As chaos continues to unfurl around the world, the tendency towards hero worship is getting out of control. Cults of personality are having a moment absolutely everywhere, even as we are treated to even more spectacular variants of the Emperor Has No Clothes. You’d think the recent flameouts in finance, technology and politics just this week would make us all a bit more skeptical of authority and yet that does not appear to be the case.
You cannot go onto Twitter without exposing yourself to someone’s daddy issues disguised as a low rent business school case study thread. I was concerned about the information hygiene as platform capacity degraded. But I honestly wasn’t expecting the first disease that actually emerged. Twitter is in the throes of an emotional venereal disease.
I am talking about dick riders.
If you are not familiar with the term, being a dick rider means praising absolutely every move of someone you perceive as having more power than you. Dickriding is a particularly uncomfortable form of reply guying wherein you praise absolutely every move of the person whose dick you are riding.
It’s especially virulent among regular people without personal expertise or exposure to the problem at hand. Not knowing any better is not however a prerequisite for dick riding. You can lend your credibility to someone else by using your expertise to rationalize just about anything.
Humans love power and hierarchy. I guess it makes us feel safe to believe that someone knows what the hell they are doing when we are afraid. But the sad reality is that we are all human. Even the most accomplished and brilliant among us are still saddled with bias, self doubt, insecurities and blind spots. If you are inclined towards the religious, we are all sinners. Though I’d recommend you combine that with a side of grace as I don’t mean this to be judgmental.
I realize it’s pretty funny to bring up the redeeming power of grace in the context of sexually explicit slang. But I do think it’s helpful to remember that even the worst of us have redeeming qualities and even the best of us have flaws.
So if you are tempted to engage in dickriding because you think someone is better than you, might I encourage you to consider that we are all equals in the eyes of God. Or at very least equal in the face of a good shit post.
8 replies on “Day 689 and Dick Riding”
The phallic phallacy looms large…agreed. I’ve had private conversations with some of the most successful and famous people on the planet — sometimes spirited with a beverage or three.
They have all been hit the feeling of fraud syndrome, they suck, doubt — u name it.
If all those millions who adore them only knew they sling the same shit in their minds, the bucking bronco-ness of said riding would wouldn’t have the third leg of support 🙂
so, I talked about this too recently, you said it so much funnier and better. Kudos https://youtu.be/-Qz13IDmGjU
Gonna say a lot of people are dickriding Elon on Twitter these days, some account tweet about him daily praising is every step and it’s quite exasperating, I had to unfollow a lot of them, I’m on Twitter to find new opportunities and change my life, but all I seem to see are dickriders riding Elon daily
While the dickriding joke is funny, it’s more of society moving to extremes and treating people/politicians/parties as sports teams. Sticking on Elon, the two extremes (dickriding) no matter what negative thing Elon does/says, 110% support OR 110% anti Elon no matter what good he does. People treat these items like sports team, X is my team or not my team, therefore 110% for or against regardless of issue. It’s more of a sign that critical thinking by masses is non existent. In the end it’s easier to make fun of the other team than use critical thinking skills.
Ezra Klein does a deep dive on this very topic in his book “Why We’re Polarized”. Apparently political “Teams” attend to the details for us, and they look to draw us to them with an ever-growing list of what they value.
Entertaining and informative. But it is probably because I agree with you, especially the “even the worst of us have redeeming qualities and even the best of us have flaws” part. And for clarity, I’m merely agreeing with you not praising you.
Sometimes I think I’m a dick rider. Then I realize sometimes I say exactly what is on my mind and sometimes that’s mean
[…] Right now there is a massive internecine fight over which order rules over Twitter. And depending on whose camp you fall into you are probably signaling different things. And that lack of shared cultural values is leading to some pretty silly reactions. A lot of dickriding is happening across every major faction. […]