Илья Марголин – The First Quarter Of My Century (страница 3)

I conducted a small experiment that revealed a simple truth: we do not so much read messages as we adjust ourselves to the reactions of others. In this everyday digital procedure, one can discern that very absurd society I might have described in another era. Only now the absurdity has been stripped of romance, and the crowd has anonymously clicked «like.»

I selected thirty participants, aged between eighteen and thirty-five. Exactly half were men and half women. They appeared to be ordinary Telegram users. Yet this heterogeneity proved essential.

Ages 18—25 represented a generation of instant emotion – those who live in the mode of «now.» Their reactions form within the first seconds, and their consciousness quickly aligns itself with the mood of the majority.

Ages 26—35 were individuals who present themselves as knowing the price of emotions. Yet it was precisely they who most often experienced inner irritation when the crowd disagreed with their position.

I presented both groups with a series of posts – some neutral, others provocative. In each case, I preassigned emotional reactions: in one version positive, in another negative.

My assumption was that positive reactions could soften even a critically inclined reader, while negative ones would provoke in dissenters a level of aggression extending beyond the digital space. This is how the simplest and most imperceptible form of consciousness management begins.

The topics of the posts were straightforward: the morality of contemporary trends, the right to solitude, the value of power and success. The same ideas were accompanied either by a surge of positive reactions or by a wave of negative ones.

After publication, the focus group was asked to provide feedback. I recorded not only the content of their responses, but also their emotional intensity.

Positive reactions:

78% of participants softened their initially negative attitude toward the idea. Even those who disagreed found «reasonable elements» in it.

Younger participants were more willing to change their opinions, especially those who had not initially engaged in deep reflection.

Negative reactions:

65% of opponents experienced strong irritation – not because of the idea itself, but because of the sensation of «the crowd against me.»

20% withdrew from the discussion entirely.

15% initiated aggressive disputes – not with the author of the idea, but with those who supported it.

Women more often chose silence and withdrawal. Men more often entered open confrontation. The absurdity lay in the fact that the content of the post no longer mattered to anyone. All discussion revolved around the reactions.

This experiment confirmed what is rarely acknowledged in the era of digital romanticism: the human being remains a herd creature. Only now herd behavior is expressed not through a unified shout, but through a unified click. And it is precisely here that a new form of power emerges. It requires neither cruelty nor threats. It is enough to place the right emojis to alter the perception of an idea.

Telegram reactions constitute a simplified model of collective consciousness. It does not demand thought from the individual. It demands agreement.

Can one live in a society where opinion depends on how many likes appear in the first minute after publication? Of course one can – because we already do. And in this new digital reality, freedom is reduced to a choice between a heart and an angry emoji, while truth has ceased to be what is, becoming instead what is supported by the majority.

The Society of Public Selves

The world is no longer tolerant of the silent. It was once possible to remain quiet about oneself, to live without a digital trace. Today, the absence of public presence is almost a cause for suspicion. I have noticed that even in professional, business, or friendly interactions, a person with their own Telegram channel or a visible social media presence immediately inspires greater trust – not because they are more competent or more virtuous, but because they are legible. Their thoughts become a storefront; their posts, a new form of résumé.

We live in an era in which silence is no longer neutral. Silence provokes suspicion. Anonymity is treated as a sign of social deficiency. The absence of a digital footprint borders on a minor crime. And the further this process advances, the more convinced I become: the future belongs to those who speak – or at least to those who create the appearance of speaking. In the twentieth century, a person could conceal their thoughts. One could be a postman, a carpenter, or a minister without anyone having the right to know what was going on in one’s head. Existence did not need to be proven through words. It was enough to work, eat, raise children, and die.

Today, everything is different.

A person’s value is now measured by their public thought. You may be unemployed, nobody, absolutely nobody – but if you have a Telegram channel where you broadcast your doubts, hopes, memes, and literary references to the world every day, people will begin to listen to you. To respect you. Perhaps even to fear you. Because in a society where thought is on display, the one who remains silent appears as a potential threat.

I increasingly notice a strange shift: when meeting someone new, people no longer look first for a job title, but for a channel. For a public biography. A world in which a handshake once sufficed now demands a ritual of digital verification. The act of publication has become proof of existence. You exist because you have subscribers. You are trustworthy because your thoughts can be reviewed. You are alive because someone reacts to your words.

Public visibility has become the primary currency. Without it, you are anonymous. And therefore suspicious.

Telegram has ceased to be merely a messenger. It has turned into a private state of meanings. Here, a person rewrites themselves. They say not what they are required to say, but what they wish to leave behind. You may be a modest accountant, yet run a channel analyzing the war in Sudan. You may work in a warehouse, yet publish philosophical essays on the meaning of life. And in this strange new world, real life recedes into the background.

You are your channel.

I know people whom no one has ever seen in person, yet whose thoughts are quoted everywhere. I have seen anonymous channels turn nobodies into voices of the streets. I have seen the deletion of a channel strip a person of their social identity.

Digital thought has become capital. It is exchanged for attention, trust, and status. We live in an economy where a person’s value is determined by the number of reactions. In an era in which a thought that gathers no likes is considered dead.

You can no longer simply think. You must package your thought so that it fits the format of a post. Of a short video. Of a tweet understandable to the majority.

And if you cannot – then you do not exist.

The most alarming part is that this has ceased to be a right and has become an obligation. If you remain silent, you are uninteresting. If you do not share, you are socially dead. If you do not maintain your own channel, then you have nothing to say – and therefore no reason for others to be near you.

People begin to fear their own invisibility. You cease to be noticed if you are not broadcasting. You are forgotten if your thoughts are not fixed by reactions. A world in which everyone must daily reaffirm their right to exist with a post.

Even death is no longer a reason for silence. I know dozens of channels whose authors have long since died, yet whose thoughts continue to be published.

The future has already begun. A world in which you are obliged to speak. To speak is no longer merely to communicate. It is to prove that you belong. That you are not a threat. That your thoughts align with the moral code of the current hour. And those who remain silent are outsiders.

Soon, any employer, any date, any politician, any neighbor in your apartment building will ask first: where is your channel? Where are your thoughts? How do you live?

And you will not be able to avoid the answer.

We have created a culture in which thought has ceased to be private. It has become a commodity. You sell your thinking in the same way you once sold your labor time.

And the most dangerous part is that we wanted this ourselves. We learned to love being visible. We enjoy checking the number of reactions, forwards, comments. We like knowing that someone agrees, someone argues, someone envies. Because that is how we feel real.

There is something absurd in this. And frightening.

We have all turned into small dictators, demanding that others constantly think aloud. In this new world, one cannot remain silent. And one cannot avoid displaying how one lives. Because if you are silent, you are out of the game.

You are nobody.

And therefore, you are dangerous.

Between Universes and Effort

This essay is an attempt to explain, for myself, the connection between action and result through the idea of parallel universes. I reflect on the notion that any effort made here and now initiates a wave of alternative scenarios, in which different outcomes are possible, yet all of them represent a continuation of a single choice: to begin. If one lies still and does nothing, then in other versions of oneself the maximum change is merely turning over to the other side. But if, in this reality, one moves, acts, tries – then somewhere else one is already obtaining a first result. And perhaps it is precisely that result which, at some point, influences the primary trajectory as well. This is not science in the strict sense, but neither is it fantasy. Rather, it is my attempt to logically substantiate a belief that movement always works.