
Clicking Their Way to Outrage - rpm4321
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/fashion/social-media-some-susceptible-to-internet-outrage.html
======
RodericDay
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
_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.

------
dictum
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
_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?

------
bsg75
See also "manufactured outrage", "attack poodle", and "outrage porn" [1]

[1] [http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-
pe...](http://betabeat.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-
indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/)

~~~
sliverstorm
I like to refer to the consumers of such content, outrage junkies

------
jamesmiller5
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)

------
spindritf
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.

~~~
gress
What's the difference between carrying around free-floating rage and being
completely insane?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
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
Yelling at in innocent person means you are acting out of a delusion of some
kind, so it sounds as though you are saying it's only a matter of degree.

~~~
verbin217
Not necessarily, maybe I just like yelling at people. I needn't believe
anything false for that to be true.

~~~
gress
If you say so, but from the outside this would be indistinguishable. Someone
could attack with heavy artillery while shouting 'death to satan' because they
like pretending to be a Satanist while not believing anything false.

How would we know the difference?

~~~
verbin217
The top comment contrasts two ostensibly identical situations. In the first, a
calm person becomes much angrier than would be expected. In the second, a
person already suppressing otherwise unacceptable anger exploits an
opportunity to express it for another plausible cause. The situations are
externally indistinguishable but have very different implications about the
persons mental state.

------
yummyfajitas
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
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
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.

------
bruceb
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
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
Actually, that's MoveOn.org/Upworthy.

Gawker is just a generalized family of gossip rags.

------
jqm
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.

------
guelo
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
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.

------
pcl
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
Noted. Thanks.

------
jp_sc
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
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.

------
ttctciyf
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-t...](http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-
government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/)

------
detcader
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)

------
chippy
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...

