It was certainly no surprise that when we call a project Humans Are Wonderful and WEIRD we collected a lot of strange stuff. But thankfully, not strange for strange’s sake - the oddities and curiosity collected for HAWW illustrate deeper truths about how joy manifests and spreads.
Joy is remarkably pure
If I didn’t know it before, I do know. There’s a simple formula that becomes visible the more rabbit holes you fall down in social media: weird begets wonder, wonder begets joy.
Joy was an exceptionally common feature in the videos our team collected. While it is not possible for us to conclusively attribute that people experiencing joy is the reason why these videos connected deeply with people who see them. However, the overwhelming weight of evidence seems to suggest that may be the case.
In the pantheon of emotions, joy must be one of the simplest. It’s among the easiest to recognize in yourself and is remarkably transparent to see in others.
More importantly, it is also contagious.
In the clips we featured, joy is woven throughout a wide range of different scenes, subjects, and experiences. Joy was manifested through and in the experience of hobbies - skills and passions well-tended - as well as through play in all its forms. In games, pranks, imagination run amok (or whatever the inverse of amok is - games run fully mok). It could be felt in the reflected joy from observing it in others. A parent capturing the simple wonder and exuberance of a toddler. Or a friend capturing a core memory so someone could live it, fully present.
Playfulness knows no age limit
Seasoned
Instinctive
It’s in short bursts, and in longer stories
Short
A longer walk
Sometimes it’s personal, others it’s an invitation
Tickling your funny bone
A longer walk
Complicating something simple
Regardless of scene or trigger, the fact that these moments were shared at all is also an important signal. People want to share happiness. They know that joy can be contagious, and when a spark is seen, they hope to kindle it. That’s also fairly telling.
In the end, reflected joy may be an element of why social media is so addictive. Beyond other theories about social media’s effects on brain chemistry from variable rewards or humans’ innate pull towards community, gossip, or vanity, perhaps a simpler explanation fits: joy is contagious, and as people share their simple, often childlike, wonder, others are drawn in for a bit of their own mirth.