Outrage is only useful if it leads to accountability and consequences for bad action.
Boebert and MTG have a very good sense of what their base likes and dislikes. They may frequently cross lines of decency, but they don’t cross any of their base’s lines. As such, outrage just gives them free publicity and makes them more popular with their people and nudges the perception of norms towards them. These people need to be starved of attention. Don’t feed trolls!
But nowadays outrage is just currency. It drives our news, our conversations, our parasocial relationships, our politics…outrage is being used to drive the fucking economy in some ways. So there is no more outrage leading to action, because we have been overloaded with fake outrage and trained to see it as normal.
Outrage is only useful if it leads to accountability and consequences for bad action.
Boebert and MTG have a very good sense of what their base likes and dislikes. They may frequently cross lines of decency, but they don’t cross any of their base’s lines. As such, outrage just gives them free publicity and makes them more popular with their people and nudges the perception of norms towards them. These people need to be starved of attention. Don’t feed trolls!
But nowadays outrage is just currency. It drives our news, our conversations, our parasocial relationships, our politics…outrage is being used to drive the fucking economy in some ways. So there is no more outrage leading to action, because we have been overloaded with fake outrage and trained to see it as normal.
The zone has been thoroughly flooded.