The siren call of shallow sharing

When nuance risks pushing everybody away instead of connecting with everybody in some way

Recently I've experienced the concerning impulse to share less deeply in hopes of being embraced more widely.

I in- and exhale nuance, complexity, over-explanations. I like this about myself—but shades of gray don’t always work toward publicity and wide online exposure. (Are those things my goal? I don’t want them to be. Sometimes I worry I’ll never be able to fully shed the desire.)

Think about the most popular animal accounts on the internet. They are, with rare exception, shallow: WeRateDogs (which, to be clear, I adore) gives every dog higher than 10/10; The Dodo (which, again, I often enjoy) shares heartwarming rescue and redemption stories without questioning the underlying premises and contribution to narratives of saviorism. There’s not much for the masses to criticize because these publications don’t go very deep. Who doesn’t want to see an injured animal grow strong? Who isn’t inspired by a selfless human giving their time and money and heart to a tangible cause? Who doesn’t chuckle at WeRateDogs’s strange made-up breed names?