Outrage is now a commodity, our attention a retail product for sale
An OPINION by Michael Stone, Andover NY
If you are using a free service from a private company that costs money to operate, you are not the customer. You are the product.
This is a common but apt aphorism. Some folks are shocked by the blunt nature of it, but there is nothing inherently good nor evil about it, it’s just the reality of many business models in today’s world of a seemingly endless ocean of content owners all vying for our eyeballs.
Lately, I’ve been wondering what it is of myself that I’m selling and if I should give it quite so easily. Ultimately, the asset for sale is our attention span, but there is a potentially greater price to be paid for how companies will attempt to grab it.
That most tried-and-true method is: outrage. Outrage is now a commodity, bought and sold, and is by a large margin the most successful tool that is employed in extracting our attention span so we’ll click one more article. Scroll down one more page. Leave one more comment. Engage, engage, engage. The more we engage, the more targeted advertising we can absorb even if we don’t realize it’s happening.
So we are given reasons to stay outraged. Politicians no longer provide counterpoints to their opponent colleagues; they now SLAM them or they DESTROY them. People no longer speak passionately; if their voices raise above 55 decibels, they now MELTDOWN or go NUCLEAR.
Representatives that speak in one-sentence soundbites of shocking vocabulary get all the press. Other politicians that attempt a well reasoned argument of a complicated topic, treating it with informed nuance will have their entire speech dismanted into the same type of one-sentence soundbites, only this time they can’t control the narrative and it can be twisted to support any argument, even if it runs counter to the speaker’s intention. The more someone speaks, no matter how intelligently, the easier it is to edit it into making them look foolish.
This narrative can then be discussed point/counterpoint to an exhaustive degree among pundits whose only job is to argue for the audience and maintain outrage. Oftentimes these arguments are as choreographed as professional entertainment wrestling, allowing the “right” person to win and the “wrong” person to flounder, depending on the political slant of the news organization or YouTube channel. A common trend lately in these segments is to not even bother having a “wrong” person be counterpoint and instead rely on one solo individual behind the microphone explaining what the other side intends and thinks (often with a downright cartoonish level of inaccuracy).
Now our outrage is validated and the opinion that we have been told is ours is proven the correct one. More engagement. More views. More comments. More minutes of eyeballs on the screen.
The problem is, the real world still exists and nuance is still out there. I disagree with many of my neighbors and fellow community members on a wide swath of political topics… but you know what I don’t do? I don’t SLAM them. I don’t MELTDDOWN or go NUCLEAR. And by and large, when stepping away from our screens, they don’t do that to me either. People that are as different from me as day is to night still smile and laugh and shake my hand with sincerity. If conversations get into choppier waters like politics I try to provide data and facts to support my argument, and when my neighbor is speaking, I am listening. Not “waiting for a pause so I can speak again”, but truly listening so I can absorb facts from their point of view and walk away from a conversation with a greater understanding of a topic. My mind may not get changed, but I appreciate gaining perspective and any day I can learn something new is a good day, indeed.
With outrage being a commodity and our attention spans being sold by the microsecond, we do ourselves a disservice by making that our whole world. More than that, we do our communities a disservice. It puts us in bubbles and echo chambers where the people that disagree with us are lunatics on the fringe of society and the people that agree with us are the “normal majority of sane Americans”. It turns us all into charicatures, our features distorted and skewed, and when it shapes how we see the real world away from our screens, it becomes downright dangerous.
What you choose to do with your screen time and deciding what content you wish to absorb is entirely your business. But I encourage everyone reading this to scrutinize just a little more and evaluate whether the seconds of your life that you are selling are going to the people that are reinforcing those skewed visuals of your neighbors. Should you let them keep you outraged for the sake of selling that next second of yours. And the next. And the next…. until hours or days or years have gone by before you realize it?
Perhaps it’s time to consider that the folks that are physically surrounding us in our communities, even the ones we disagree with politically, are largely good people that mean well and are just out here doing their best for the ones they love. When we see how much we have in common, it makes it a whole lot easier to rationally discuss our differences and gain new perspectives, build new bridges, and gain a mutual respect for each other.
As for me and what I’m willing to sell? My peace of mind is worth more than any company can afford… and my relationship with my neighbors is absolutely priceless.
Michael Stone is a resident of Andover, NY and running as an Independent for Andover Village Trustee.
