[jochung]

A+ on critiquing social media, but I have bad news for you: provincialism is a normal facet of culture because humans are shallow.

The internet of old was also preselected, towards the people most likely to have early access. It did not transcend borders, it was a new country. That country has vanished, and we should mourn it, and figure out how to bring it back. But that doesn't change the fact that real life is highly compartmentalized, and people want and need it to be in order to function. As real life bled into the virtual, this was inevitable.

One of the most instructional things is to move to a completely different place and culture. People's experience of the last couple years will be entirely different, because everything that's been reported has been implicitly filtered by the question of "how does this affect our tribe/region/nation". Famous personalities won't be known, landmark events will be vague footnotes, and instead there's a whole parallel universe of facts and people. Everything you thought you knew is wrong.

The internet is a poor fit for humanity. Good luck in getting away from that fact without feeling alienated from everyone around you. They don't like Cassandras and they don't like reality.