www.adambcoleman.com/p/leftism-and-the-crisis-of-lonelinessAbout a year ago, I started watching @libsoftiktok videos on Twitter while on mute as I found that their body language and mannerisms would tell a deeper story than the rhetoric they were espousing and I was troubled by my revelations of these individuals.
If you're not familiar with the account Libs of TikTok, they gather clips of leftist propaganda videos made by individuals on TikTok. Some of the videos are benign, but often they are short-length diatribes about something objectively ridiculous.
Speaking Wrong At The Right Time is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Type your email...
Subscribe
Like most people, when you hear some pink-haired girl talking about how they identify as a dragon, it makes you roll your eyes, but I wanted to not focus on their words and instead look at what their body is telling me when saying something as ridiculous as that.
There was a typical pattern that I would recognize: they were often alone, they had trouble making eye contact with the camera, were under the age of 26, and would have very blank expressions on their faces, even if their words were describing their pride or happiness.
For many of these people, as much as they talk about "community", their facial expressions would often show signs of physical isolation & loneliness fatigue. Over time, you would end up seeing the same people & witnessing the progression of their physical deterioration.
Share
I've had many moments in my life of being isolated and struggling with loneliness, so maybe I sense it better than others can but I empathize with their struggle because of it.
When attempting to match their rhetoric with the body language and facial expressions, it was always a mismatch. The best way to compare it would be if you see someone who is clearly sad but when you ask them how they're doing, they say "fine" or "good": but you know it's a lie.
Your instinct as a human being knows that they're lying to you because of how they're carrying themselves and the mannerisms their body is expressing to the world around them.
I get a sense that these young people are lost and they're attempting to have ideology be their compass to finding comradery with others. The words they use are strong but their face tells me they're not confident or sure about what they're saying because it's a script.
They're not true believers, but they're truly desperate to find purpose and not be alone in this world. I've seen many ex-leftists talk about how they were in such situations and found community in online sub-cultures that were filled with social misfits.
But one of the last revelations I made while watching some of these videos was that I felt like I knew who these people were at their core because I had friends who were just like them minus the ideology. I was friends with the skater and goth kids who didn't fit in.
I understood what it was like to not fit in and be slightly misunderstood and we all took a liking to each other because we were the outcasts. All of my friends were a little different and many were dealing with troubled home lives as they were trying to navigate teenage life.
One of my good high school friends went to rehab for alcohol at the age of 16 but was dealing with an abusive father at home. He self-medicated until he died of an overdose in his early 30s. He would sometimes have a look of loneliness & desperation just like some of these kids.
Do I believe that some 21-year-old leftist on TikTok really believes they're a cat? No, and neither do they, they are just in desperate need of attention and because they lack certain social skills, they dive deeper into being "different", even if it means mimicking an animal.
Because they don't fit into society (as they might say), they are more willing to adhere to leftist ideology which projects that something is wrong with society and not them. It's why they talk about "acceptance" so much because they've constantly felt unaccepted as individuals.
What I've found is that there are a significant amount of young people who are desperate, lost, and emotionally suffering finding refuge in an ideology that promises them community with other social outcasts but a plan to save society from itself.
