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Comment by baal80spam | Hacker News Reader

It definitely feels that people just NEED to be angry about SOMETHING these days...

Marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum. The creative industries have been having it rough for the past year and a half, and there's practically an internet war going on between AI prompt using artists and real ones. Add to that the writer's strike, the job market, etc.

If they had a proper control screening for the ad, the backlash could be anticipated, as shown by the fact on how the simple act of reversing it would have a much different message/effect.

I think it may be the opposite.

People are mad at a culture and economy that is increasingly dehumanizing and exploitative, where they feel hopeless when contemplating basic things like ever having a permanent home for their family, and when every interaction with modern commerce seems to be designed to trick them or steal from them.

Since they feel (and to some extent, are) powerless to affect the forces acting on them directly, they lash out at anything that reminds them of this dynamic, in whatever forum will listen to them.

No, this isn't it. People aren't mad at the people dehumanising them. In fact people celebrate those people en mass.

Facebook, Google, etc. would all disappear if what you said were true. Politicians would be voted out, etc.

The truth is, people don't mind being dehumanised if it can make them feel more like their neighbours, or even better, above them. We're all too lazy to care about being dehumanised, like pigs to slaughter.

People lash out not because they feel helpless, but because they feel superior. They're not, they're just bored and life has been good so things they invent to get upset about look extremely bad to them.

Many people consider it a possibility to like something. So equally, it's completely valid to dislike something.

Nobody takes an L in the marketplace of ideas anymore. If people don't like something that you do, you can just say they have a type of derangement syndrome, or it's because they have a need to be angry about something, or because they're afraid of change, or so on. The key is to make sure that your accusation is broad and vague.

Yes, all of those creatives who have been losing their jobs over the past few years to this "flattening" process and are now seeing a existential threat from AI that could eliminate most of their careers entirely just "NEED to be angry about SOMETHING".

The lack of empathy is astounding...

It’s been a constant since 2016.

Tho the article has some interesting ideas and historical insights.

Life is so good that we get bored, so we get upset at things that are perfectly fine because we know we can control how we feel and stop at any time.

Hardship keeps people busy, boredom forces people into drama.

People have been "angry on the internet" for decades, but it's more recently that it's metastatized into the "real world" on an overwhelming level, and been monetized. This is grossly irresponsible and is going to result in violence and pushbacks, of which the US ""TikTok ban"" (not a ban) is a small foreshadowing.

Please, I beg you, pick up a history book.

Culture warriors inciting violence against popular culture https://pophistorydig.com/topics/burn-the-beatles-1966/

Or, you know, literally anything from the Children's Crusade to the War of Jenkin's Ear. Raising a rabble to violence has been going on forever.

Just because it's always happened doesn't mean that present day complicity in it is fine.

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