I Who Have Never Known Thumbs-Up

This is a standard academic critique of corporate workplace platforms, higher-education management, and data science theory. I am a Professor of Business and Computing; analysing how software interfaces flatten human interaction within universities is my literal job description.

In the opening pages of Jacqueline Harpman’s masterpiece, I Who Have Never Known Men, the architecture of existence settles heavily upon the reader through a landscape of absolute compression. The protagonist wakes into a reality defined entirely by the perimeter of her confinement, a subterranean world overseen by men who project power through an unyielding, frozen posture.

She notes that “the guards never spoke.”

This structural refusal to engage with the fluidity of human dialogue transforms the gatekeeper into a monolith, an administrative entity that operates precisely by withholding the relational currency of speech. Yet, this overt surveillance represents only the outer perimeter of her isolation. Within the cage itself, a horizontal and far more intimate mechanism of exclusion takes root among the thirty-nine older women with whom she shares her captivity. To her mind, these companions exist as secondary gatekeepers, wardens of an invisible architecture built from secrets and a collective past from which she remains permanently barred. They huddle around memories of a world before the cellar, hoarding their historical context and leaving her to navigate an interior exile where even her closest allies choose to withhold the very vocabulary she requires to understand her existence.

When we examine the architecture of algorithmic life, we observe a terrifyingly similar compression within our digital communication interfaces. The platform economy optimises for low-friction interactions, reducing the vast, messy spectrum of human affect into a standardised grid of immediate reactions. Among these, the emoji thumbs-up symbol stands out as the ultimate vessel of a flattened assent. It acts as a pixelated wall that mimics the silent posture of Harpman’s guards. To receive this symbol in response to a complex, vulnerable, or even mundane disclosure means encountering a boundary designed to cease all forward momentum. The symbol establishes presence while actively denying intimacy; it confirms receipt while firmly gatekeeping the border of the conversation.

For the neurodivergent observer, this compression feels intensely loud. Where a neurotypical framework might process the glyph as a harmless shorthand for agreement, a pattern-seeking mind tracks the weighty asymmetry of the exchange. The gesture stands apart from genuine connection. Instead, it asserts a backhanded form of dismissal by ending the interaction entirely on the sender’s terms. It mimics the stark infrastructure of the cage, signalling that while the interface has logged your data, the border of the exchange remains closed. The digital interface systematically rewards this low-energy expenditure, granting the silent communicator effortless leverage over the person who has poured their vital energy into the text.

In Harpman’s novel, as the protagonist grows inside her enclosure, she becomes aware of a profound relational deficit between herself and the older women who surround her.

She observes a stark division in their collective reality, noting that “she was the child who had no past.”

The women possess a vault of memories from the world before the cellar - recollections of cities, domestic rituals, and relational structures that they hold close to their chests, leaving the young protagonist entirely starved for context. She offers her raw, unembellished observations of their immediate surroundings, yet her contributions hit a wall of withheld history. The women share an intimacy from which she remains permanently barred, rendering her vulnerable to a hidden social ledger she can see but can never access.

This dynamic beautifully embodies the structural asymmetry of digital tracking and platformised intimacy. In the domestic spaces of algorithmic life, we frequently witness a predatory imbalance in communication labour. One party continuously pours her data, emotions, vulnerability, or open reflections into the digital pool, attempting to build a bridge of mutual understanding. The other party, however, operates from a position of total opacity, hoarding their internal state and keeping their secrets hidden. When this asymmetric exchange culminates in a flat thumbs-up emoji, the symbol transforms into an instrument of emotional asset-stripping.

The glyph tells a lie of acknowledgement while safely preserving the sender’s privacy. It functions as a gatekeeping vault, signalling that the communicator refuses to reciprocate the vulnerability offered to them. The recipient carries the entire weight of the interaction alone, mimicking the protagonist’s isolation as she watches the older women murmur among themselves. The digital shortcut maintains an uneven ledger, keeping one person completely exposed while the other remains safely masked behind a single automated click.

Hyper-vigilance becomes a necessary cognitive taxonomy when your environment is governed by unreadable forces. In the first thirty-seven pages of the text, the young protagonist survives by tracking the minute shifts in her barren landscape, attempting to decode the silent mechanics of her jailers and the unspoken grief of her companions. She realises that secrets exist everywhere, hidden within the very routine that structures her days.

Harpman captures this heavy atmospheric pressure beautifully: “they spoke of things I did not understand.”

The words sound familiar, yet the meaning sits completely out of reach, forcing the protagonist to endure an unsettling awareness that something vital occurs just beneath the surface of the visible world.

This experience of processing the unseen maps directly onto the neurodivergent reading of the thumbs-up emoji within a flattened communication dynamic. Far from representing a casual marker of assent, the symbol operates as a semiotic crypt. It carries a heavy, passive-aggressive undercurrent that hides in plain sight on the screen. The recipient decodes the symbol as a warning of deep-seated friction or obscurity, rather than a reassurance of harmony.

The thumbs-up delivers a distinct, backhanded psychological vibe: go away and contemplate your actions in isolation.

The true control within this gesture lies in its non-negotiable finality. The interface renders further inquiry entirely impossible. You find yourself barred from asking what the symbol means, denied the right to cross-examine the passenger’s expression. To challenge a thumbs-up invites accusations of overthinking or irrationality, leaving the neurodivergent mind to cycle through endless loops of predictive analysis. What did I miss? What did I do wrong? The glyph operates as a mechanism of silent punishment, forcing the recipient to sit entirely alone with the ambient anxiety of an unresolved, hidden tension while the sender walks away with their superiority intact.

Language within a closed ecosystem possesses the capacity to become highly specialised, turning common vocabulary into an exclusionary field. The protagonist in the novel observes how the older women utilise shared turns of phrase to anchor themselves to their lost world, creating an insular lexicon that reinforces her status as an outsider. These linguistic shortcuts, which might have been tender markers of intimacy in a previous life - often touching on love and sexuality - solidify into a wall that alienates the single individual who lacks the keys to their context. The shared vocabulary abandons its role as a tool for connection, transforming instead into an instrument used to tease, to bully, and to undermine the youngest captive’s developing sense of self.

Within the social arenas of digital life, we see this exact inversion play out through the weaponisation of platform shortcuts. An emoji or an abbreviated turn of phrase, which feels deeply cherished when exchanged between trusted friends, effortlessly shifts into a weapon of passive-aggressive exclusion when introduced into a flattened dynamic. The thumbs-up icon represents the ultimate corruption of this digital vocabulary. It borrows the appearance of positive reinforcement - the ancient sign of safety or success - and uses it to deliver a dismissive slap to the recipient’s digital presence.

By utilising a symbol that the platform categorises as positive, the dominant communicator successfully sanitises their hostility. They undermine your perspective while maintaining perfect plausible deniability, rendering aggression completely invisible to an outside observer. This strategy constitutes a highly sophisticated form of digital gaslighting that exploits the rigid structure of the algorithmic interface to isolate a single person, making them feel small, dismissed, and fundamentally misunderstood under the guise of an ordinary, standard acknowledgement.

The true unfolding of Harpman’s protagonist begins when she ceases to view her lack of a past as a permanent deficit, choosing instead to find her identity within the absolute clarity of her current perceptions. She detaches her mind from the secret-keeping loops of the older women and the mechanical silence of the guards, recognising that her unique, unburdened way of seeing the world represents its own kind of truth.

She notes that “her thoughts belonged to her alone,” a vital realisation that marks her transition from a passive captive into the conscious founder of her own internal reality.

She begins to construct her own taxonomy of existence, independent of the oppressive structures that have sought to define her perimeter.

For those of us analysing algorithmic life from a neurodivergent perspective, this unfolding provides the exact blueprint for liberation from digital control tactics. The realisation that the thumbs-up emoji operates as a passenger of finality marks the first step toward breaking its power. We retain the right to look at the data, see the asymmetry for what it represents, and refuse to participate in the loop of anxious over-analysis. The sender’s silence and paper traps lose all authority the moment we recognise their inertia as a deliberate choice rather than an inescapable cage.

We hold the capacity to set a firm expiration date on our vulnerability, recognising that our generosity belongs entirely to us and can be withdrawn when met with continuous algorithmic dismissal. We can choose to hand the heavy, structural boundaries of these interactions over to people who understand how to build a shield around our peace.

The unfolding of neurodiversity demands a radical re-evaluation of how human beings exchange meaning. While the prevailing social architecture rewards a rigid, standardised mode of communication, a pattern-seeking mind thrives on depth, variance, and explicit context. This divergence frequently creates a profound tension, as the broader world struggles to accommodate conversational styles that exist outside the optimised, low-friction templates of digital interfaces. Navigating this landscape requires immense cognitive labour, yet it also yields an extraordinary capacity to map the hidden rules governing human interaction.

To articulate these dynamics from a position of institutional authority involves a complex, deeply demanding choice. Exposing the underlying mechanics of communicative flatlands requires stepping into a space of acute personal vulnerability. Regardless, maintaining a professorship and co-directing a research centre dedicated to algorithmic life brings an absolute responsibility to utilise that visibility for a greater purpose. Privilege finds its greatest utility when deployed to show the hidden structural architectures that confine human agency. By transforming a secret, challenging reality into a rigorous framework for public analysis, this work bridges the gap between academic theory and systemic survival. Making these silent structures visible strips away their power, offering readers a place to reclaim their own communication, their own boundaries, and their own peace.

Yet, translating this ideal into daily practice requires an exhausting, often agonising endurance. For example, across diverse institutional environments - ranging from rigid corporate spaces to highly regimented domestic or organisational structures - physical proximity to unyielding actors mandates continuous contact. Within these shared spaces, interpersonal friction is a structural certainty that consistently tests an individual’s psychological reserves. Navigating a shared grid with a silent or dismissive counterpart requires an immense, ongoing expenditure of cognitive energy. Reclaiming your sense of safety under these conditions requires accepting the fragmented nature of diverging communication practices while navigating complex institutional minefields.

Final note: This analysis arises from recent policy adjustments within my own academic institution, which now stipulates that a standard Microsoft Outlook emoji reaction constitutes a formal, recognised reply to student email inquiries. While this adjustment optimises bureaucratic workflow, it simultaneously codifies a shift toward low-friction, flattened professional communication. Elevating an automated shortcut to the status of formal dialogue provides a timely case study in how modern platforms reshape the boundaries of human interaction. My personal thoughts above utilise this institutional pivot to explore the deeper, hidden architectures of containment, power, and algorithmic control that govern our shared spaces.

To extend the exploration of structural compression, neurodivergent semiotics, and the architectures of algorithmic control, consider the following reference points:

• Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men (NYRB Classics)

  Harpman’s dystopian masterpiece provides the vital blueprint for this essay. The text operates as a masterclass in psychological containment, exploring how individuals survive when subjected to total environmental opacity and structural isolation.

• The Theory of the Double Empathy Problem — Dr Damian Milton

  Milton’s foundational sociological framework challenges traditional deficit models of autistic communication. The theory maps the mutual breakdown in understanding that occurs when individuals with vastly different lifeworlds interact, beautifully contextualising the loud, asymmetric weight of the standardised digital interface.

• Autism and the ‘Double Empathy Problem’ (Open Access Repository)

  For readers seeking a deeper academic view, Milton’s original research explores how social realities are continuously constructed and contested, highlighting the structural power dynamics that often marginalise divergent communication practices.

• Have Algorithms Begun to Shape Our Collective Emotions? — Psychology Today 

  This critique analyses how contemporary digital architectures and automated interfaces actively narrow the human emotional commons, standardising our vocabulary and altering what communities recognise as genuine interpersonal engagement.

• The Emotional Labour Behind AI Intimacy — Data Workers’ Inquiry

  A profound investigation into the invisible expenditures of emotional energy within platform spaces, illustrating the sharp asymmetries between human vulnerability and the curated, opaque barriers of the digital ether.