Pseudo-Profound Bullshit on Social Media

Hate me if you want. But I don’t care. Because, if you hate me after reading this, it’s probably I struck some nerve in you! 😀

Let’s break it down slowly.

Profound

When you Google this word, you get these meanings.

• Very great or intense
• Having or showing great knowledge or insight.

Next…

Pseudo

This means, as we all may know, “not genuine; sham”

Then you know what Pseudo-Profound means by now. If you still don’t get it for some reason,it mean showing a fake insight or philosophical meaning. So, Bullshit is an additional name we can give to those things.

Shall we see some examples?

You see? Some of them are too common facts. Like “duh, we already know that”. And some of them don’t make any sense no matter how hard you try to understand them. And it even works when you jumble the words.

Now you should really know what Pseudo-Profound Bullshit really is. If you still believe these are Inspirational Quotes or some kind of Motivational Quotes, I have a bad news for you. To know it, read till the end.

This goes same for the quotes you post with your photos/selfies. (I will write another article related to Selfies, stay tuned.)

Need an example ? (Sorry, even though there are lots of real life examples on my FB News Feed, I won’t post them here.)

Seriously? Be Yourself? Whom are you kidding?

If you’re actually being yourself,

• You should not be a drama king/queen.
• You should speak your mind, and will not get mad when other people do.
• You should be proud of yourself, of what you achieved. But when other people know who you really are, they just laugh their ass off.
• You would act upon your will and gut feeling.
• You will not do things you don’t want to do, just to impress others or to get attention.

Do you even realize what caused you to post those “Inspirational Quotes” along with your photos?

That is because,

• You’re deceiving yourself, not others. (watch this)
• You want to show the world something you’re not.
• You think sharing such bullshit shows yourself off, because you think that you’re a reflection of what you share.
• You want the people to think that you’re inspired, motivated and so on. You know, people don’t shout when they really are.
• You want likes to your post, and that’s gives you some kind of a satisfaction. You just want attention of people or someone.

Do you want proof?
A research conducted by University of Waterloo states that:

“People who post inspirational quotes on Facebook and Twitter have lower levels of intelligence“.

(see : http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf )

They have taken a large group of people asked them to rate the profoundness of some of these statements, followed by a series of relevant cognitive and demographic questions. That’s how they proved their point.

Did you even know there are bot programs which can nicely generate these type of Profound Quotes ???

Check out http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ and this is what the above researchers have used to generate those pro-found quotes.

Ehem ehem. Is it a bad news for you?

There is no clear margin to define whether a quote is profound or pseudo-profound. You just feel it.

• Some people do actually get inspired by these quotes, even though I have no clue how they get motivated by a quote said by someone else.
  • Quoted doesn’t motivate you. Your internal thinking process does.
  • Quotes just give the adrenaline rush you need to kick start.
  • If you really don’t have it on your blood, stop deceiving yourself.
  • And I seriously don’t know whether these famous people actually said those things.
• When you post a photo of you, along with a nice quote, I would double check if that actually is related to the photo.
  • This is just my opinion, so I wouldn’t bother what you think.
  • If you have done something different such as a hike, bungee jump, trip (may be not a picnic) etc. there can be some quotes you can relate with the photos.
  • i.e.
    • “The best way to overcome your fears is to face them”, posted with a photo of bungee jumping, by a person who is afraid of heights.
    • “No matter what people say, never give up”, said by a person who won a championship, may be after losing it many times.
  • Just imagine these quotes are posted with a selfie while you’re at office or an event.
  • Some people argue, that these quotes relate to what happened to them in their lives. Yeah, may be. But does that make any relationship with the quote and the photo.
    • If you think it does, I have a bad news for you.

However, people are different and their thinking patterns are different. There are ways people use to condole themselves. But it’s up to that person to realize that there is something wrong.

References

1. “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit” – Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6. (http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf)
2. “Not so profound now! People who post inspirational quotes on Facebook and Twitter have lower levels of intelligence” – Richard Gray for MailOnline
3. “Your Facebook Friends Who Post BS Inspirational Quotes Really Are Dumb, Says Study” – Allison Tierney
4. “Inspirational Quotes and Intelligence Study” – Kim LaCapria

Either all these are false, or you really are stupid.