6 ms·

I've noticed this hilarious thing where within the left leaning media sphere, the only verbs that Ocasio-Cortez and to a lesser degree Bernie ever engage in is

by anm89 5y ago

I've noticed this hilarious thing where within the left leaning media sphere, the only verbs that Ocasio-Cortez and to a lesser degree Bernie ever engage in is "slamming". They don't eat, sleep, debate, propose, or discuss. They just slam 24/7. I googled her to verify the spelling on her name and the first headline was: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams the lack of diversity in an all-white group of lawmakers who drafted a bipartisan infrastructure deal"

handrous 5y ago
Not to "both sides" it, but... well, both sides do this in their reporting. Sometimes they also "own" or "destroy" someone. I don't think it's partisan. That kind of language gets clicks, so everyone's optimized for it.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I'm not so sure about it not being partisan. When I think of "own" in this context, it's mostly in relation to "owning the libs." I'm not sure if this particular usage is used mostly by left-leaning pols ironically, or right-leaning pols unironically, however.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    At least as far back as the Jon Stewart era of the Daily Show, there was nothing ironic about it. I believe "destroy" was the preferred nomenclature back then.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - handrous 5y ago
    It started out used seriously on right-wing YouTube and forums, but it probably is the case that right-wing use of it is now self-consciously imitating the parodic use of it by the left, so by now it's irony all the way down. [EDIT] downvoters: is this wrong? My perception was that "own" was originally (in a political context—its roots are in gaming, of course) used as a fairly ordinary headline/title intensifier to get more clicks, mostly on the right (for that particular word—everyone plays with language to get more clicks, of course), that parodic use on the left followed, and I'm guessing that its continued use on the right is with some awareness of the way it's been mocked on the left, so has likely changed the intent with which it's employed.
mjburgess 5y ago
Unlike, of course, the people slamming AOC for views. Ironically, illustrated by this comment.
rm999 5y ago
The funny thing is I've recently noticed the exact same phenomenon on conservative media. A few days ago there were 4 posts at the top of r/conservative about liberals being 'slammed' for something or the other (for the record I am an independent and watch that subreddit to better understand the issues that interest conservatives). Here's some recent 'slams' on that subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/search/?q=slam&sort=relevance&restrict_sr=on&t=week https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/search/?q=slam&sort=re...
- _jal 5y ago
  I'm sure there was a research report somewhere that showed .021% more engagement with 'Slams' headlines than competitive verbs or something. Headline writers run in packs, just like CEOs.
  - lancesells 5y ago
    I think it's sadly more about A/B testing run amok. Engagement rules, not sentiment.
Layke1123 5y ago
Is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex saying the world slam, or someone else? Don't get confused when someone makes a great point, versus someone trying to get political points. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Your bias is showing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
agloeregrets 5y ago
That's kinda also the reverse as well. AOC ran a well-ran campaign to win her place at the table in congress. Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a household name. Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a nobody in politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But republicans wanted a villain and boy did they make one. Beyond that, I kinda also think a critical bit in this is to understand that the headlines are not realistically a way to judge the actions of a politician because the politician is not the one actually writing them. Her job is to do her job and feed the marketing team the needed clips within. For the most part her daily life is reading memos and bills and voting. The PR team works like a marketing organization and they want to win in the same way AMD and Intel want to win, it's that simple. Hit the right notes while doing your job of working on the busywork of the job. It's mostly how Trump won 2016. Politics is marketing-based, not results-based.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I think this shows that going viral works the other way, too. Virality plus the adage that "any publicity is good publicity" can make this kind of a stunt backfire when there's an election at stake.
- slibhb 5y ago
  > Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a household name. No, she became a household name due to her ability to produce viral content (she's an influencer-politician) and the progressive media being in love with her. Some time after that, yes, the Republicans realized they'd rather run against AOC and "the squad" than Joe Biden so they did their best to pretend that was the case.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a nobody in politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But republicans wanted a villain and boy did they make one It’s mutually beneficial for them both, in the same way that rappers spend so much time beefing with each other. Controversy drives popularity, especially when each side’s followers made up their minds long ago about which side they’re on.
- deleted 5y ago
RicoElectrico 5y ago
An equivalent in Poland is "masakrować" (to massacre) - but this was popularized by followers of Janusz Korwin-Mikke (far-right). So both sides can be full of shit - and public discourse suffers. https://natemat.pl/103155,korwin-masakruje-czyli-o-politycznej-karierze-pewnego-slowa https://natemat.pl/103155,korwin-masakruje-czyli-o-polityczn...
0-_-0 5y ago
Hmm, let's try this in Google: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams": About 73,300 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez eats": About 109 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sleeps": 1 result "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debates": About 173 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes": About 5,880 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discusses": About 1,150 results Damn, you were right! Also surprised that AOC never sleeps.
- Clubber 5y ago
  >Also surprised that AOC never sleeps. Well, she slept once according to your results.
  - soperj 5y ago
    that result was actually referring to her never sleeping.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Unless you paged thru these and manually counted yourself, do not trust Google’s number of returned results. It’s effectively a random number generator. Source: I’ve worked for Google.
  - jakeva 5y ago
    Surely it's closer to an estimate than purely random?
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Do not use it for any comparisons. It is not what you think it is. It's largely there to impress you with how big Google is, and at this point, more historical inertia than anything else. Here's a bit of outside analysis that's fun to read: https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/
  - anm89 5y ago
    Of course it is not very rigorous but those results seem to indicate a pattern to the contrary.
mLuby 5y ago
Not specific to one faction. It's a local maximum, so all sides will adopt this strategy unless the environment or rules change. My 2¢ on why "slam" specifically: 1. It's a super short word, which matters in headlines and tweets. I think this is also why headlines will "quote" a word or two (the quotes are magic symbol to ward against libel). 2. Our monkey brains are aroused by violence and tribal warfare, even when that violence is described second-hand and is figurative. Aggressive verbs are certainly inflammatory, and certainly increases clicks and engagement (at the cost of societal cohesion and individual contentment). Mark my words—future headlines will be even more outrageous as we become inured to (and accepting of) the current patterns: "AOC Jr 'eviscerates' Will Clinton over proposed lunar sale to China." "Don Trump VI 'rapes' UN Fusion Program's budget to pay for July 4 parade."
chapium 5y ago
CNN is particularly guilty of this. Every other headline on their site is politician slams rival politician. Reporter slams rival reporter, etc.
david422 5y ago
I noticed it a while ago with this particular verb too. And ever since, it made me simply have an aversion to articles with these titles, and the news sources that use them. I wonder if there is a point of diminishing returns - engagement goes down on clickbait titles. Probably not since they are still doing it.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
Headlines generally are offenders here. Always using verbs that belong more to WWF wrestling that to politics.
bigbob2 5y ago
The verbage may have changed but this has been happening for a while and is certainly not limited to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. Article found from simple Google News archive search of "Pelosi" from 2004-2006: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/tauzin.pelosi/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/tauzin.pelosi/inde... Same thing but "Bill Frist" instead: https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell/ https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell... Sure, "rips" and "knocks" have been replaced with "slams" etc but it's the exact same tactic that has been used for at least a while. It would be interesting to see how far back this media behavior goes, which outlets are most culpable, and which "side of the aisle" these articles are mainly targeting, because I genuinely don't know.
CyanBird 5y ago
> They don't eat, sleep, debate, propose, or discuss. They just slam 24/7. Why are you attributing what they say, to what the media says they said? AOC didn't write that headline, a news editor did, for the explicit purpose of making you put attention to it
rdiddly 5y ago
Hot-damn, you just put your finger on why the whole thing is such a turn-off. It's just a big, lame, shallow show. Bags of hot air blowing at each other, for the clickbait value. And whether it's a media outlet characterizing something as "slamming" for the clicks, or the person speaking in a "slammy" way for the same reason, hardly makes a difference. The former dutifully serves the latter and the latter feeds the former. They're both just manipulating you. Or maybe, at best, someone through their Twitter account might be trying to display "who they are" (LOL!) by virtue of what they oppose, which seems like it would never work, and it doesn't. Not for that purpose. Look at the big picture and it's incredibly sad. Though almost laughably so if you zoom far enough out.

by anm89 5y ago

handrous 5y ago

Not to "both sides" it, but... well, both sides do this in their reporting. Sometimes they also "own" or "destroy" someone. I don't think it's partisan. That kind of language gets clicks, so everyone's optimized for it.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
I'm not so sure about it not being partisan. When I think of "own" in this context, it's mostly in relation to "owning the libs." I'm not sure if this particular usage is used mostly by left-leaning pols ironically, or right-leaning pols unironically, however.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  At least as far back as the Jon Stewart era of the Daily Show, there was nothing ironic about it. I believe "destroy" was the preferred nomenclature back then.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- handrous 5y ago
  It started out used seriously on right-wing YouTube and forums, but it probably is the case that right-wing use of it is now self-consciously imitating the parodic use of it by the left, so by now it's irony all the way down. [EDIT] downvoters: is this wrong? My perception was that "own" was originally (in a political context—its roots are in gaming, of course) used as a fairly ordinary headline/title intensifier to get more clicks, mostly on the right (for that particular word—everyone plays with language to get more clicks, of course), that parodic use on the left followed, and I'm guessing that its continued use on the right is with some awareness of the way it's been mocked on the left, so has likely changed the intent with which it's employed.

mjburgess 5y ago

Unlike, of course, the people slamming AOC for views. Ironically, illustrated by this comment.

rm999 5y ago

The funny thing is I've recently noticed the exact same phenomenon on conservative media. A few days ago there were 4 posts at the top of r/conservative about liberals being 'slammed' for something or the other (for the record I am an independent and watch that subreddit to better understand the issues that interest conservatives). Here's some recent 'slams' on that subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/search/?q=slam&sort=relevance&restrict_sr=on&t=week https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/search/?q=slam&sort=re...

_jal 5y ago
I'm sure there was a research report somewhere that showed .021% more engagement with 'Slams' headlines than competitive verbs or something. Headline writers run in packs, just like CEOs.
- lancesells 5y ago
  I think it's sadly more about A/B testing run amok. Engagement rules, not sentiment.

Layke1123 5y ago

Is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex saying the world slam, or someone else? Don't get confused when someone makes a great point, versus someone trying to get political points. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Your bias is showing.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

agloeregrets 5y ago

That's kinda also the reverse as well. AOC ran a well-ran campaign to win her place at the table in congress. Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a household name. Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a nobody in politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But republicans wanted a villain and boy did they make one. Beyond that, I kinda also think a critical bit in this is to understand that the headlines are not realistically a way to judge the actions of a politician because the politician is not the one actually writing them. Her job is to do her job and feed the marketing team the needed clips within. For the most part her daily life is reading memos and bills and voting. The PR team works like a marketing organization and they want to win in the same way AMD and Intel want to win, it's that simple. Hit the right notes while doing your job of working on the busywork of the job. It's mostly how Trump won 2016. Politics is marketing-based, not results-based.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
I think this shows that going viral works the other way, too. Virality plus the adage that "any publicity is good publicity" can make this kind of a stunt backfire when there's an election at stake.
slibhb 5y ago
> Republicans slamming her day-in and day-out made her a household name. No, she became a household name due to her ability to produce viral content (she's an influencer-politician) and the progressive media being in love with her. Some time after that, yes, the Republicans realized they'd rather run against AOC and "the squad" than Joe Biden so they did their best to pretend that was the case.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Like, AOC should be, (with no disrespect) basically a nobody in politics, she is a 1.2 term representative. But republicans wanted a villain and boy did they make one It’s mutually beneficial for them both, in the same way that rappers spend so much time beefing with each other. Controversy drives popularity, especially when each side’s followers made up their minds long ago about which side they’re on.
deleted 5y ago

RicoElectrico 5y ago

An equivalent in Poland is "masakrować" (to massacre) - but this was popularized by followers of Janusz Korwin-Mikke (far-right). So both sides can be full of shit - and public discourse suffers. https://natemat.pl/103155,korwin-masakruje-czyli-o-politycznej-karierze-pewnego-slowa https://natemat.pl/103155,korwin-masakruje-czyli-o-polityczn...

0-_-0 5y ago

Hmm, let's try this in Google: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams": About 73,300 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez eats": About 109 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sleeps": 1 result "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debates": About 173 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes": About 5,880 results "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discusses": About 1,150 results Damn, you were right! Also surprised that AOC never sleeps.

Clubber 5y ago
>Also surprised that AOC never sleeps. Well, she slept once according to your results.
- soperj 5y ago
  that result was actually referring to her never sleeping.
azinman2 5y ago
Unless you paged thru these and manually counted yourself, do not trust Google’s number of returned results. It’s effectively a random number generator. Source: I’ve worked for Google.
- jakeva 5y ago
  Surely it's closer to an estimate than purely random?
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Do not use it for any comparisons. It is not what you think it is. It's largely there to impress you with how big Google is, and at this point, more historical inertia than anything else. Here's a bit of outside analysis that's fun to read: https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/
- anm89 5y ago
  Of course it is not very rigorous but those results seem to indicate a pattern to the contrary.

mLuby 5y ago

Not specific to one faction. It's a local maximum, so all sides will adopt this strategy unless the environment or rules change. My 2¢ on why "slam" specifically: 1. It's a super short word, which matters in headlines and tweets. I think this is also why headlines will "quote" a word or two (the quotes are magic symbol to ward against libel). 2. Our monkey brains are aroused by violence and tribal warfare, even when that violence is described second-hand and is figurative. Aggressive verbs are certainly inflammatory, and certainly increases clicks and engagement (at the cost of societal cohesion and individual contentment). Mark my words—future headlines will be even more outrageous as we become inured to (and accepting of) the current patterns: "AOC Jr 'eviscerates' Will Clinton over proposed lunar sale to China." "Don Trump VI 'rapes' UN Fusion Program's budget to pay for July 4 parade."

chapium 5y ago

CNN is particularly guilty of this. Every other headline on their site is politician slams rival politician. Reporter slams rival reporter, etc.

david422 5y ago

I noticed it a while ago with this particular verb too. And ever since, it made me simply have an aversion to articles with these titles, and the news sources that use them. I wonder if there is a point of diminishing returns - engagement goes down on clickbait titles. Probably not since they are still doing it.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

Headlines generally are offenders here. Always using verbs that belong more to WWF wrestling that to politics.

bigbob2 5y ago

The verbage may have changed but this has been happening for a while and is certainly not limited to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. Article found from simple Google News archive search of "Pelosi" from 2004-2006: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/tauzin.pelosi/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/tauzin.pelosi/inde... Same thing but "Bill Frist" instead: https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell/ https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell... Sure, "rips" and "knocks" have been replaced with "slams" etc but it's the exact same tactic that has been used for at least a while. It would be interesting to see how far back this media behavior goes, which outlets are most culpable, and which "side of the aisle" these articles are mainly targeting, because I genuinely don't know.

CyanBird 5y ago

> They don't eat, sleep, debate, propose, or discuss. They just slam 24/7. Why are you attributing what they say, to what the media says they said? AOC didn't write that headline, a news editor did, for the explicit purpose of making you put attention to it

rdiddly 5y ago

Hot-damn, you just put your finger on why the whole thing is such a turn-off. It's just a big, lame, shallow show. Bags of hot air blowing at each other, for the clickbait value. And whether it's a media outlet characterizing something as "slamming" for the clicks, or the person speaking in a "slammy" way for the same reason, hardly makes a difference. The former dutifully serves the latter and the latter feeds the former. They're both just manipulating you. Or maybe, at best, someone through their Twitter account might be trying to display "who they are" (LOL!) by virtue of what they oppose, which seems like it would never work, and it doesn't. Not for that purpose. Look at the big picture and it's incredibly sad. Though almost laughably so if you zoom far enough out.