Social Bubbles and Social Circles

This is an article about how different demographics of people, with different political beliefs and class backgrounds, exist in completely different social bubbles, often not overlapping at all.

It’s a really common theme in the comments on articles about politics and social justice, that echo chambers are a myth. People claim that they have diverse social circles, that they have friends and family members with different political beliefs, that they “don’t live in a bubble". What they don’t seem to get is that social circles aren’t bubbles, but bubbles do contain social circles. It’s not just that we all live in bubbles, but that the bubbles themselves are made of smaller social circles. Even if you personally have some friends with different political opinions, that doesn’t mean that those social circles are in contact with each other, or that you yourself have much contact with people from a completely different bubble.

Let’s take for example, the topic of where you shop. It’s a seemingly innocent topic, since almost everyone needs to shop for food, clothing, and so on.

Where you shop

While two people may pass each other in the street, nod, smile and think nothing more of each other, surprisingly, one or both of them may continue on, get home and then immediately and feverishly open up their smart phone or computer, and consume the latest outrage-generating content, hating and despising "the other side", a member of which they passed on the street with no animosity whatsoever, just a few minutes earlier.

Some people shop at Whole Foods, and believe that it’s the best thing since sliced bread. They don’t shop anywhere else, if they can help it. Some of those people who go to Whole Foods regularly, also shop at local farmer’s produce markets. Some other people at those markets live in a commune where they make their own clothes and bake their own bread.

As you can see, there are quite a few different circles here, all slightly overlapping the next. What makes it a bubble is that none of them would be caught dead shopping at a dollar store, or Walmart, or browsing the aisles of a hunting store. And similarly, many patrons of a hunting club would not be found at a gluten free cafe, for their life.

Perhaps one of our two hypothetical people passing in the street was on their way home from Whole Foods. Perhaps the other was on the way to the hunting store to pick up some supplies. Because this brief and meaningless passing is all of the contact that they have with each other, the bubble is enforced. It’s easier to demonize "the other side" when you accidentally have hardly anything to do with them. When you see them in the street, you assume they’re just like you. And, for most aspects of your life, they are in fact just like you. They eat, they sleep, they talk to their family, they have hopes and dreams, and fears.

A bubble is a group of people who all have something in common, who all trust each other, and who all talk only with each other. It’s not just that they all have the same views. It’s that they have a group of people who they know, trust, and interact with, who all have similar patterns.

Internet micro-bubbles

Now, with the internet, we can burrow down deep into an even more niche, even smaller and less connected social circle. We can order either a californian vegan kale green face mask, or an edc box subscription box and either way, feel that we are completely a welcomed normal member of the in-group, accepted and unsurprising, without even passing the other person on the sidewalk. That brief encounter is a real possibility, a hope for connecting with another human being, and looking them in the eye, and it’s a rapidly vanishing chance.

This social trend of becoming more and more distant from the social circles of the other bubbles is unlikely to weaken, it’s very likely that it will become stronger and stronger. Historically, when one group of people living close to another group start to have differences, they separate, put up walls, fight a little or a lot over whose territory is whose, but ultimately in the long run, they pick one side and tend to stay with it, living in relative peace, surrounded by people like them, who think like them, and mostly agree on things. However with this social trend emerging now, it seems that the circles have shrunk right down to individual people, sprinkled like salt and pepper within the same street, within the same house, but all around the world.

The silver lining is that all of the circles are composed of humans. Humans with hopes, fears, family, friends, relationships, health, jobs, homes, hobbies, pets, and other human needs and desires.

And if we can manage to relate to each other as humans, and see past the differences, we can come together and work together, and create a future where we all have access to the things that we need to survive and thrive.