15 comments

  • grvbck an hour ago

    > Lonelier individuals were also more likely to use unusual language when describing well-known celebrities and to describe them in ways that were not typical for their group.

    How is that surprising? If they are lonely, they are not part of the group and intergroup communication (including shared values, opinions, gossip etc).

    The text fails to define "unusual" in a meaningful way other than "not part of the majority". It's like saying "we found that the minority tends to vote differently than the majority".

  • mapt a minute ago

    People who don't interact a lot with other people. Hrrm.

    It would be really weird if they thought and talked in accordance with the current social pablum.

  • kordlessagain 11 minutes ago

    Feels like fancy neuroimaging being used to scientifically justify excluding people who don't conform to mainstream social norms. Classic case of using tech to medicalize being different. Also kind of makes sense from an evolutionary psych perspective - groups have always tried to identify and push out "others" for survival. But maybe in 2024 we can do better than using million-dollar brain scanners to shame people who see the world (oh sorry, “famous” people) differently?

  • TekMol 8 minutes ago

    Do you guys know who the most popular artists of our time are?

    Reading this article and its mention of celebrities I was like "Who are today's celebrities anyhow?"? And typed

        most popular artists 2024
    
    into Google. It came back with:

        Taylor Swift
        The Weeknd
        Lady Gaga
        Drake
        Karol G
        Bruno Mars
        Beyoncé
        Eminem
        Charli XCX
        Harry Styles
    
    I have heard 8 of the 10 names before. Never heard about "Karol G" and "Charli XCX".

    I can only think of one song performed by one of them: "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga.

    Does that make me very disconnected with today's culture?

    • keiferski 2 minutes ago

      I don’t listen to 8/10 of these musicians, but I’ve heard of all of them except for Karol G. So yeah; I’d say you are very disconnected.

  • isaacfrond 3 hours ago

    Read the whole article wondering how lonely people think differently.

    But I now understand that it is just that: different. They do not conform to what the norm thinks.

    Seen in that light: lonely people are lonely because they are weird. Right. Good to know.

    • 127 2 hours ago

      Lonely people are also weird because they are lonely (and don't get the calibration from human interaction).

      • kaffekaka an hour ago

        The article does not claim this nor support the claim. It merely says that loneliness is associated with being "weird". No causality.

        • Oarch an hour ago

          It's possible to reverse this and infer the more mainstream your thoughts of these celebrities, the more popular you are / will be.

        • darkerside an hour ago

          Well, exactly. Parents poster is pointing out that the cause is ambiguous. Actually, technically, they are attributing causality to the opposite direction, but in practice, I'd say it gets the point across.

  • throw310822 42 minutes ago

    So they tested disconnected individuals against connected individuals in the perception of socially constructed objects (celebrities). And they found that people who don't socialise much don't share that socially constructed perception. What else did they expect? Seems quite obvious.

  • cluckindan 5 minutes ago

    This is a bullshit study. It is entirely based on trying to confirm a priori assumptions about ”lonely” people, who are seen by authors as pathologically abnormal.

  • dinkblam an hour ago

    > Loneliness corresponded with idiosyncratic [unusual, unique] neural representations of celebrities as well as more idiosyncratic communication about celebrities

    must be the best argument to date for being more lonely.

    • ANewFormation an hour ago

      Could mean the opposite of what you might think. I imagine the mean perception of Zuck is weirdo, Bieber is 'no clue, I'm not a teen girl' and so on.

  • portaouflop an hour ago

    People are strange when you’re a stranger.