Riding the Coattails of Outrage

On carving a place in the sun at the heart of internet shitstorms, second-hand outrage, and attention whoring.

Congratulations on having an opinion!

But is it really yours?

Thanks to the internet, punditry has become a democratic pursuit and a modus operandi for the self-righteous, those instant opinionators clamoring that not being outraged means not paying attention.

For anyone using social media, it is impossible not to pay attention.

Or rather, it is impossible not to spectate — willingly or not — the trials and misfortunes of celebrities, the gross miscarriages of justice, the nonsensical politicking… and, by association, the desperate attention-seeking gushing forth from the keyboards that immediately appropriate whatever controversial news item is raking in the most page views on any given day.

So everyone is up in arms about that thing, uh?

Guess I’ll be up in arms about it too then, only louder and more obnoxiously than anybody else, look at me!

Nothing sets the internet ablaze like outrage, and for the mere price of an opinion — preferably foul-mouthed — all those page views and irate comments can be yours, too.

Part of the appeal of social media is discovery, and no matter how diligent the follows, the +1s, and the likes, unwanted stuff always filters through. When that happens, curiosity often means gawking rather than looking away.

Ergo, there’s no escaping parasitic outrage

It doesn’t even matter who you are nor what you say anymore but how loud and how outrageously you say it, collateral damage be damned even when the entities being written about turn out to be, well, people.

With — gasp — feelings.

And let’s face it, unless the entity in question is either an inanimate object or made of very sturdy stuff, or both — like a brick outhouse — then the writing is always about people.

People being written about by people, people using other people as a vehicle for their own self-aggrandizing purposes is not a novel concept, to be sure, but the internet has made it so that common courtesy has all but vanished.

Goodbye civility!

Goodbye manners! Goodbye antiquated values, lest readers should dare question the writer’s liberal/radical credentials, superior intelligence, and discernment.

Cue fucking angry copy (ouch!), fucking angry social media (ow!), fucking angry readers (argh!) with fucking angry high blood pressure (groan!).

Seriously though, please pardon my French. And any offense my apology might unwittingly cause to French people. Please put down your pitchforks messieurs dames, it’s just a figure of speech, oh la la.

Seriously seriously though, how original is this whole ‘riding the coattails of outrage’ routine?

How does rehashing someone else’s anger advance the global conversation?

If you would like my attention then let me hear your voice

Let me feel something other than that overwhelming and yawn-inducing, vague sensation of déjà vu.

Surprise me with original thinking, not creative insults.

Better still, engage me in the *one* way I am powerless to resist.

Make me laugh.

How simple is that?