Speaking the Unspeakable: What Holds Us Back from Sharing?

Viral memes spread fast, but dormant memes reveal hidden pressures.

Reviewed by Lybi Ma

Key points

• Viral memes spread by tapping into emotions and social norms, making them easily shareable across networks.
• Dormant memes remain hidden due to social pressures, self-censorship, or conflict with dominant ideas.
• The "spiral of silence" explains how minority opinions stay suppressed while dominant views gain traction.
• Reflecting on what we don’t say can reveal important social boundaries and hidden group pressures.

Some things are instantly shareable. We see them, and we just know who will appreciate them. They may be beautiful, hilarious, shocking, or thought-provoking, but they come with an instant desire to share them with others. It’s a social reflex.

We instinctively sense how others in our circle will react, especially within tight-knit groups. Sharing isn’t random; it’s shaped by our cultural and social awareness, tapping into our social knowledge of the people around us.

But the same set of rules around information sharing also determine what is unspeakable. While certain concepts spread like wildfire, others stay locked away, quietly self-censoring, because they clash with our own ideas or wider social perceptions about what is to remain unsaid.

Cultural Information as Measurable Units

Cultural information moves through social networks in observable and measurable ways. Much of the internet is social, so we can easily track how units of information spread. Virality is difficult to predict, but it is not random. Information has specific properties that determine how it moves between people and across networks.

Network analysis helps us understand how ideas spread across populations, especially in digital spaces where much of our communication takes place. By tracking information flow we can see why some ideas and memes go viral. Often, viral content taps into strong nonverbal cues, like emotions or vivid imagery, making it easy for people to connect with and share. For instance, a meme with a recognizable character and a distinct facial expression can instantly convey humor or outrage, requiring little to no explanation.

Why Do People Self-Censor?

Not all ideas spread. Some stay locked in our minds, unshared. These are dormant memes—information that exists but remains hidden due to perceived social pressures, personal barriers, or an inability to connect an isolated thought with a way of clearly expressing it to others.

Research investigating self-censoring on social media reveals that people often write posts they never publish or delete shortly after posting. This self-censorship happens to avoid conflict, maintain group harmony, or protect a desired self-image. (“I don’t post that kind of thing” or “I don’t want to look silly.”)

These unspeakable units of information raise an interesting question: How do we study and understand information that doesn’t spread? While viral ideas are easily tracked across networks, the ideas people suppress or keep to themselves are much harder to quantify. But hidden ideas matter.

Understanding information in the context of what people love to share and choose not to share helps us understand ourselves better concerning our wider social environment. It reveals the (often unspoken) pressures of maintaining harmony and cooperation across social groups and the invisible lines people aren’t willing to cross.

Being part of a functional group always involves sacrificing some of one’s opinions or having none worth sacrificing.

The Spiral of Silence

The Spiral of Silence was introduced by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and describes how people gauge the social acceptability of their opinions. According to the theory, if individuals feel their views clash with dominant opinions, they tend to self-censor. Two key factors drive this:

1. Whether a person believes their opinion is widely shared; and
2. Whether that person thinks the opinion will be more widespread in the future.

When people perceive themselves as part of a minority opinion (especially a shrinking minority opinion), they are more likely to remain silent, which in turn perpetuates the public perception that the view is unpopular, further reinforcing the silence.

Whereas the reverse is also true: when people sense the generally prevailing attitudes are shifting, they are far more likely to voice opinions they previously would have been silent about.

Further research investigating this idea finds there are more factors at play. The attitudes of our immediate social circle of friends and close family tend to be more important than wider public opinion. Individual differences play a role too: some people are more inclined towards sharing contrarian views, and people with higher status positions tend to be more willing to share unpopular opinions. This explains why some individuals enthusiastically express views that sharply diverge from the prevailing public opinion. Their views often align with their close, personal networks.

Recent research suggests that the more widely information is dispersed, the more likely people are to self-censor. When posting on public social media platforms, people are highly attuned to how their words will be received by a broad audience, leading them to avoid controversial or sensitive topics. In more private or secure communication settings, like encrypted messaging apps, people feel freer to say what they feel is unsayable to a wider audience.

When the Dam Bursts

This dynamic can be seen in breaking scandals like cases of prolific sexual abuse or cases of systemic corruption. Often, many people hold onto the same information but stay silent, fearing backlash or disrupting the social order. These ideas tend to remain dormant until individuals sense a shift in public opinion. What was once dormant can now be connected to a wider social or cultural trend, potentially indicating that society is ready to acknowledge and discuss something that was previously unspeakable.

Once the tide turns, people still need significant courage to speak up, though social support helps. As more individuals feel comfortable discussing what was once unsayable, the general perceptions of the topic may start to shift. When the information enters public forums, it gains momentum as others recognize the same patterns and feel emboldened to join in, turning what was once unspeakable into a shared, open discussion.

Examining What’s Left Unsaid

Understanding both viral and unspeakable ideas gives us a fuller picture of cultural information. Viral content is easy to track, but dormant memes also reveal the social pressures that shape how we process and share information.

There’s very practical advice here. We’re often told to think critically about what we share and to think about the intentions behind viral content, but it’s equally important to reflect on what we feel we cannot say. Why is something unspeakable? What group dynamics or personal situation would the idea disrupt? What makes the information discordant with your sense of self?

Of course, not everything private needs to be shared. Information like passwords, medical records, and personal confidences should remain private. Malicious and untrue gossip, when overheard, does not need to be shared widely. But it is worth reflecting on what we automatically keep silent and why.

Social networks are shaped and held together as much by what’s said as by what remains unsaid.