Individualism and Violence| Digital alienation on ‘social’ platforms

Class segregation is deepening geographically, producing a society whose cities are divided by both real and figurative walls. As I explore in this series of articles, this isolation reproduces itself, creating new generations for whom discrimination is a virtue and individualism a structural way of life. But how has all this been reinforced in the age of social media—a time when billions across the world are more connected than ever before?

In truth, spatial and educational isolation has collided with the new forms of communication provided by the internet. People now consume massive amounts of conflicting information, fueling a pervasive sense of helplessness and a collapse in hope for change. In such a confused world, individualism begins to appear like a rational response.

On social media, even activism has become virtual. Every incident is treated as an issue requiring an immediate stance, detached from any social context or organizational framework, and lacking collective mechanisms for action. This approach kills the collective spirit, reducing politics to individual moral stances that are devoid of impact. Individualism might seem like a refuge, but in reality, it deepens isolation and reinforces political impotence.

Such individualism does not necessarily lead to sound ethical behavior. On the contrary, it often serves to justify inequality and to normalize injustice. In turn, this produces violence among alienated and isolated groups; a violence that begins within each insular class but soon transcends class boundaries.

Survival of the fittest in the social media jungle

The Hollywood-inflected American model of capitalism depicts success and failure as purely individual choices, stripped of their social and political context. Within this paradigm, money becomes the sole measure of a person’s worth: the successful are those with wealth, regardless of how it was acquired, while the poor are blamed for their poverty and dismissed as “losers.”

This narrative entrenches a culture that blames victims and glorifies the powerful, subordinating ethical principles to the logic of the market. Its ugliest manifestations can be seen in the reactions of some governments and individuals in our region to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Here, we find alignment with the perpetrator due to their power and blame directed at the victim for their weakness. Aggression is justified, and resistance condemned, because power defines truth and might makes right. In this way, power becomes the ideological bridge connecting individualism to violence.

Digital platforms and deepening alienation

Despite being tools for communication, social media play a key role in widening class divides and generating new forms of social estrangement. What should have been spaces for solidarity and connection have become arenas of endless individual display. Through images and text, they reproduce class disparities daily.

Screens now reflect two parallel worlds: the elite flaunting luxury vacations and gated compounds, and the masses, left with little more than space to complain or plead for help. This dynamic fosters what might be called “digital alienation,” where social media becomes a stage for artificial performance. The wealthy showcase idealized versions of their lives, while the poor are confined to the roles of beggars. The result is a psychological and political gap that goes beyond material inequality: it shapes contrasting expectations and self-perceptions.

More dangerously, these platforms become powerful tools to reinforce class divisions by rationalizing isolation as desirable. Ads for luxury compounds frame seclusion as a virtue, while charity campaigns present poverty as a natural phenomenon to be met with charity, not justice. This diminishes the potential for collective action, replacing it with fleeting individual reactions that vanish like passing fads, leaving no real impact.

In this sense, social media becomes a powerful tool in the hands of capitalism—propagating a fragmented consciousness that cannot link daily suffering to the economic structures of the capitalist system. Through complex mechanisms, community solidarity becomes a digital illusion, and meaningful political engagement is replaced by a cacophony of voices that leads only to further individualism.

Parallel images that never meet

A striking example of today’s class divide is found in the juxtaposition of luxury compound ads and charity appeals for the destitute. This stark contrast no longer prompts ethical reflection or social criticism. Instead, it is used as a marketing tool in itself—evidence that inequality has become an accepted part of the general landscape, rather than a flaw within it.

In Egypt, luxury real estate is marketed as an aspirational lifestyle for the upper middle class, where isolation is a virtue, security a commodity, and privacy a privilege. Meanwhile, charity ads use the same highly produced visual style, depicting suffering through exaggerated images of poverty designed to elicit pity, not to provoke discussion about the structural roots of inequality. This duality deepens not only economic disparity but also a sense of alienation, especially among those who fit neither depiction.

This juxtaposition of ads offers no real solutions. Instead, it creates an environment where people feel either completely powerless or entirely superior. Many retreat into psychological and social seclusion, with life split into two separate scenes that never converge.

Thus, individualism is reproduced once again. Those who feel powerless retreat inward, seeking personal survival, thus deepening alienation. Those who consume the luxury lifestyle convince themselves they deserve separation from the rest, thus deepening isolation. In both cases, the tendency toward violence increases: one driven by entitlement, the other by dispossession.

What is happening in Egypt mirrors trends in other cities across the globe, from Mumbai to São Paulo, where media not only reflect but deepen class divisions, turning them into entrenched psychological and cultural structures. Here, Marx’s notion of “alienation”—the feeling of being a stranger in a world that is supposedly your own—is not just a theory but a lived experience, reinforced through media, advertising, and visual consumption. And we know from global precedents how such alienation can spiral into extreme social violence.

While some promote individualism as a path to protect the rights of religious minorities and the marginalized from majoritarian tyranny, the results are often the opposite. Individualism intensifies minorities’ sense of alienation or encourages further retreat, rather than fostering engagement with shared civic values. More dangerously, it weakens social organizations that defend collective rights, such as freedom of belief or dignity.

In this context, individualism ceases to be a mere pathway to withdrawal. It becomes fertile ground for societal disintegration and escalating hidden violence: violence in language, representation, mutual disdain, and growing patterns of marginalization and exclusion. All these pave the way for a social explosion.

This is precisely where individualism intersects with violence. Not as a coincidence, but as a logical consequence of fraying communal bonds and the retreat of politics into the private realm. It places us in a vicious cycle: widening gaps feed alienation, which then deepens division, and so on.

This will be the subject of the next article.