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Comment by norov | Hacker News Reader

It is not just social media; it is the way our society is structured. Even if social media did not exist, the press would still reward people who act outraged. Just look at newspaper op eds and cable TV talk shows with discussion panels. Sports fans know that ESPN sells outrage and living vicariously through athletes/celebs as a business model.

The crux of the issue is that society rewards attention whoring behavior. I would love to see our leaders promote more "do, not tell" behavior.

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Yes! I grew up on Donahue and the Geraldo Rivera show and Mory too. Those shows ratings were entirely built upon outrage. Social media is an iteration which allows all of us to join the audience. Tho I do admit for a romantic longing for 90s internet. It was total discovery and horror and obscenity and surprise but zero outrage. It is hard for me to be mad now about anything online now after spending hours on Cult of the Dead Cow and having my art downloaded by thousands of East Germans to jack off to. It's confusing and the lies I tell myself, but those were good times. The solution is not censorship but meaningful engagement with how human subjectivity is actually constructed vs the dissonance between individuated sovereign subject we are told we are and how we need each other to construct an ideological order/a safe polite backdrop we all agree on so we can privately go on about our lives.

Donahue though wasn't a news program though. It was daytime garbage programming. These were small parts of TV programming.

What I remember is how I didn't like the actual news after the local news because of how boring it was. It was actually a news program.

I also grew up watching ESPN sports center. There was never any outrage at that time. It was just showing highlights of games with minimal added commentary. The internet then destroyed all these business models and turned everything into a tabloid.

Growing up I can remember at the grocery store when checking out there was always a tabloid newspaper that every other week would have on the cover how Elvis faked his own death or something just ridiculous.

Now basically everything is like that tabloid.

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