we must ask ourselves how many people are out there attempting positive change, and how many just want to troll.

Another problem that arises from oversimplifying politics is that everyone thinks they understand it: that a strong headline is enough to walk away with full comprehension, or that a Reddit meme is a strong primary source. Perhaps the greatest example of this oversimplification is through memes, and how they can be used to interpret events. That being said, many memes can be great methods of raising awareness on important issues, such as doge Ukraine memes, which have both attacked the Russian government while simultaneously raising money for Ukraine. In some ways, the ability to argue from faceless accounts can be excellent, but sometimes it only enforces the narratives of those who are unwilling to even consider another’s viewpoint. Will people ever accept they can be wrong, or do anonymous accounts only help to comfort people in their own bubble?

With the ability to show us the world, various media might use this as an opportunity to exploit our thoughts. Although media can be excellent in creating short articles raising awareness or pushing for change, much of this can get lost in an expanding online labyrinth of mockery, fake news, and trolling. Yes, short media can be effective if one is wishing to understand the foundations of their surroundings. Still, to get a true grasp and engage in noteworthy discourse, one must go further than their newsfeed.

The day we broke up, I booked a flight back to my grandmother’s country. I begged my father to let me leave, mumbling through a torrent of tears that I could not stay in this city for a single moment more. Because everything about this place was you.

We had walked these streets, kissed on these corners, laughed in these bars. It was all so intertwined. I could not find where you ended, and the city began. Every building, every tree, every hardened piece of gum on the road was a painful reminder that you were still here, in this place we once called home, but we didn’t exist here together anymore. I knew from that day that I had to leave.

My grandmother, as always, welcomed me with open arms. She, a woman who had lost her husband and her son within one year, held me to her chest as I sobbed like a child over a man who was very much alive and breathing. I thought of the irony as I wept into her lilac blouse – how could she be so strong and I so weak? I felt like a lesser being, ripped of my composure and sanity by a mere adolescent breakup.

But, I suppose, grief is a horrifying, beautiful, twisted thing that takes many forms. I learned over the months that followed that it is indeed possible to grieve someone who is still alive.

Breakups are the most fucked up, yet uniquely human experience. They are the act of mourning of one who is still here. One minute, I knew all the intimate details of your life: I met with your parents for drinks on a Saturday night, I was invested in your niche workplace politics, I cared for your hopes and dreams as if they were my own. And then it all disappeared, but these things continue to remain. The drama in your office remains unresolved, your mother continues to drink her vodka Cokes, your ambitions are still intact. Or, at least, I assume they are. Because I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know how your day is going. I don’t know if your father is well. You exist in this world without me. We are perfect strangers who were once in love.

In my grandmother’s empty house, I lay thinking about the tiny things I had loved about you. The way that you sang in the car, belting at traffic lights, imitating Pavarotti. The way that the tip of your nose pressed upwards, like Cindy Lou, when you fell asleep with your face against mine. The way that you were most charismatic person I had ever met, and yet you still worried about how you were perceived. Would anyone else come to know these things about you? Or were these intimate details that I would take to my grave?

And what about me? I told you things I had never told anyone before. I confided things to you that I could barely admit to myself. Would you simply forget them? Or would they live deep in your mind for the rest of your life? Surely it is impossible to completely erase someone you once loved irrevocably. Even if they are gone from your life, I’d like to believe that these people change the nature of our being. I am not the same person I was before we met, and that will live on beyond us.

Months later I am standing in line for a concert we had both intended to go to. I look up and catch the eye of a man who is staring straight at me. In the same moment, we both hurriedly look at the ground, pretending we didn’t see one another. We do not want to speak together. And yet we are not strangers. Strangers do not look away with that frantic urgency. Strangers do not act in that way.

Perhaps onlookers saw our harried glances and wondered to themselves if there was something between us, or if there had once been before. It is confirmation that we are no longer in each other’s lives. But it is also confirmation that we once were.

text and art by [Ailbhe nì Mhurhcu, she/her, @ailvhe]