Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Truth Is Dead
Other Titles: Series/Book Title: Los Desastres de la Guerra, 79
Series/Book Title: The Disasters of War
(18th-19th century)

"Social Media ultimately seems simply nihilistic, an homage to PostTruth meaninglessness and little else, even though it attracts engagement."

Perhaps the single most compelling reason to avoid engaging in social media lies in the lies it spreads. Its engagement model does not distinguish between good and evil, truths and lies. Whatever attracts attention, encourages engagement, and engagement embodies the whole purpose of its existence. Lies reliably rile potential audience, thereby encouraging engagement. Repeated ad infinitum, a PostTruth context emerges, inverting historical measures of goodness. Where truth was once widely believed to be superior to fiction, the once sharp distinction eroded into what became, in practice, a superior fiction, trumping truth for many intents and purposes. If value directly correlates to hits, and hits relate most to lies, then goodness follows this trajectory, too. Truth holds little currency in any PostTruth society.

We each saw this coming. We watched as trash subsumed the classics. We might have even giggled at this abject absurdity, while firmly believing, albeit falsely, that we somehow stood above this fray. The day would come when we realized that we’d let something important slip away in favor of transitory entertainment, or even less, a few diverting moments dedicated to distraction. We were no less susceptible than those whose fates we believed inevitable. We felt smarter, which turned out to be the residue of repeated exposure to the PostTruth context, where nothing ultimately matters. That we believed ourselves uniquely invulnerable couldn’t have mattered even if we had been invulnerable. If we were in this experiment together, we couldn’t really afford to write off anyone in the coalition. Everyone else was always also a member.

The rot might have started within. We can plead that we didn’t notice until it broke through the skin, and by then, our condition might have already been terminal. By then, Truth had already developed a sullied reputation. Those who worked the edges seemed to enjoy more benefits than those who shied away from fully deploying decoys. What harm could a few embellishments inflict if they positively affected our engagement numbers? If we stick with sarcasm, it won’t be like anybody really believed anything we posted. Right? An ounce of snark can improve a puddling’s mouth feel. A pinch of bad taste can enhance the flavor of good taste, can’t it, improving it? Once the ethics erode, the morals follow. Once the morals crumble, there is no longer any limit to how low one can go.

Our incumbent touted himself as the first PostTruth president. He might yet prove to be the last. He’s no longer accountable for dispensing even the spare odd ounce of truth. Even his social media app’s a lie: TruthSocial. He lives life as if he’s embedded in that social media. He values outrageous above all else. He possesses no edges. His policies have been uniformly disastrous, though a few die-hard followers seem encouraged by his disturbing antics. He remains a child, emotionally about eight years old, intelligently, a little younger. He long ago lost addressability to anything even vaguely resembling truthiness. It seems unworthy of consideration to him. He favors the outrageous, the flaming, the ultimately damning. He’s a dedicated self-saboteur, which seems the likely fate of anyone weaned on social media.

I still believe myself capable of wrestling with this demon and somehow dominating, though both data and experience suggest that I’m only getting more skilled at lying to myself. That’s the direction one heads when entering into a PostTruth context like social media. Ultimately, one can hardly help but start lying to themself. Otherwise, the whole house of cards would immediately crumble. Not that it ultimately won’t. A PostTruth world dedicates itself to oblivion, even if that oblivion attracts a lot of reassuring attention. The truth must matter, or else nothing does. Social Media ultimately seems simply nihilistic, an homage to PostTruth meaninglessness and little else, even though it attracts engagement.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz