When people get triggered online and how to respond to yours
When people get triggered online and how to respond to yours
Understanding triggers in parasocial interactions
This is a follow up piece on how to tell if triggers are keeping you stuck in drama and how to critically analyse your reaction and modify your response.
Social networking using social media platforms is a common way we connect with people today.
I’ve acquired a number of different types of connections through engaging and posting educational, insight provoking and thought stimulating content on different platforms (like this one). These connections have led to friendships, collaborations, business and professional development opportunities, various levels of acquaintanceship and transactional relationships.
Some content creators gradually become influencers who develop a large fanbase or following that can lead to a parasocial relationship; people forming intense, one-sided attachments to celebrities, influencers or public figures.
I’m going to focus on the grey area between transactional and parasocial relationships - parasocial interactions.
Social media introduces additional opportunities for parasocial relationships to intensify because it provides more opportunities for intimate, reciprocal, and frequent interactions between the user and persona. These virtual interactions may involve commenting, following, liking, or direct messaging. The consistency in which the persona appears could also lead to a more intimate perception in the eyes of the user.
Anyone active on social media with a following is familiar with parasocial interactions and will have experienced the “lovebombing to devalued” phenomenon. I’m going to discuss what happens when a fan suddenly becomes an ex-fan of your ideas.
Here’s a typical scenario…
A person comes across a creator’s content on a social (audio) platform and feel an instant resonance with it. They feel like the creator is speaking to their experience without knowing them at all and begin following to see more of the creator’s work. They have notifications turned on and respond instantly with enthusiastic and supportive messages comments, often with 🙏 and 💯. The person sometimes shares how the post resonates with their own experiences and provides details that can cross into oversharing. They share/retweet/repost the content with their own networks and will also defend the creator’s posts against negative comments. The person appears to wholeheartedly trust the information the creator shares and is even willing to go into battle with internet strangers to protect the creator. They are loyal fans and advocates for the creator’s work.
This is what content creators want, right?
From my own experience as a content creator on various social media platforms (not referring to Substack here), trust is not mutual. I don’t need to trust my followers because the relationship is transactional, not mutual. They learn something from me they perceive as valuable and makes them want to continue seeing content I produce. When they provide feedback and I monitor my analytics, I’m learning something from the way my content is resonating or not with followers and I can make adjustments without the need to consult with them.
In parasocial interactions described above, trust is given with strings attached and the follower’s expectations become apparent when there’s a sudden change in engagement. These strings are part of a social contract that implies greater accountability that the creator hasn’t agreed to explicitly with that individual.
Occasionally, the creator posts something provocative (see examples below) that hits a nerve and the loyal fan switches from lovebombing to devaluing the creator and the content of the post. It’s as if the all the content they resonated with and responded to enthusiastically was erased from their memory in one fell swoop.
Their disapproval is accompanied by criticism, personal attacks and accusations, passive-aggression, or exaggerated interpretations of the content. Some followers might even suggest edits or removal of the post to align better with their interpretation, implying that acquiescing to their expectations will restore the creator’s good name and appease their discomfort.
This happens to everyone with small to massive followings when content is posted, the implicit social contract is breached, trust is broken and is experienced as a betrayal.
What’s happening that makes a content creator go from favoured to devalued, from hero to perpetrator of injustice?
There are two narratives that can hit a nerve (or get support).
The follower identifies with the subject described in the post who is either:
the unsung hero/victim who is perceived as the perpetrator in the post or,
the victim/victim empathiser and perceives the creator as siding with the perpetrator.
Here are two fictional examples of each narrative:
I post about a people pleaser who takes care of everyone so that everyone likes them but when accused of wrongdoing, they show no accountability because their niceness is self-serving and is a protective shield against their character failings. Their generosity serves to attract loyalty and protect themselves from accountability of wrongdoing. I’m accused of being cynical and encouraging people to be unkind to avoid being seen as self-serving.
A famous podcaster interviews a perceived untrustworthy & deceptive high ranking official who influenced a controversial global healthcare response and didn’t expose the presumed hidden sinister agenda, is accused of being too soft and siding with the real enemy.
Either interpretation is inaccurate because the information is NOT ABOUT THEM but they are reacting as if it is. In other words, they are triggered.
Those who identify with the first narrative read the content and feel like they’re being accused of being the perpetrator. The emotional mélange includes feeling:
Outrage: Their comment can be summed up as “How dare you insinuate that I’m the perpetrator! You have no right to put me down!”
Attacked: They feel like the accusation is unfair when they identify as the real victim of the scenario presented.
Exposed: The truth that is being denied always stings. People who choose to see themselves in a positive light have a hard time considering they have blind spots and are capable of behaving differently to how they ideally see themselves. Projecting the shame of feeling humiliated at their shadow being ‘seen’, while rejecting those devalued traits is the content of outrage.
For the second narrative, the responses of outrage involve accusations of the person being part of the problem alongside the perceived perpetrator.
Overall, the creator broke the social contract, the follower feels ashamed for having been duped by the creator and humiliated for publicly supporting them. They project their shame, unfollow and move on to find a new hero/mission.
If I’m triggered, what can I do instead of attacking back?
Notice your reaction and the role you identify with. Take a few breaths.
Remind yourself that the post is not about you or someone you know.
Examine your reaction and interpretation. Why do I suddenly see this creator as the villain? If I feel ashamed/outraged/attacked/exposed perhaps it’s because I’ve acted/felt this way in the past and I don’t want to acknowledge it?
If I’m uncomfortable with what I’m now seeing/learning about myself, is this a bad thing or is this helping me develop greater awareness that I can use to make some changes?
If I assume the creator is acting in good faith, how else can I interpret this post in the way they intended/aligns with their other posts that I support?
If I still feel the need to comment and provide feedback, what will I say that offers something valuable to the discussion and avoids shaming the creator?
How do I proceed with this creator? Do I still want to unfollow them or wait and see what they produce next?
What’s the accountability of the content creator to their followers?
That’s really up to the content creator.
The creator who is reflective, self-aware and actively hacks their narcissism will examine the feedback and consider if their post was congruent with their principles and intentions. Their responses to accusations will demonstrate their principles, and might include making corrections, apologies, edits or no changes.
Creators who are hindered in their ability to hack their narcissistic traits will reflect back the similar reactive tones and behaviours that they received from their critics, mirroring the rejection of unwanted traits and projection of shame.
The purpose of this piece is to help us all see our tendency to allow shame to cloud our judgement and cause us to project our shame as outrage back onto the creator. This piece is intended to help us develop better critical analysis skills about our interpretations of information and provide a guide to respond productively/beneficially.
Words can sting when there’s some truth in the message. We always have a choice to use that feeling to reflect on ourselves or deflect and remain unaware of opportunities for growth.
What do you think? Comment below!
Thank you for reading, supporting, subscribing and sharing with people who could benefit from this piece,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker
Hack narcissism and support my work
I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting and overriding our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
I’m dedicated to helping people understand all the ways narcissistic traits infiltrate and taint our interpersonal, professional, organisational and political relationships, and provide strategies for narcissism hackers to fight back and find peace.
Here’s how you can help.
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This was fantastic Nathalie, thank you. I experienced this on the creator end. When a subset of my audience discovered I was no longer on their ‘team’ when it came to the topic of Israel and Hamas, hundreds unfollowed, but first left very nasty, accusatory, ad hominem attacks and accusations.
It affected me a lot at first, because I was triggered into feeling scapegoated— something I experienced in my nuclear family and other relationships. I took it personally, just like they did.
I did not respond at first, I took a deep breath, and a break. I stopped having arguments with the commenters in my head, and accepted that they saw things differently and felt the need to project onto me publicly.
Finally, I stuck to my own principles and beliefs (after contemplating them and examining them, and why I was so triggered), and carried on creating work that was true to me.
I really appreciate the insights in this post— they are spot on. I became perpetrator in the eyes of many, and they became my ‘victims’. I had to disengage from their karpman drama triangle, and then my own— where I was victim and they, perpetrators, and just accept that people are in different places on their journey, and I don’t need to justify, argue, defend or explain myself.
It helped me to develop a thicker skin!
This was a very interesting read. I’ve never reached that level with my followers, but I have seen it happen to other creators.
Not only through the internet, but also through real life. As someone else mentioned, we can see this in book reviews.
Most creators I connect with don’t agree with me on many subjects, we have different views based on our experiences, but that’s exactly why I enjoy following them. It brings a different perspective. Even if I view them as “wrong” in my eyes, by my own experience, it doesn’t invalidate their experience or their humanity.
Something has happened with the internet, where people become disconnected from reality, and people would be much less likely to shun another person in real life.
Creators are sometimes seen as celebrities, and we forget that they are human also. I personally don’t like Taylor Swift at all, but I watched her documentary and I understand that she’s a person with a lot of pressure just like everybody else. It’s very interesting to see when people are seen as an idol, they suddenly live up to everyone expectations, or they are a huge disappointment when they make their own decisions.
There’s also this mindset of “group think”. I experienced first hand in person and it’s very confusing. You find people you connect with and relate to, and when you have the same ideas everything is comfortable, but when you express something different, a larger amount of people tell you you’re wrong, eventually, you worry about saying any opinions at all, and everyone feels the same way. It’s very restrictive, and almost cult-like, because it seems like everyone is following the perspective of one strongly opinionated “leader”. When you step back, you realize how uncomfortable the situation is, and when you talk with others who have “broken away”, you realize others felt the same way.
Thanks for this article and bringing a new perspective.