Cathy Dobbs: X marks the spot over culture wars
This week Elon Musk has said X, aka Twitter, will pay the legal bills of anyone treated unfairly by their employer for something they post on his social media platform.
However, it seems thousands of people in the UK are actually terrified of posting their views on social media, in case they lose their job. We are all aware of the concept of the ‘silent majority’ – but why does it exist? The answer, according to the UK’s leading think tank Policy Exchange, is that people are scared.
A survey, The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary Britain, fielded by YouGov last year showed that the British public leans approximately two to one against the cultural leftist position across 20 culture wars issues.
While socialists confidently speak out about their political views, what they fail to realise is that the majority of their colleagues and friends actually disagree with them – they just don’t say anything because they are worried they could lose their job or reputation.
Creating a culture of fear isn’t doing anyone any good, especially when it’s the view of the majority that isn’t being listened to.
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Actress Georgie Grier was quite rightly upset when only one person turned up to watch her play, Sunsets, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Her tearful tweet said: “There was one person in my audience today when I performed my one-woman play, ‘Sunsets’ at #edfringe. It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s fine…?”
Since then she’s had six million people view her tweet and an almost sold-out crowd for her performance the following day.
Social media gets blamed for a lot of things, but it can also be used for good – giving us humans the chance to support each other when the going gets tough.
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A social media craze has also been partly behind the success of the Barbie movie, which has surpassed the $1 billion mark. This makes it the biggest film directed by one woman – a record previously held by the director of Wonder Woman.
The success of the film could be down to the PR storm created around it, or is it because, after the pandemic, Ukraine war and cost of living crisis people just want to escape to a pink and fun place?
Just for a couple of hours, it feels good to live in a world where plastic isn’t frowned upon, where no one is glueing themselves to roads and we aren’t getting lectured to. The escapism for just those few hours is worth the price of a cinema ticket.
