"Mental illness is not contagious" actually only true before the invention of social media, a cognitohazard designed to give everyone each other's neuroses. It is astounding how many thoughts and behaviors that are highly in line with OCD, BPD, and so forth have become commonplace in people who otherwise do not have those conditions but they picked them up via social media exposure and the social dynamics of social media encouraging certain kinds of thoughts and behaviors.
A lot of my life's work of writing online can be understood as someone who recovered from BPD realizing how much of our queer/leftist/online communities function like we all collectively have BPD even if not every individual within that community would qualify on their own. When they act as a group, the group acts as though it has BPD.
Lately I am starting to realize that the same goes for OCD. Especially since 2020, OCD ways of thinking and behavior have become a social contagion spread online. Based on conversations I've had with friends with OCD, I don't think I have OCD or that I had it before I became a heavy social media user. But as my social life moved more and more online, and especially since 2020, I have developed some very OCD-like thought patterns and behaviors particularly around specific issues that are often the subject of intense heated online discourse. The reason I attribute these patterns to social media and not to just having had undiagnosed OCD my whole life is because these patterns only manifest around topics that are the frequent topic of heated discourse, and when I investigate the root fears, it is the fear of social repercussions above all else that manifests them.
Just because someone puts everything they think online in very strong language doesn't mean you need to accept those thoughts and patterns into your own brain.
But that's like saying that water is wet.
I'm not sure it is, honestly. Of course, phenomena like imageboard "op"s, more advanced and protracted "false flag" campaigns by reactionaries, and meddling in online discussions by larger organisations (state, NGO, private generally, or otherwise) are well-known. But even average, seemingly reasonable and sincere people online can both lie and also... ... ...with total belief in what they're saying, make untrue statements.
This goes beyond the specific scope of what Shel is talking about on the mental illness front, to be clear. While the above phenomenon is definitely real, there are also cases where the issue is just that people's beliefs are wrong in a way that leads them to arrive at harmful or counterproductive analyses which are also cognitohazardous.
And this phenomenon is absolutely not limited to factual untruths which can be debunked, but also extends to unfalsifiably wrong statements about ethical or political positions.
Someone can call you "a horrible person" or whatever, completely mean it, and still be full of shit, because they're coming from a completely inaccurate or totally self-serving perspective on a situation. Someone can declare that everyone who's (not) having a given emotional response to a given subject or situation is ontologically evil, and be totally wrong, because their underlying values and assumptions are deeply flawed. Someone can decide to wage a pathetic little online crusade against you, and even if they might be coming from valid feelings, still be entirely wrong to act on those feelings.
It's kind of like the whole "listen to x experiences" thing: you need to receive that input as data to interpret and work with. It is telling you something about the world. Whether what it's telling you is its face value content, or if the message needs to be interpreted in a non-face-value way, though, is an entirely different question.
Because sometimes, the only non-untrue message in people's statements is the personal pain or interpersonal hang-ups which motivated whatever face-value untruth they're aggressively, sanctimoniously parading about. Usually, it's not that severe! But sometimes, people are just... ...wrong without necessarily being liars.
