In honor of the fifth anniversary of his official Twitter account, Pope Francis, or more likely someone representing him, hopped on to the social media platform this morning to share his gratitude with his 15 million followers. In addition to the heartfelt thanks, the Pope included the kind of tone-deaf well wishes that one would expect from an 80-year-old man blissfully unaware of the realities of the internet, and declared his hope that “social media always be spaces that are rich in humanity!”
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Not since its creation, and certainly not in recent years, has the realm of social media been considered a place that brings out the humanity in people. If anything, it is a place where humanity is squeezed out of you, beaten to a pulp, and swiftly replaced with grim cynicism. Also, there are hashtags.
Of course, it should be noted that Pope Francis only follows eight people on the @Pontifex account, and they are all versions of himself tweeting in different languages. So, it’s no wonder that he thinks Twitter is a place “rich in humanity” when his feed is wall-to-wall Pope tweets. Maybe we should all take a cue from his holiness, and rejigger our own social networks to be the benevolent echo chambers. Then, perhaps, we can get a glimpse at this so-called “humanity” he seems so crazy about.
[via Mashable]