The fine line

Sarah Taryam, Arts Editor

I am sure many of us can hold up our hands and admit to following someone online who we secretly don’t like. If it’s not a secret, then you are a troll but that’s another subject. This week we are taking a look at why we ‘hate-follow’ online.

There are many people who do not like the Kardashians, I will happily admit to being one of them. But I also admit to following them just to see what disastrous thing they’ll do next or how low they will go on their cringey show to fake scenes and pull up ratings. Apparently, there’s not much they won’t do, and I can’t seem to turn away.

This ‘hate-following’ thing does not only apply to celebrities. Well, in my case it does as I simply refuse to follow someone I do not like, and I am sure there are many like me. But you often hear comments from people about how so and so had a fabulous holiday or how Mr. and Mrs. Jones got a new car. I think it is human nature, and of course social media has made it all that much easier to gloat and be envied.

A study conducted in 2008 by a professor of human behaviour confirmed that the same nervous circuits in the brain are activated when we hate something and activated when we love something. Of course, being stuck at home during the pandemic has exasperated all of these feelings and given us plenty of time to scroll endlessly, but it basically comes down to there being a fine line between love and hate.