In Ancient Greek mythology, Echo was a mountain nymph who angered Hera, the wife of Zeus. As punishment, Hera cast a spell on Echo in which the only way she could speak, the only thing she could say, was to repeat back words spoken to her by someone else. Of course, her name is the source of the word echo.
Echo’s punishment is a metaphor for an unsettling condition of contemporary society. With the advent of the Internet and its social media manifestations such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Tiktok, we are inundated with all sorts of clever things: videos, photos of cats that look like Hitler, political cartoons, and so on. Many of us succumb to the human urge to share, to pass on those photos, videos, and rants to our family and friends. In a way we are like Echo, repeating what we have heard or seen as a way to entertain or impress those on our email list.
Although that sharing might seem to be a noble idea, it suffers from the Law of Unintended Consequences. Texts and emails from friends and acquaintances sharing those things have become a pestilence as they echo and reverberate across the internet and end up in our inboxes. We have become a version of Echo ourselves. Rather than share our own words and ideas, we repeat the creations of others. While that is not necessarily wrong, those things together become a distraction from important aspects of our life.
I don’t care about youtube songs or how-to videos. I don’t care about what a former movie star looks like today. I don’t care to see some idiot survive driving off a bridge. Instead of echoing internet memes, tell me what you think; show me your creations; share with me the content of your character.
Brilliant!!
That is so true. So often we simply reflect what we see or hear online. This becomes especially problematic when it is done in resentment and the writer is anonymous. Then simple reflection can become hurtful.
Anonymity is a problem on internet forums. It is easy to be mean or hateful hiding behind a pseudonym. In the late 80s I became a member of the WELL, the first on-line community. Each member’s real name was visible to all, and the motto for anyone posting something was “You own your own words.”