POP YOUR BUBBLES

Bubbles used to be fun things. It’s a fun word to say, blowing bubbles and chasing them around was one of the things almost everyone remembers doing in their childhood. In my childhood, I imagined living inside a bubble, imagined what it’d be like to float around randomly in mid-air until someone came and popped my bubble. These were fun thoughts.

Living inside a bubble means something completely different to me now, however. We all live inside bubbles. Our social media feeds are bubbles, mine probably looks completely different from any one else and that dictates to a large extent what I’m concerned about right now and how concerned I am about it. Some people’s bubbles are so strong and hard to pop, we call them echo chambers.

Perspective is everything in this world where people are getting more and more isolated from each other. A person with the means to make change may not effect it because they’re inside a bubble and they think things are alright everywhere like it is with them. A person of power and influence living inside a bubble may not realise they’ve done something terrible because they didn’t know how people outside would see it. A person in an echo chamber will reaffirm each and every mistaken belief they have, in themselves and society, and turn out to become something unpleasant. Maybe that’s why kids try to catch bubbles even though they know bubbles pop. Bubbles are bad.

– Azmin Azran, Sub-editor, SHOUT