Gamified Conflict
The very public digital feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is a case study in how social media reshapes the dynamics of influence, credibility, and learning in public spaces. Power plays are no longer confined to press conferences, as they can unfold through tweets.
What started as a disagreement over business and politics quickly morphed into a full-blown online feud that was also experienced by viewers. Tweets from both men were shared, dissected, and re-shared with hashtags that signaled allegiance or mockery. This reflects what Osatuyi (2013) identifies as a new mode of information sharing. Users judge credibility not just by truth but by alignment with their own beliefs, social validation, and emotional impact.
Trump and Musk’s sparring didn’t stay in the confines of their own accounts. It was digested, dissected, and disseminated by millions of users, aided by the tagging culture Web 2.0 enables. The NTNU study on social tagging reminds us that metadata (hashtags, retweets, and reactions) does more than categorize; it directs traffic, constructs meaning, and builds communities of engagement (or antagonism). In this feud, tags like #couplestherapy didn’t just organize content, but they polarized and gamified the conversation as well.
Speaking of gamification, Sousa‐Vieira et al. (2022) note that gamified environments reward participation, competition, and visibility. These same principles played out in this conflict. Likes, shares, and viral memes rewarded the most performative, dramatic, or comedic content reflecting on the feud. The result was that the feud also became entertainment, ideological warfare, and social commentary all at once.
While we often talk about Web 2.0 in educational or collaborative terms, the Trump-Musk fallout reveals another side. Platforms incentivize spectacle, and credibility is contested rather than confirmed. This feud also shows how powerful individuals are subject to the crowd logic of social media. In a world where attention is currency, public and political figures perform for their audiences with posts, often before policies.
Loved your analysis on Trump- Elon and relationship of the feud with gamification. What if there were a third angle, gathering of data to predict future marketing moves. The timing was interesting as Elon regained his seat at the helm of Tesla and they have two new rollouts that are paramount to the Tesla brand this summer. In a world of digital interactions...every piece of data is gold...and gold has to be mined somehow.
ReplyDeleteYou’re absolutely right to bring up data as a potential third layer in this digital drama. The idea that public feuds can double as performance and as data-mining events is both compelling and a little unsettling. Every like, retweet, hashtag, and meme can be a datapoint for predictive modeling around consumer sentiment and even political positioning. With Tesla’s summer rollouts coming up, stirring up conversation or even controversy, could easily feed into engagement metrics and market buzz. It makes you wonder how much of what we perceive as authentic conflict is also a strategic content engine.
ReplyDeleteNice insights about gamification!
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