Outrage is The Language of Mass Media And The Internet
Okay, maybe including the whole internet is a little far fetched. Or maybe not. Did that title get you to click the link to read this post? If so, then that probably proves my point.
I can't believe I didn't see this before in sports news. I've recently just realized that outrage is the primary tactic used by sports news to grab viewer's attention. Sports news anchors and commentators would praise a player because of his great, epic, legendary performance in one game. Then when the player or his team loses the next game, they proceed to do a methodological beat-down of how bad the player and his team was. It's like all of a sudden, they forgot all the good things they said about him in the previous game.
Why do they have to do this? They have to do this to get your attention. They have to do this to make it news worthy. They have to blow up something small, and at times inconsequential, to make it a headline. They have to cause outrage, because otherwise no one would tune in, no one would pay attention.
Slight tangent over here. If you're following sports in Instagram, check out the Explore tab. Actually, don't. It is festered with toxic attention grabbing content. And the comments are even worse.
Who is the GOAT? MJ or Lebron? I'd argue it is MJ. But you know what? Nobody online cares, because everyone else thinks they are right and you are wrong.
Why people are wasting their time on there, debating with some randos on internet, I don't know. Same thing happens on Twitter and Facebook. It is truly a waste of time.
You see this tactic used online, but mostly in social media and in news. But now, it even shows up in blog posts. Case in point, this blog post you are reading now.
Outrage is a tactic content creators use to get them eyeballs and attention. But once you realize that, once you realize that it is all a facade, the thin veil covering up all these new, outrageous, must read content, fades away. And then you see it for what it really is, an attempt to grab your attention.
Everywhere I look online, there is someone outraged about some thing. It's toxic. It causes this kind of toxicity where you know you probably shouldn't click that link, but that title, that headline, damn it's so outrageous, you just have to take a look at it. And then you do and you find out you just wasted your time on trash.
This is an appeal to the content creators out there. Stop using outrage to produce content just to get eyeballs and attention. Start producing useful, insightful, valuable content that can help make people's lives better.