Outrage Culture!

January 16, 2016

Image Courtesy of Forbes

Social media is an amazing thing. It enables us to connect with family, friends, share amazing pictures of cats, and even organize faux-revolutions. We all know that social media is also a fine place to waste a lot of time....but there is a darker side: outrage culture, which is instantly recognizable when you see a story trending on social media that is steeped in rage. Your friends share the story, you share the story, and pretty soon you and a lot people you know are pointlessly arguing about something that may not actually be accurate. Given the inherent anonymity of the internet this quickly turns into vicious arguing with friends, family, coworkers, clergy, and anyone else with whom you disagree on this or any issue. The wonderful thing about outrage culture is that it operates on the same principal as clickbait in that misleading perceptions are built off of headlines from stories not explored further and are frequently misrepresented.

Social Justice Warriors are masters at manipulating outrage culture. One tool for ginning up the angry masses of online keyboard warriors are the infamous online petitions like change.org and change.gov. In many countries, including the US and UK, some of these petitions can generate enough signatures to require official response from state officials. One brilliant example of this was the case of Dapper Laughs, a tasteless comedian whose UKtour was canceled for making jokes about rape. Yes, that's right, his jokes offended people enough to strip him of his right to free speech. Welcome to Brave New World.

Obviously, outrage culture isn't limited to the internet. It can take tangible, real world forms, including I would argue the campaigns of presidential candidates using faux-rage to fuel support from impressionable twenty-somethings, as well as motivating boycotts of entire countries with complex socio-political situations that get dumbed down for the intended audience. Social media is the tool of choice for Social Justice Warriors to organize and foment outrage culture. To what end? The goal isrevolution, and nothing short of it. They say non-violent revolution, and I suspect that they are honest in this simply because I can't see the typical SJW training to fight in a militia-style brigade or actually fighting a guerrilla war against western governments.

Honestly, I can't imagine a single SJW doing this voluntarily

Outrage culture is very, very selective. A great example of this is the case of the New Year's Eve rape and assault epidemic across major European cities, which had been conducted exclusively by Muslim men. While a genuine rape-culture exposes itself in Europe, SJWs are too busy fighting against a perceived rape culture that doesn't exist in the West and now in Japan. Why? Because the West and Japan are low-hanging fruit and require no personal danger or actual work to affect change. The situation in Europe with migrants is so complex that the reaction of the Left is for 'social justice,' meaning 'ask no questions.' The end result is the strange view of Islam that Leftists have that simply does not conform with reality.

Outrage culture is selective because the general premises are built on sand. There are genuine things in the world to be outraged about but the effect of SJWs hammering social media with online petitions about filthy jokes or groping fundraisers is to diminish credibility on any social issue, especially complex ones effecting geopolitics. Instead, outrage culture is aimed squarely at those things that are otherwise meaningless but effect the lives of normal people. SJWs are waging a culture war to change the hearts and minds of people in Western society in exactly the same manner as the religious right did in the 1980s and 1990s before them. Where the religious right had television and radio at their disposal, SJWs use social media in addition to these tools. It isn't any wonder that your email inbox gets periodic petition requests demanding action on the crisis of the day when every tiny and meaningless thing is a crisis, especially complex issues like police shootings that have been selectively presented to better propagandize the population.

You Will Never Find a More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy. We Must Be Cautious. 

The way to immunize yourself against this onslaught is simply to be aware that anything your SJW friends share with you is propaganda in the most literal sense – that is, communications designed to have political outcomes. It need not be rooted in reality as the point is to promote a political agenda. Reality is often far too complex to conform to any ideology, thus requiring that information be presented as selectively as possible. You won't see an honest account of a mass shooting without a cry to disarm the population attached to it simply because outrage culture is fueled by anger-tripping tropes that take the place of actual thinking. Thinking by the intended audience is dangerous for the ideologue, whether they are a presidential candidate or a typical SJW so they rely instead of tropes to do the thinking for them. It is best to be aware of these tropes and triggers when seeing this form of media.