4 ms·

I used blame twitter for creating at outrage culture. But then I realized I had it backwards. There have always been people who find it fun to vent outrage, mo

I used blame twitter for creating at outrage culture. But then I realized I had it backwards. There have always been people who find it fun to vent outrage, moral indignity, and condescension. They just got it from TV blowhards before.

kristianc 7y ago
You had it right the first time, I think. There have always been those things, but then Twitter gave them a place to coalesce and then kept adding features like like metrics and quote tweeting that made all of those behaviors easier in the name of 'engagement' and VC metrics.
fullshark 7y ago
Agreed. News junkies aren’t after the truth / meaningful debate. They are after confirmation bias and seeing people they hate get rekt.
- asdff 7y ago
  Headline junkies more like. Nearly every linked article reddit thread has a comment along the lines of "No one read the article." Twitter is even worse about this.
int_19h 7y ago
TV was one-way - at most, you could "reshare" what you heard with friends or colleagues, with a very limited bandwidth and a more considerable effort. Today, we have created tech that makes it easy and convenient. If you look at practically all social networks, they're essentially optimized for outrage gossip. The human part of that equation is much more difficult to change - as social primates, we have this moral outrage thing hardwired to some extent. But why do we deliberately encourage it? (For profit, of course.)
asdff 7y ago
Social media offered everyone the megaphone and now everyone feels obligated to reiterate their own copycat opinion as a result. People can't even read longform anymore. Share an informative NYT article to someone, and they will complain about the wall of text despite it being a 5 min read that gives you much more nuance to an issue than 280 characters ever could. Signal to noise has never been lower on the internet.
tyfon 7y ago
It's like giving everyone a spot here at the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner

kristianc 7y ago

You had it right the first time, I think. There have always been those things, but then Twitter gave them a place to coalesce and then kept adding features like like metrics and quote tweeting that made all of those behaviors easier in the name of 'engagement' and VC metrics.

fullshark 7y ago

Agreed. News junkies aren’t after the truth / meaningful debate. They are after confirmation bias and seeing people they hate get rekt.

asdff 7y ago
Headline junkies more like. Nearly every linked article reddit thread has a comment along the lines of "No one read the article." Twitter is even worse about this.

int_19h 7y ago

TV was one-way - at most, you could "reshare" what you heard with friends or colleagues, with a very limited bandwidth and a more considerable effort. Today, we have created tech that makes it easy and convenient. If you look at practically all social networks, they're essentially optimized for outrage gossip. The human part of that equation is much more difficult to change - as social primates, we have this moral outrage thing hardwired to some extent. But why do we deliberately encourage it? (For profit, of course.)

asdff 7y ago

Social media offered everyone the megaphone and now everyone feels obligated to reiterate their own copycat opinion as a result. People can't even read longform anymore. Share an informative NYT article to someone, and they will complain about the wall of text despite it being a 5 min read that gives you much more nuance to an issue than 280 characters ever could. Signal to noise has never been lower on the internet.

tyfon 7y ago

It's like giving everyone a spot here at the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner