The Machine Mask Theory

As an add-on to my ghosting piece today, I'd like to explain a theory I came up with called The Machine Mask Theory.

I have not done any research on if this theory exists anywhere outside of the inside of my head. I apologize if this has been thoroughly explained and registered under a different theory name. Feel free to let me know!

The Machine Mask Theory is something I came up with to describe the phenomenon of dehumanizing people due to the presence of a machine. The theory states that when a machine is involved as a third-party communicator, a mask between the individuals communicating creates a wall that acts as a forcefield preventing any real accountability for how the individuals conducts themselves. Simply put, when machines are involved, humanity suffers.

Evidence of this theory at play dates all the way back to at least 1886 when German inventor Carl Benz patented a machine run by gas on wheels. This patent is considered to be the birth certificate of the automobile. Yes, folks! Cars!

Think of the person you are when you are walking down the street, passing by strangers as you go.

Now, consider the person you are when you get behind the wheel of a vehicle on the open road, passing by these same strangers.

For the majority of us, I think we can all admit we’re a little different in these situations. The dynamic is certainly different, and so, we adjust to it. What does this look like?

Walking down the street you may make eye contact with someone which certainly leads to you giving them a smile (Unless you live in Brooklyn, NY – don’t smile at people in Brooklyn). Sometimes individuals will interrupt your proceedings to ask for directions or give you a compliment. These micro-interactions don’t exist on the road. In fact, if someone smiled at you from the driver-seat window of their car, you would take it as a threat; or, at the very least, consider that person to be a creep.

We’ve now established that social cues are different when walking and when driving. In addition to social cues varying, the way we are able to communicate takes on a new role as well. Most of the options out there for communicative driving are aggressive as hell. The only real thing you can communicate to other drivers besides, “I’m turning now,” is negativity: “You’re wrong!” “Get out of the way!” “Speed up!”

And we do all of this without opening our mouths. We use the horn to tell people when they’re doing something wrong, but it goes beyond that too. We honk to tell people to go when the light turns green. We honk to say, “I’m here! Don’t keep reversing like that, please!” Other forms of communication are much like the honk; nonverbal and universal. Throwing on your high beams! Just to be an asshole. Flashing high beams to signal cops ahead. Turn-signal lights to let people know when you’re merging or turning or parking. And then there’s riding ass to get people to move along.

All of these nonverbal social cues were created because it’s just not possible or even practical to roll your window down, signal to the other person to do the same, and proceed to yell over traffic to get your point across.

In relying on the machine to do our communicating, we dehumanize ourselves to others and we subconsciously dehumanize the rest of the individuals on the road around us. It’s the difference between “I’m stuck in traffic” and “I am traffic.”

We get into this me vs. you mentality on the road. We’re all more important than the person next to us; our schedule is busier, our problems are bigger, and our time is more important. It’s a battle out there on the road and the mask of the vehicle we are in makes it easy to fight without any personal fault.

Judging a book by its cover dons a new suit. Now we’re reading license plates to figure out where this asshole is from so that we can stereotype and bitch about it more accurately. Because we are not personally saying anything mean, it’s much easier to scream “Get out of my way!” when all you’re really doing is putting pressure on a button in front of you that lets out a ridiculously loud sound. It separates the humanity from the individual.

Imagine you were walking down the street with an air-horn or blow-horn that you blew every time someone got in your way. You would look like a dick. No one would like you, you would get shot many looks, and there would be a general consensus that you are the asshole here. Being in a vehicle makes it different of course, but we take it a little too far.

Because we are sitting inside this vehicle, we are protected. Until we consent to rolling our windows down, we have a spacesuit on and all the other cars around us are just little meteorites in our way. Not humans; meteorites. And the way we conduct ourselves on the road is so far from who we are as individuals it’s amazing we don’t consider that everyone else is their most asshole version of themselves on the road.

The Machine Mask Theory then applies to being online. In my recent post about ghosting, I mention a company’s ability to ghost applicants and former workers being due to this theory. And it’s true! We apply online!! Companies aren’t seeing a person, they’re seeing a sheet of paper. They don’t give a shit about “things” compared to “people” and you are just a thing when presented online.

And this can be applied to any screenname you’ve ever had. By taking on a screenname, you have dehumanized yourself to the online world. It doesn’t matter if you have pictures to prove you’re a human, the pictures don’t move! Who trusts that the internet is telling the truth anyway?

It’s funny, when we get online we assume everyone is an “internet creep” or “internet stalker.” People constantly refer to each other as “internet strangers” even after developing rapport! Why? Because we can’t actually know for certain who is behind the username, so we assume the worst.

Guess what? People are doing that to you too. And so is the inception of the internet troll. We become assholes! We say shit to people we’ve never met that we’d never say to a stranger in-person. We become a worse version of ourselves every time we put on the mask that is the machine. We dehumanize others, yes, but we dehumanize ourselves too.

You wonder why the internet pisses you off? Why you’re starting to conclude that all humans are assholes? Blame The Machine Mask Theory.

The more we hide behind machines and let them do our communicating, the less human we become, the less tolerance we have, the less care we give. Until every single one of us is our worst selves. Because we don’t have to take the blame! We don’t have accountability on the road or on the internet. We just hit buttons that make noise or perform tasks such as “send” when you type out something horribly out of character.

We’ve heard the term “hiding behind a screen,” and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. This is why ghosting someone is socially acceptable. Ignoring someone or giving them the silent treatment in-person is borderline abusive. But do it over a device? Perfectly accepted.

Machine Mask Theory, folks. It dehumanizes you to them and them to you. We become assholes and so do they. Soon enough, we’ll just assume the default human setting is “asshole” and move on into a world where we treat each other like shit.

Maybe it’s already happening.