7 ms·

Clicking Their Way to Outrage

49 points by rpm4321 12y ago

RodericDay 12y ago
There may be some truth to this, but it also panders to the reactionary HN userbase perfectly with its promotion of the stereotype of the inauthentic social justice warrior. I'd say that the most popularly held belief around these parts is a Panglossian "this is the best of all possible worlds" mindset, in which promoters of self-contentedness like Steven Pinker are hailed as clear-sighted heroes. Anyone complaining about basically anything then becomes a maladapted pest- we are all self-interested, the HNer believes, so those who openly claim to be outraged on behalf of what is happening to others are just looking for something to get upset about. It goes hand in with this romanticized view of what a "real" activist does: >> Ultimately, Internet outrage is the milquetoast cousin to direct action, a way to protest by tapping and clicking rather than boycotting and marching. It is a noble endeavor to become incensed about a cause and risk arrest or toil without acclamation for one’s deeply held beliefs. Less honorable is joining a digital pile-on as a means of propping up one’s ego, even if it comes in the form of entertaining zings. Although social justice is always an uphill struggle against the entrenched power, apathetic bystanders request again and again that its advocates handicap themselves- no social media, no having fun, no heroes, toil in silence else you're doing it for ego. It's a very religious attitude in many ways- if you're doing something that is righteous, you need to suffer for it, for reaching the objective is its own reward.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  There may be some truth to this, but it also panders to the reactionary HN userbase perfectly with its promotion of the stereotype of the inauthentic social justice warrior. Social justice warriors are inauthentic by their very definition, as opposed to social justice activists. That and no one needs to promote the stereotype, they do a fine job of it themselves. no social media, no having fun, no heroes, toil in silence else you're doing it for ego The difference is that social justice warriors most of the time are predominant or exclusive in those dominions. They're unproductive and sometimes even actively harmful to their own respective moments, as they are essentially all living and breathing straw men. It's a very religious attitude in many ways- if you're doing something that is righteous, you need to suffer for it, for reaching the objective is its own reward. There's nothing righteous about what they do. It's narcissistic and self-indulgent.
jqm 12y ago
The internet may demonstrate this at an accelerated level but books and newspapers and especially talk radio have been manufacturing outrage for years and people have been lapping it up... I'm reminded from a scene from the movie "American Beauty". Colonel Frank Fitts is reading the newspaper with a disgusted look and comments "This country is going straight to hell!". And I'm guessing we have all seen people like this. They can't wait to read the news and become outraged.
chippy 12y ago
I am reminded by the Twitter outrage of the news that a very popular demonstration in central London was not covered by the mainstream media. Most of those RT and commenting didn't go on the demo...
guelo 12y ago
Mass outrage is one of the few remaining tools useful for keeping the powerful in check. I say, more anger please. If you are not angry you are not paying attention.
- aikah 12y ago
  It's easy to direct and manipulate outrage. Just look at the dailymail homepage.People getting angry at meaningless stuff. The way the powerfull keep us in check is by saturating our brains with "fake news" and propaguanda.
- meowface 12y ago
  It's also one of the most effective ways to get the powerless to do what the powerful want. Outrage has been used by demagogues of all kinds since the start of human history.
- cafard 12y ago
  Yep. Look at how much better things have got since Zucotti Park.
detcader 12y ago
This piece is a textbook example of snark [1] and I invite anyone to convince me its usefulness. [1] http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html
spindritf 12y ago
I'm pretty sure that the rage generally pre-dates the purported reason for outrage. People have this free floating feeling of anger and dissatisfaction and after encountering something they disagree with rationalize that it was the cause. At least that's what I choose to believe because the alternative is that large swaths of the population are completely insane and erupt over random comments on the Internet.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- gress 12y ago
  What's the difference between carrying around free-floating rage and being completely insane?
  - cafard 12y ago
    The degree of control, over the frequency and intensity of expression.
  - spindritf 12y ago
    You can have a good reason to be angry and just not realise it consciously, or not be able to point it out. Not great but doesn't make you insane.
    - gress 12y ago
      Sure, but can't you say the same about any apparently irrational behavior?
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    It's the difference between yelling at innocent people in an uncoordinated and sporadic way, and attacking them with heavy weaponry because you believe they're Satan.
    - gress 12y ago
dictum 12y ago
This is often caused or intensified by the need for validation and social proof. Many of the people who get mad at things on the Internet imply that those who don't get mad are complacent with the issue. You'll see this often on Twitter and any social network or message board: "If you're not [denouncing X] you're [against us/on X's side]"
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  You'll see this often on Twitter and any social network or message board: "If you're not [denouncing X] you're [against us/on X's side]" It's interesting that even HN isn't immune to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971709 I wonder if it's human nature to try to shame those who are on the opposite side of an ideological line?
bruceb 12y ago
This is the plague of facebook, friends posting a story with an inflammatory headline that often is more complicated when you read the details... but few do. Curse you Gawker.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  Last year I realized something and then felt stupid for not picking up on it sooner. Gawker Media is exactly what would happen if Fox News launched a new brand with the same tactics targeting a younger, online, more liberal demographic.
  - judk 12y ago
    Actually, that's MoveOn.org/Upworthy. Gawker is just a generalized family of gossip rags.
jp_sc 12y ago
So any tweet supporting gay marriage, like those from @rickygervais, are "less healthily", and a "maladaptive" way to express anger? I don't think so.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  You're commenting on a social network in a conversation about outrage on social media. Lets not kill all context just to find a way to snipe a minor point by both purposefully misreading the tweet and acting as if two pieces of the Times article separated by three paragraphs were said in the same breath. Gervais saying "Privilege would be something like gay people not paying taxes. Like churches don’t." is not ANY tweet supporting gay marriage. It's a particular kind of tweet supporting gay marriage, one that made my internal monologue say "ooohh shots fired!" I can simultaneously support the sentiment and tell you exactly why this would rile up some of my family members living in The South.
bsg75 12y ago
See also "manufactured outrage", "attack poodle", and "outrage porn" [1] [1] http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/ http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-pe...
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I like to refer to the consumers of such content, outrage junkies
jamesmiller5 12y ago
It's compounded when we realize people have strong emotional reactions to an issue not because of the issue itself but because of what the issue represents to them. For example, even if I have a perfect record calling my parents when out late for almost a year, my parents may get irrationally angry when I forget for the first time. Upon agruing its revealed that they really are uncomfortable that I'm leaving for college and won't have to call as much anymore. I often see this on the internet and in real life, people disliking others not because of their actions per se but because of what that person's actions represent to the disliker. (edit: grammar)
yummyfajitas 12y ago
Something I'm curious about. Most of the internet rage I tend to become aware of is generated by social justice warriors. I ran into them myself a couple of weeks ago - angry, but unable to clearly express why: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/equal_weights.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/equal_weights.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7945058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7945058 The article here provides a similar set of examples. The only example I can think of that doesn't fit this pattern is "dog poo girl" from Korea ( http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dog-poo-girl http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dog-poo-girl ). Does this anecdotal correlation reflect a trend, or is it merely the result of filtering and me being in the wrong circles? Data on this would be pretty awesome.
- chippy 12y ago
  Offendedness and rage as a mechanism to feel belonging and community? One of the things that I an curious about a certain infamous image board is the "troll as artform" idea. It encourages the user to wonder whether the other person is actually angry, pretending to be angry, intentionally provoking anger in others, or doing a combination to see what happens.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    Euphoria and celebration also serve as mechanisms to feel belonging and community. This seems like the other side of the same coin. Look over your facebook or twitter feed whenever some significant event happens -- the Hobby Lobby court decision, a vote on same-sex marriage, even a sporting event. People will, for the most part, divide into camps of rage or euphoria. There's very little recognition of the validity of other points of view, very rarely mixed feelings, and often rejection of any facts that might potentially support another conclusion. In my experience, those who express any sort of nuance or recognition of key points from multiple sides tend to be treated disrespectfully (not merely argued with, but mocked, insulted, unfriended, stuff like that.) It's as if everyone has been taught to act like an extremist troll in order to avoid the ire of extremist trolls.
- danso 12y ago
  Excerpt from the post that apparently attracted the "social justice warriors": > I'm currently dating two lovely women, Svetlana and Elise. Unfortunately continuing to date both of them is unsustainable so I must choose one. In order to make such a choice, I wish to construct a ranking function - a function which takes as input the characteristics of a woman and returns as output a single number. This ranking function is meant to approximate my utility function - a higher number means that by making this choice I will be happier. If the ranking closely approximates utility, then I can use the ranking function as an effective decisionmaking tool. In concrete terms, I want to build a function f:Women→ℝ which approximately predicts my happiness. If f(Svetlana)>f(Elise) I will choose Svetlana, and vice versa if the reverse inequality holds. Yeah I don't think readers who disliked your choice of "models" necessarily count as "social justice warriors." I figured the post itself was just meant to troll people in an attempt to show how superior your powers of logic and math were.
ttctciyf 12y ago
Not wanting to stir up any ill-founded outrage, or anything (honest!) but there's an interesting tangent on this, as well as a nice bit of descriptive phraseology, in the recent Pando piece on the fake Cuban twitter project: http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/ http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-t...
pcl 12y ago
In case anyone from nyt is here, a bug report: on the mobile version of the page (iPhone 5 / Chrome), most of the "show full article" button happens to be directly on top of a link, and the JS seems to allow the tap action to pass through to the link. So unless I tap on the right or left sides of the "show full article" button (under which there is no occluded link), I keep getting sent off to the cited paper.
- nytanon 12y ago
  Noted. Thanks.

49 points by rpm4321 12y ago

There may be some truth to this, but it also panders to the reactionary HN userbase perfectly with its promotion of the stereotype of the inauthentic social justice warrior. I'd say that the most popularly held belief around these parts is a Panglossian "this is the best of all possible worlds" mindset, in which promoters of self-contentedness like Steven Pinker are hailed as clear-sighted heroes. Anyone complaining about basically anything then becomes a maladapted pest- we are all self-interested, the HNer believes, so those who openly claim to be outraged on behalf of what is happening to others are just looking for something to get upset about. It goes hand in with this romanticized view of what a "real" activist does: >> Ultimately, Internet outrage is the milquetoast cousin to direct action, a way to protest by tapping and clicking rather than boycotting and marching. It is a noble endeavor to become incensed about a cause and risk arrest or toil without acclamation for one’s deeply held beliefs. Less honorable is joining a digital pile-on as a means of propping up one’s ego, even if it comes in the form of entertaining zings. Although social justice is always an uphill struggle against the entrenched power, apathetic bystanders request again and again that its advocates handicap themselves- no social media, no having fun, no heroes, toil in silence else you're doing it for ego. It's a very religious attitude in many ways- if you're doing something that is righteous, you need to suffer for it, for reaching the objective is its own reward.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
There may be some truth to this, but it also panders to the reactionary HN userbase perfectly with its promotion of the stereotype of the inauthentic social justice warrior. Social justice warriors are inauthentic by their very definition, as opposed to social justice activists. That and no one needs to promote the stereotype, they do a fine job of it themselves. no social media, no having fun, no heroes, toil in silence else you're doing it for ego The difference is that social justice warriors most of the time are predominant or exclusive in those dominions. They're unproductive and sometimes even actively harmful to their own respective moments, as they are essentially all living and breathing straw men. It's a very religious attitude in many ways- if you're doing something that is righteous, you need to suffer for it, for reaching the objective is its own reward. There's nothing righteous about what they do. It's narcissistic and self-indulgent.

jqm 12y ago

The internet may demonstrate this at an accelerated level but books and newspapers and especially talk radio have been manufacturing outrage for years and people have been lapping it up... I'm reminded from a scene from the movie "American Beauty". Colonel Frank Fitts is reading the newspaper with a disgusted look and comments "This country is going straight to hell!". And I'm guessing we have all seen people like this. They can't wait to read the news and become outraged.

chippy 12y ago

I am reminded by the Twitter outrage of the news that a very popular demonstration in central London was not covered by the mainstream media. Most of those RT and commenting didn't go on the demo...

guelo 12y ago

Mass outrage is one of the few remaining tools useful for keeping the powerful in check. I say, more anger please. If you are not angry you are not paying attention.

aikah 12y ago
It's easy to direct and manipulate outrage. Just look at the dailymail homepage.People getting angry at meaningless stuff. The way the powerfull keep us in check is by saturating our brains with "fake news" and propaguanda.
meowface 12y ago
It's also one of the most effective ways to get the powerless to do what the powerful want. Outrage has been used by demagogues of all kinds since the start of human history.
cafard 12y ago
Yep. Look at how much better things have got since Zucotti Park.

detcader 12y ago

This piece is a textbook example of snark [1] and I invite anyone to convince me its usefulness. [1] http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html

spindritf 12y ago

I'm pretty sure that the rage generally pre-dates the purported reason for outrage. People have this free floating feeling of anger and dissatisfaction and after encountering something they disagree with rationalize that it was the cause. At least that's what I choose to believe because the alternative is that large swaths of the population are completely insane and erupt over random comments on the Internet.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gress 12y ago
What's the difference between carrying around free-floating rage and being completely insane?
- cafard 12y ago
  The degree of control, over the frequency and intensity of expression.
- spindritf 12y ago
  You can have a good reason to be angry and just not realise it consciously, or not be able to point it out. Not great but doesn't make you insane.
  - gress 12y ago
    Sure, but can't you say the same about any apparently irrational behavior?
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  It's the difference between yelling at innocent people in an uncoordinated and sporadic way, and attacking them with heavy weaponry because you believe they're Satan.
  - gress 12y ago

dictum 12y ago

This is often caused or intensified by the need for validation and social proof. Many of the people who get mad at things on the Internet imply that those who don't get mad are complacent with the issue. You'll see this often on Twitter and any social network or message board: "If you're not [denouncing X] you're [against us/on X's side]"

sillysaurus3 12y ago
You'll see this often on Twitter and any social network or message board: "If you're not [denouncing X] you're [against us/on X's side]" It's interesting that even HN isn't immune to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971709 I wonder if it's human nature to try to shame those who are on the opposite side of an ideological line?

bruceb 12y ago

This is the plague of facebook, friends posting a story with an inflammatory headline that often is more complicated when you read the details... but few do. Curse you Gawker.

forgottenpass 12y ago
Last year I realized something and then felt stupid for not picking up on it sooner. Gawker Media is exactly what would happen if Fox News launched a new brand with the same tactics targeting a younger, online, more liberal demographic.
- judk 12y ago
  Actually, that's MoveOn.org/Upworthy. Gawker is just a generalized family of gossip rags.

jp_sc 12y ago

So any tweet supporting gay marriage, like those from @rickygervais, are "less healthily", and a "maladaptive" way to express anger? I don't think so.

forgottenpass 12y ago
You're commenting on a social network in a conversation about outrage on social media. Lets not kill all context just to find a way to snipe a minor point by both purposefully misreading the tweet and acting as if two pieces of the Times article separated by three paragraphs were said in the same breath. Gervais saying "Privilege would be something like gay people not paying taxes. Like churches don’t." is not ANY tweet supporting gay marriage. It's a particular kind of tweet supporting gay marriage, one that made my internal monologue say "ooohh shots fired!" I can simultaneously support the sentiment and tell you exactly why this would rile up some of my family members living in The South.

bsg75 12y ago

See also "manufactured outrage", "attack poodle", and "outrage porn" [1] [1] http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/ http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-pe...

sliverstorm 12y ago
I like to refer to the consumers of such content, outrage junkies

jamesmiller5 12y ago

It's compounded when we realize people have strong emotional reactions to an issue not because of the issue itself but because of what the issue represents to them. For example, even if I have a perfect record calling my parents when out late for almost a year, my parents may get irrationally angry when I forget for the first time. Upon agruing its revealed that they really are uncomfortable that I'm leaving for college and won't have to call as much anymore. I often see this on the internet and in real life, people disliking others not because of their actions per se but because of what that person's actions represent to the disliker. (edit: grammar)

yummyfajitas 12y ago

Something I'm curious about. Most of the internet rage I tend to become aware of is generated by social justice warriors. I ran into them myself a couple of weeks ago - angry, but unable to clearly express why: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/equal_weights.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/equal_weights.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7945058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7945058 The article here provides a similar set of examples. The only example I can think of that doesn't fit this pattern is "dog poo girl" from Korea ( http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dog-poo-girl http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dog-poo-girl ). Does this anecdotal correlation reflect a trend, or is it merely the result of filtering and me being in the wrong circles? Data on this would be pretty awesome.

chippy 12y ago
Offendedness and rage as a mechanism to feel belonging and community? One of the things that I an curious about a certain infamous image board is the "troll as artform" idea. It encourages the user to wonder whether the other person is actually angry, pretending to be angry, intentionally provoking anger in others, or doing a combination to see what happens.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  Euphoria and celebration also serve as mechanisms to feel belonging and community. This seems like the other side of the same coin. Look over your facebook or twitter feed whenever some significant event happens -- the Hobby Lobby court decision, a vote on same-sex marriage, even a sporting event. People will, for the most part, divide into camps of rage or euphoria. There's very little recognition of the validity of other points of view, very rarely mixed feelings, and often rejection of any facts that might potentially support another conclusion. In my experience, those who express any sort of nuance or recognition of key points from multiple sides tend to be treated disrespectfully (not merely argued with, but mocked, insulted, unfriended, stuff like that.) It's as if everyone has been taught to act like an extremist troll in order to avoid the ire of extremist trolls.
danso 12y ago
Excerpt from the post that apparently attracted the "social justice warriors": > I'm currently dating two lovely women, Svetlana and Elise. Unfortunately continuing to date both of them is unsustainable so I must choose one. In order to make such a choice, I wish to construct a ranking function - a function which takes as input the characteristics of a woman and returns as output a single number. This ranking function is meant to approximate my utility function - a higher number means that by making this choice I will be happier. If the ranking closely approximates utility, then I can use the ranking function as an effective decisionmaking tool. In concrete terms, I want to build a function f:Women→ℝ which approximately predicts my happiness. If f(Svetlana)>f(Elise) I will choose Svetlana, and vice versa if the reverse inequality holds. Yeah I don't think readers who disliked your choice of "models" necessarily count as "social justice warriors." I figured the post itself was just meant to troll people in an attempt to show how superior your powers of logic and math were.

ttctciyf 12y ago

Not wanting to stir up any ill-founded outrage, or anything (honest!) but there's an interesting tangent on this, as well as a nice bit of descriptive phraseology, in the recent Pando piece on the fake Cuban twitter project: http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/ http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-t...

pcl 12y ago

In case anyone from nyt is here, a bug report: on the mobile version of the page (iPhone 5 / Chrome), most of the "show full article" button happens to be directly on top of a link, and the JS seems to allow the tap action to pass through to the link. So unless I tap on the right or left sides of the "show full article" button (under which there is no occluded link), I keep getting sent off to the cited paper.

nytanon 12y ago
Noted. Thanks.