Love how you named this “Social Dark Matter”, I recently came across an instance of this that you didn’t mention!
It came in the form of “group of people prestigious in X way”. I really wanted to join that group with X trait, and so studied what “X people” had to say about how they got that way & their journey, advice, pitfalls to avoid, etc. Only after 10+ years did I stumble across the fact that almost all people with the highest X actually attained it through going deep into the very “pitfall” they advised to steer clear of. But because of the “law of extremity” you mentioned, none of them could share the true way to attain X without being socially ostracized and likely banned from their respective platforms. So they all lie and say untrue or exaggerated things about their journey to obtaining X.
Overall, this dynamic is severely detrimental and even actively sabotaging to anyone attempting to attain X. And while everyone involved has good intentions, this “social dark matter” likely contributes heavily to the “lack of X” epidemic in the world.
I’d love for anyone reading to guess what “X” I’m referring to and comment below before revealing the answer!
(I’ll hide it a few layers down in the replies to this comment)
Okay hopefully the layering worked to hide the answer-
The X I was talking about is being extremely thin- model thin. And the social dark matter is “anorexia”.
I’ve always wanted to be model-thin, and slender women online would say to eat healthy, moderate portions, exercise, drink water, don’t starve or be unhealthy, etc. And emphasize to avoid eating disorder behaviors (putting big red stop signs around even the borders of ED territory!) because during the height of the “fat acceptance” movement anyone even giving weight loss advice would get ED accusations thrown at them- which would then often get them deplatformed, demonetized, etc.
It’s only once I got fed up never reaching my goal weight, that I decided “eff it” and crossed the huge red stop signs into ED forums to see what they spoke about. And since then I’ve made rapid progress & easily broke past barriers I’d never been able to in 10+ years to listening to “mainstream” advice. In this “social dark matter” community, everyone talks about doing everything they can to hide the truth from their friends & family, and plan what lies they can say to maintain the image of natural or effortless thinness. I’ve never suspected anyone I knew of EDs in the past, but now I see several people who say things straight out of the “playbook”- it’s like a united “public narrative” of what people can say if accused of EDs or anorexia.
As with your “law of extremity”, people immediately think “eating disorder” means you look like a wartime victim on the brink of death. But really most women in that community have society’s “perfect” body type.
(I have so much to say on how my mindset and understanding of the “map” of weight loss changed after unlocking the secret community I was told to avoid at all costs, but unsure if anyone would be interested given this forum’s likely male majority.)
Anyways, this experience made me rather skeptical of instances where all people of X prestigious trait claim the same story about how they attained X. For example, how so many Silicon Valley VCs say they got where they are through being good people, honest, and never shady, because anyone who backstabbed or was dishonest would be kicked out of the industry through not receiving deal flow. Of course the logic makes sense to me on initial inspection and I’d like to believe it, but the incentive structure for adhering strictly to that “public narrative” regardless of if you’re honest or a “backstabber” is self evident.
Overall, it’s just fascinating and unintuitive to me. Before, I’d have guessed, “maybe they’re lying because they don’t want me to attain X too!”. But in reality there’s so many reasons people mislead & distort the map despite wanting others to also attain X.
I though that one of the central symptoms of Anorexia was that it was compulsory, not voluntary, but that would make choosing to be anorexic a type error, so you must be using the word to mean something different than the stereotype in my head. Which is exactly what the dark matter model would suggest, so no surprise there.
But I’m still left wondering what is the typical dark matter version of ED/anorexia, and what is the difference between that and using socially approved weight loss methods?
Love how you named this “Social Dark Matter”, I recently came across an instance of this that you didn’t mention!
It came in the form of “group of people prestigious in X way”. I really wanted to join that group with X trait, and so studied what “X people” had to say about how they got that way & their journey, advice, pitfalls to avoid, etc. Only after 10+ years did I stumble across the fact that almost all people with the highest X actually attained it through going deep into the very “pitfall” they advised to steer clear of. But because of the “law of extremity” you mentioned, none of them could share the true way to attain X without being socially ostracized and likely banned from their respective platforms. So they all lie and say untrue or exaggerated things about their journey to obtaining X.
Overall, this dynamic is severely detrimental and even actively sabotaging to anyone attempting to attain X. And while everyone involved has good intentions, this “social dark matter” likely contributes heavily to the “lack of X” epidemic in the world.
I’d love for anyone reading to guess what “X” I’m referring to and comment below before revealing the answer!
(I’ll hide it a few layers down in the replies to this comment)
(open if you’ve guessed X already)
(did you guess & comment X?)
Okay hopefully the layering worked to hide the answer-
The X I was talking about is being extremely thin- model thin. And the social dark matter is “anorexia”.
I’ve always wanted to be model-thin, and slender women online would say to eat healthy, moderate portions, exercise, drink water, don’t starve or be unhealthy, etc. And emphasize to avoid eating disorder behaviors (putting big red stop signs around even the borders of ED territory!) because during the height of the “fat acceptance” movement anyone even giving weight loss advice would get ED accusations thrown at them- which would then often get them deplatformed, demonetized, etc.
It’s only once I got fed up never reaching my goal weight, that I decided “eff it” and crossed the huge red stop signs into ED forums to see what they spoke about. And since then I’ve made rapid progress & easily broke past barriers I’d never been able to in 10+ years to listening to “mainstream” advice. In this “social dark matter” community, everyone talks about doing everything they can to hide the truth from their friends & family, and plan what lies they can say to maintain the image of natural or effortless thinness. I’ve never suspected anyone I knew of EDs in the past, but now I see several people who say things straight out of the “playbook”- it’s like a united “public narrative” of what people can say if accused of EDs or anorexia.
As with your “law of extremity”, people immediately think “eating disorder” means you look like a wartime victim on the brink of death. But really most women in that community have society’s “perfect” body type.
(I have so much to say on how my mindset and understanding of the “map” of weight loss changed after unlocking the secret community I was told to avoid at all costs, but unsure if anyone would be interested given this forum’s likely male majority.)
Anyways, this experience made me rather skeptical of instances where all people of X prestigious trait claim the same story about how they attained X. For example, how so many Silicon Valley VCs say they got where they are through being good people, honest, and never shady, because anyone who backstabbed or was dishonest would be kicked out of the industry through not receiving deal flow. Of course the logic makes sense to me on initial inspection and I’d like to believe it, but the incentive structure for adhering strictly to that “public narrative” regardless of if you’re honest or a “backstabber” is self evident.
Overall, it’s just fascinating and unintuitive to me. Before, I’d have guessed, “maybe they’re lying because they don’t want me to attain X too!”. But in reality there’s so many reasons people mislead & distort the map despite wanting others to also attain X.
What is the ED line?
I though that one of the central symptoms of Anorexia was that it was compulsory, not voluntary, but that would make choosing to be anorexic a type error, so you must be using the word to mean something different than the stereotype in my head. Which is exactly what the dark matter model would suggest, so no surprise there.
But I’m still left wondering what is the typical dark matter version of ED/anorexia, and what is the difference between that and using socially approved weight loss methods?