This is a meme that I found on Google which I find extremely destructive. This is a meme that puts people of the LGBTQ community into a category of good or bad with specific criteria. Not only is this meme just straight-up homophobic, but it also suggests that people should be anything other than the true selves that bring them the most joy, which is just wrong. I have several family members and friends that are LGBTQ, and it hurts to see things like this knowing that they could affect the people that I love poorly. Unfortunately, a meme like this is very likely to go viral because of its polarizing nature. The comments would be filled with lengthy back and forth banter, gaining numbers and ultimately getting shown to exponentially more people, unlike a meme that is more neutral, or positive.

This is the alternative version of the meme I created with the goal of reducing the harms of the one prior. It sort of flips the criticism back onto the person criticizing, and aims to take a deeper look into why people care so much more about other people than themselves. Sadly, I know that this meme does not have the same viral quality. It may have some, due to the fact that it is still not neutral and goes against homophobia, however, I do not see it triggering the same level of deep averse emotion. The issue of why this doesn’t have the same viral quality stems from both poor algorithms, and general human nature. Regarding the human nature aspect, we remember and act on things that cause strong feelings, the more polarizing, the more interaction with a post. This aspect of human nature is what feeds the algorithm. It assumes that if something has high engagement, more people will want to see it, which leads to the mass spread of hate and misinformation. When it comes to a happy, funny video of cats playing, humans will watch it, enjoy it, but then continue on their scrolling without the interaction aspect because it is not necessary. I think it comes down to the fact that happy positive content is not as memorable or compelling as negative content so even if social media becomes more saturated with positivity and truth, people will always pay more attention to the controversy. Algorithms can be tweaked but the psychology of emotion is much harder to reconfigure and I struggle to see how we can shift the way that social media is used.