You are right that not all Bullshit Jobs have the idle time I’m talking about but enough to create this culture. But I can’t say it better than he himself:

One might imagine that leaving millions of well-educated young men and women without any real work responsibilities but with access to the internet—which is, potentially, at least, a repository of almost all human knowledge and cultural achievement—might spark some sort of Renaissance. Nothing remotely along these lines has taken place. Instead, the situation has sparked an efflorescence of social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter): basically, of forms of electronic media that lend themselves to being produced and consumed while pretending to do something else. I am convinced this is the primary reason for the rise of social media, especially when one considers it in the light not just of the rise of bullshit jobs but also of the increasing bullshitization of real jobs. As we’ve seen, the specific conditions vary considerably from one bullshit job to another. Some workers are supervised relentlessly; others are expected to do some token task but are otherwise left more or less alone. Most are somewhere in between. Yet even in the best of cases, the need to be on call, to spend at least a certain amount of energy looking over one’s shoulder, maintaining a false front, never looking too obviously engrossed, the inability to fully collaborate with others—all this lends itself much more to a culture of computer games, YouTube rants, memes, and Twitter controversies than to, say, the rock ’n’ roll bands, drug poetry, and experimental theater created under the midcentury welfare state. What we are witnessing is the rise of those forms of popular culture that office workers can produce and consume during the scattered, furtive shards of time they have at their disposal in workplaces where even when there’s nothing for them to do, they still can’t admit it openly.

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs 2018 (p. 382 of 895 in my ebook version)

I think you misunderstand my position. I’m not a cultural pessimist saying social media made us all into mindless zombies. You can use social media very actively by putting much thought into your posts and conversations and researching them thoroughly. And there is alot of stuff you can mindlessly consume at home long before the internet.

What I’m saying is that Bullshit Jobs created a whole new demographic with time on their hand to idly use online (since they work on computers) but not enough to be productive. As I wrote in another comment, in the time between meetings when a mail might come in or your boss might bump into you, a social media timeline is the way to go. You don’t have a TV in office but access to the internet.

I would argue that forums are somewhere on the continuum and the “direct predecessor” of social media if that makes sense. You already see in which topics something happened which isn’t too different from following a Facebook page.

On your last point, I disagree. Time is relative. There is a difference between free time you can actively plan and idle time between meetings where your boss could bump in any time. At the end of the day looking back, you might have had enough time to write an article, but there could always be a call coming in so you end up using that time looking at cat photos and arguing with strangers about football.

This might depend on the kind of BS job though. Graeber described a wide variety and for some, your argument works but not for all.

I didn’t read it yet but wanted to share that according to Graeber, the rise of social media (and podcasts btw) came with what he calls “Bullshit Jobs” (in the book of that name). Before that, browsing the web was a much more active process, you searched for forums, clicked on a topic you are interested in or went on websites and clicked through them, always deciding what to click on.

With social media came the timeline you could mindlessly scroll through or click on suggestions. That’s something you can do at work when you have some free time and something might come in. It’s not anymore “I want to know XYZ” but “Let’s see what’s new” if that makes sense.

Some might even have a dad joke generator…

What gives him away is that he assumes you know how to call him. Scammers don’t do that and ask instead to send them your emails and password per Mail or text message. Totally not a scammer, busted at first glance.

I still vote for Welsh

Welsh?

Only the real messiah would say that!

I was blind and now I can see! vibes

There is text on the right (starting with Wh) which might be part of the joke or a different one or they might be separated but connected somehow. We will never know

Basically the same with different names is my guess

The bar is quite low, which is not to say they’re wrong

It’s about IT. Close enough

Rust and chill

What did you say? I guess I leave the meeting and rejoin runsaway

What did you say? I’m afraid my internet connection is broken

Have you ever seen a binary tree grow? Maybe they put the pants on each level while it is the lowest one before the next level grows

Thanks, I’m not good at tone in my native language already and even less in English. I didn’t give the comment much thought, I could have found a better phrasing.

About the coffee machine: I refilled it today so it must have been someone else who didn’t

I’m in the positive again, maybe it was my other comment or it’s just fluctuating