Thoughts About Outrage and Clicks.
Why do drama and controversial topics make us so engaged both online and offline?
Last week I released an essay pointing out how disappointed I was by this year’s World Cup media coverage.
Simply put, I didn’t feel like any of the articles I had read–both by independent and corporate publications–leading up to the opening ceremony gave enough context to what was happening in the country in regards to human rights violations and LGBTQ+ issues. Matter of fact, none of the pieces were even written by local voices.
Every byline was mostly British and white, none of which even acknowledged Qatar’s former political attachment to the UK.
I am mentioning this, because the connection between the Gulf and the Anglophone world still runs deep–every firm contracted to design and engineer the stadiums was either British or American. You know, people with a track record of building substantial structures.
From my perspective, each title was just a blatant effort to gain clicks by exploiting people’s hunger for outrage.
While the death of thousands of South Asian construction workers is absolutely a reason to condemn Qatar, the critique remained superficial and blindsided–the Kafala system extends well beyond the tiny Kingdom and it certainly wasn’t put in place just for this very tournament. Sure, the fact that a country with virtually no infrastructure was awarded the biggest event in the world can sound idiotic to most but it is actually not if we give a deeper thought to why countries even bid to host it. The underlying theme is economic advancement, not passion for the game.
The prestige and financial gain granted by the tournament lingers long after the final–nostalgia drives it–and for a country like Qatar whose oil reserves are starting to devalue, it serves as the perfect gimmick to bring status and diversification.
From afar, it’s easy to point to Qatar and feel compelled to slap liberal ideals of freedom upon such a conservative country.
Most of the times, though, the critique is proposed as a blanket statement where the idea of a progressive Islam is completely obliterated and no local expert is brought in to provide an opinion on the whats and whys.
Anyways–as my piece circulated amongst friends, got reposted on various social medias and people hit me to congratulate the clarity of my words (it even got me a mention in a Greek newspaper? Thank you Elina), I started to notice a pattern.
My work is most successful when it’s about controversial topics.
As somebody who thinks about writing as an art that needs to be preserved and nurtured, I felt slightly uncomfortable. But as somebody who uses literature and reporting as a means of survival, I could see how easy it is to fall trap to virality and click baitness.
As one does (or at least as I do) when these dilemmas emerge, I opened Google up and typed in: “Why does outrage drive clicks?” looking to find a scientific explanation.
My fact checker peaked over at my research and quickly gave me an answer: people love drama.
This comment quickly took me back to the good ol’ problematic days of the internet–and my early twenties–when the questionable, yet very popular, news source World Star Hip Hop was part of my daily routine.
The outrage and drama promoted by the independent news outlet became such a central part of pop culture in the US that its name became a watermark.
Who doesn’t remember pulling out their phone and yelling “Worldddd Starrrr” whenever shit was popping off in public? It became a meme.
Actually, some of the most famous memes come from videos originally uploaded on WSHH.
Obviously back then things didn’t feel as polarized as they do today.
Social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram were just born and the media had yet to co-opt them into platforms to drive revenue, politicians had no idea how to use them for propaganda and we were all seemingly less sensitive. Activism wasn’t a fad and people probably cared less about how socially engaged they appeared online. These technologies were born on the premise to “unite” us. Yeah, right.
But going back to the central topic of this letter, what is it about drama that drives people to engage in online and offline discourse so much more than positive, productive news?
The answer is simple: drama feels good.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, aside from being a specific mode of fiction, the word drama is defined as “an exciting, emotional or unexpected event or circumstance.”
Key word: exciting.
Excitement is an addictive feeling, it is a condition of physiological arousal. When we are aroused, as our heart rate speeds up and our adrenaline levels reach the sky, we are more likely to act on impulse.
Drama keeps us going.
Major news outlets have, of course, been using this knowledge to their advantage by drizzling alcohol over dormant fire whenever any type of controversy emerges–hence the amount of provocative headlines that have been permeating our media landscape over the course of the past five years. They just want the clicks. And so do so-called content creators who have carved their own niche on platforms like Youtube and Tik Tok and, now defunct, Vine.
Have you noticed how the videos with the most views have the most fucked up titles?
No wonder people like Andrew Tate and all of those other degenerates rose to fame so quickly.
They surely know how to fuel people’s outrage. The more these alpha-humans posted snippets of their anger-mongering conversations, the more people felt compelled to engage. But that’s where we collectively make a mistake.
While pointing our finger to the bad guy and “canceling” them may seem like the easiest way to make them go away, the result is often quite the opposite.
Their most loyal fans radicalizes even further as nobody is really offering a detailed counter argument to what they believe is the absolute truth.
As journalism and online discourse gets shallower and shallower, our attention span diminishes to a point of no return and kids turn to subjective sources–such as the easily hijacked Tik Tok–for information, one can only hope more independent platforms managed by intelligent individuals come to life.
Next time you see an upsetting headline, please ask yourself these questions:
How much truth is there in this headline?
Is it worth researching further?
Is this a credible source?
Is it worth being upset or outraged about it?
Some things I thought you would like:
🗞️ A great article I read about Qatar’s workers crisis
📩 A friend’s newsletter you should subscribe to if you are into streetwear + sneakers.
⚽️ Season Zine’s super cute World Cup Wall Chart📖 An article I wrote about Pink Essay for Salonemilano.it