Cultivating A Sense of Shared Fate
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The 2021 edition of the Miss Universe beauty pageant saw women from 74 countries compete over the beauty title. An estimated global audience of 500 million joined through screens. The global pull of the pageant is testament to the power of media to make us feel invested in the fates of others.
You take stake in the fate of another when you associate them with your identity — when you're both in 'fellowship' through origin, upbringing, situation, or worldview. You become invested because there is reputational association between you, because what happens to them somehow inflicts and paints into your own identity, because their doings and accomplishments can be connected back to you in some way or another. Their identity speaks of you, it speaks for you. In however slight or abstract ways, reading them is reading you, an aspect of you. That is why you care their fates, because your fate is shared.
✎ Connection to