Wear the Mask

Good convo in the DMs. Want to preserve the highlights. (My fellow conversant wishes to remain anon.)

(ongoing, check back for updates)

There is a lot of psychology behind masks, much of which hasn’t been thought through. The people in charge do not know what they are playing with.

Getting people to wear masks is an easy psychological trick. We inherently crave security/safety. As long as we can obsess over the Masks, we feel a certain amount of control over this coronavirus, even though it is largely out of our control.

However, there are side effects:

(1) Masks disassociate people from themselves. This is ancient knowledge. Mask wearing as a part of ritual goes as far back as recorded history. The mask wearer put one on in order to become the thing represented by the mask. We still have an annual mask ritual today, Halloween. And we still wear masks for the same reason: To Become Someone Else.

This isn't exactly something we have a choice in. Though I think ancients were more sophisticated than we give them credit for—I don’t think they believed they were transmogrified into a supernatural being—they understood that you don't get to put on a mask and continue to be yourself. For one, you don't normally wear a mask. When you cover your face, psychologically, you must become a different person.

(2) When we all wear the same mask, we become the same person. Granted, there has been an explosion of personalized facemasks. But we all know that we're wearing the mask for the same purpose. It doesn't matter if it's crazy tie-dye or a Venom mouth or whatever. We all know we're wearing the same mask. Conformity. Collectivism. We're all "in it together." We're all the same. (I think the people in charge have kind of though about this.)

(3) There's no escape from the anxiety. I’m not just talking about the mask as a reminder that there is a killer virus, either. The mask also produces social anxiety. Whether you wear a mask, or you don't wear a mask. Whether most people around you wear a mask, or most don't wear a mask. There is no escape from the social anxiety.

The wearer, of course, is nervous about the disease and who might have it. The reluctant wearer feels cowed and angry at himself. The non-wearer is nervous about the prospect of being made to wear one. Whether you’re in a minority or majority masking area, everyone is worried about being in the minority. The mix of wearers and non-wearers creates teams. If I wear a mask, will team no-mask assault me? If I don't wear a mask, will team mask attack me? 

(4) Despite aggressive messaging to the contrary, there is no scenario in which masking increases trust. Look at how anons are treated on the hellsite. We don't trust people who hide their faces. We just don't.
Now, masks carry a double mistrust meaning. Not only do we not trust those who hide their faces, we also do not trust those who show their faces because they might infect us with the virus. There's no way to fully be in the trust circle. 

Bonus points for the Libs is that “wear a mask” is a not-so-subtle reminder that the President initially refused to wear a mask, therefore he is tacitly responsible for not preventing the spread of the virus.