Logbook 1. | Notes on empathy and social media

^06.11.2023

Empathy is a phenomenon in our everyday lives that we as subjects experience while being social livings.

There are two schools of empathy which 1) is positive empathy that states, that empathy is important for the lives and spaces we live in and share with others. On the other hand, there is the trajectory of negative empathy that states critically, that the fact of mirroring other people in order to be seen heard an felt is not unbiased since people tend to be more empathetic with people that look alike, are close to them or with whom their share a lot of commonalities.

Looking on that racism, misogyny and other discriminatory factors can also be in included as outcomes in which empathy is not a neurological Selbstläufer that helps to live in peace with each other.

The host Ellie Anderson from the podcast „overthink“ is a philosophy professor focusing on phenomenology who thus discusses not only the scientific neurological process of empathy but looks deeper on how we as subjects perceive empathy and are empathetic ourselves.

She points out that etymologically the word empathy sounds like it has a greek origin, like the word sympathy, which in fact does, but the word entered the English language only in 1909 and goes back to a German philosopher (Lutz) who used the word „Einfühlung“ as a description of perceiving and feeling into art. Interestingly the English word „empathy“ suposses that we feel not into art but into other people’s mind, sold feelings, struggles etc.

For me, the German notion and focus on art is a clue with which we can look at the perception of social media and its phenomenology within a sociological frame.

As stated above, some scientists point out that we tend to feel more empathy with people that look like us, remember ourselves of us and so on.

When we take a closer look at Instagram and on influencers (pls. Also read for this the book of Wolfgang Schmitt and Ole Nymon) we see a lot of influencer sharing their vermeintlich real inner feelings with their followers on „problems“ and everyday „struggles“ that only a few of people in society can relate to.

There is for example the influencer Diana zu Löwin that shows how she feels about moving to a dream flat with her new boyfriend and not sure on deciding if they should take the flat and be a bit far away from their fav. Yoga classes and friends or if they should keep looking. Having in mind that she bought a flat in Berlin 2 years ago and put a lot of money into a renovation, wanting to move out because it is „Too small“ for 2 people.

In the comment section you can see a split group, one that critiques her for asking the community on their opinion about a problem that is not easy to understand when being aware that at the same time Berlins housing market tripled in costs after Covid. The other group showing Diana much empathy in commenting that the „decision is hard and that she should follow her heart“, or that „the haters only are greedy and thank you so much for letting us be part of your inner world“.

While the statistics should show us, that the followers of Diana cannot all be as rich as she, the empathy she gets from people who will never earn enough to buy two 120 sqm flats in Berlin is huge.

So when we know how empathy works, how is this phenomenon possible? I suggest that using the etymological path of the word empathy can help understand, that the followers are not empathetic with Diana as a person, but with the image and the visual signal that these reels and post deliver to the audience. 

It is thus not about the absurdity of the rich peoples problems per se, but about the esthatic in which the hegemonial idea of beauty is portrait. The viewers understand the signaling and codes of the aesthetic logic on instagram that is nowadays also not 1 type of aesthetic but a few top 3 to 5 ones that showcase a specific lifestyle that goes along with this image.

So by being empathic with this post, it it not presumingly empathy with Diana as a person, but with this specific type of art that wants to be consumed on this specific platform alas Instagram.

The followers are able to „sich einfühlen“ in this type of imagery that they see non stop on their algorithmically perfect Instagram feed because it is neither a disruption nor is it subversively  a change in meaning. 

copyright Serap Yilmaz-Dreger