social media schadenfreude: noun, the act of deriving pleasure from the social media-broadcasted failings of others.
At this point, Facebook solely serves a healthy dose of FOMO in our lives and reminds us of acquaintances’ birthdays. “But, Annie,” you protest, “I use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends and innocently document major events in my young life.” Bullshit. Bull. Shit. No you don’t. You use Facebook to make it look like you have tons of friends and all your tons of friends have tons of fun. This is the source of all that Facebook FOMO. However, there are select individuals on your newsfeed whose disastrous life choices, broadcasted over the Internet, give you hope. These are the people who take too many mirror-selfies or post dramatic song lyrics without context as their statuses; they’re on the wrong side of a comment battle about an Onion article (they’re positive that our nation is suffering from a plague of hornets and it’s all Obama’s fault).
The joy you derive from judging these unfortunate Facebook displays is what I call social media schadenfreude. It denotes the idea that you could be doing worse–while you may be unpopular and starved for sexual attention, you are let to lose your dignity by posting a link to an Upworthy video about social justice hamsters or to any Fox News article. You may only have 17 Twitter followers (and three of them are robots), but at least you didn’t tweet passive-aggressively about your roommate’s girlfriend (see: subtweet).
This isn’t just about the perverse joy you take from others’ pain–it’s also about a sense of kinship from one follower to another. It’s the ability to read that subtweet and silently acknowledge your own feelings about your roommate’s girlfriend while feeling personal pride at not having publicly aired said feelings. It is a method of inwardly expressing sympathy for your acquaintances’ struggles while simultaneously boosting your own ego. Every time you check your friends’ Snapstories and think “holy mother of Tina Fey that is an embarrassing Snapchat,” you are recognizing your own potential for unfunny Snaps. (In case you were wondering how to prevent your own Snapchat calamity, here’s a brief guide: attractive Snapchat ≠ good Snapchat; good Snapchat = funny Snapchat; funny Snapchat = hideous Snapchat. Therefore, good Snapchat = hideous Snapchat. That’s some high-level math right there.)
What it comes down to is that social media schadenfreude grants you that last measure of social superiority. Your rapidly disintegrating life sure looks great compared to your middle school friend’s oddly filtered Instagram picture of a reckless driving ticket, though it doesn’t do a lot to help your perception of the human race.
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