The Loneliness of the Tribe

I was at a bar once, years ago, watching two guys almost throw punches over whether The Rolling Stones were better than The Beatles.

One of them had a tattoo of Mick Jagger’s lips. The other had a Sgt. Pepper t-shirt. They weren’t fighting over music. They were fighting over identity.

This is what we do now. We don’t just like things. We are the things we like. And we despise the things we don’t.

Blame the internet. Blame the pandemic. Blame social media for frying our attention spans like a cheap diner omelet. We don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. We just know how to argue.

Tribalism isn’t new—Aristotle said, “Man is by nature a social animal”—but it’s never been this bad. We’ve taken the need for community and warped it into something hollow, something brittle. It’s lazy, it’s seductive, and it’s ruining everything.

1. The Internet Didn’t Connect Us—It Sorted Us

There was a time when people made friends because they simply existed near each other.

You met at bars, at church, at the DMV, at the neighborhood BBQ. You didn’t pick your social circles based on finely tuned ideological alignment. You just lived.

Then the internet came along, and instead of connecting us, it sorted us into tribes.

It made sure we never had to deal with the discomfort of disagreement. The algorithm curates a world where your views aren’t challenged, just echoed.

Nietzsche warned us: “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” But who wants truth when certainty is easier?

2. Real Relationships Take Work—Hating Something Is Easy

Making a real friend is hard. You have to listen. Compromise. Open up. Risk rejection.

Or—you could just log on, jump into an online forum, and spend hours dunking on the “other side.” One takes years of trust-building. The other takes a WiFi connection and five minutes. Guess which one people choose?

Schopenhauer once wrote, “Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.” Online, contempt is king.

3. Social Media Trains Us to See People as NPCs

Remember when people were just people? Now they’re avatars, profile pictures, usernames, political labels. It’s easy to hate a stranger when they’re just text on a screen.

That guy you just insulted might be a father, a brother, someone with a sick dog and a broken coffee maker. But in the online Colosseum, he’s just an enemy. And enemies don’t deserve compassion.

Marcus Aurelius, one of the last sane emperors, wrote: “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?” But scrolling is faster than self-reflection.

4. The Pandemic Killed Third Places (And We Haven’t Rebuilt Them)

Bars. Coffee shops. Libraries. Places where people gathered without an agenda. These places were dying even before 2020. Then the pandemic put the final nail in the coffin.

Now, where do we gather? Online. And online, there’s no friendly nod from across the bar—just arguments, dunking, and empty validation from strangers.

Sartre was wrong when he said, “Hell is other people.” Hell is people who no longer know how to be together.

5. The Death of Nuance—You’re Either With Us or Against Us

You can’t be a little conservative or a little liberal anymore. You’re either a hero or a villain.

Say, “I kind of see both perspectives,” and watch people turn on you like a pack of starving dogs. Nobody wants to stand in the middle of a battlefield, so they pick a side. Even if it means losing themselves.

Orwell warned us about this: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of history.” We’re watching it happen in real time.

6. Loneliness Feels Safer in a Tribe

Admitting you’re lonely is terrifying. It’s raw. It’s vulnerable. But saying, “I hate those people”? That’s easy.

Hate becomes a shortcut to belonging. A quick fix. A cigarette for the soul.

Pascal once said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” And yet, here we are, filling that silence with the sound of our own anger.

7. We’ve Replaced Friendship with Fandom and Feuds

Think about how people describe themselves now: I’m a Marvel fan. I’m a Swiftie. I’m a political junkie.

We don’t just like things. We are the things we consume. And nothing bonds people faster than a common enemy. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Xbox vs. PlayStation. Republicans vs. Democrats. Us vs. Them.

Nietzsche laughed at this kind of thing: “Insanity in individuals is rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

Table Summary: Why Tribalism Is Worse Than Ever

Factor	Why It’s Making Tribalism Worse
The Internet	Sorts us into ideological bubbles
Effort vs. Hate	Hating something is easier than building relationships
Social Media	Reduces people to avatars, making dehumanization easy
Loss of Third Places	Fewer neutral spaces mean fewer natural social interactions
No Nuance Allowed	You must pick a side—moderation is punished
Loneliness	Hating something gives the illusion of belonging
Fandom as Identity	People define themselves by what they love—and what they hate

The Sad, Dark Joke of It All

Tribalism is a cheap drug. A quick high. An easy way to forget that, at the end of the day, most of us are just lonely as hell.

We’re like stray dogs fighting over scraps of identity, biting each other because it feels better than admitting we’re starving.

But here’s the kicker: The things we’re fighting over? They don’t care about us.

Our political party won’t call us on our birthday. Our favorite sports team won’t sit with us when we’re grieving. Our internet tribe won’t hold our hand in a hospital room.

And still, we pick fights. We pick sides. We dig trenches.

Because the alternative—stepping outside, finding real people, risking rejection—feels so much harder.

So we stay inside. We log on. We fight.

And we call it belonging.