The Life Cycle of Outrage

Moment Zero: A Significant Event occurs. Eye witnesses and primary sources break the news. Statements are made. Videos are posted. Tweets are tweeted.

 
First Hour: Journalists scramble to disseminate news of the Significant Event far and wide. Most of this happens on Twitter, but placeholder web pages are thrown together on various news sites and cable news channels interrupt the latest car chase to give you “breaking news” about the Significant Event, even though nobody has any clue what’s going on. This is the initial viral wave—let’s call it the “Primary Viral Wave.”

 
First 24 Hours: There is a gold rush within the first 24 hours to cash in on the Primary Viral Wave. Thousands of journalists, bloggers, influencers, celebrities, and politicians put out their “take” on the Significant Event. These early takes range from quality education to scummy attention whoring. Pretty much anybody who says anything even remotely noteworthy about the Significant Event immediately goes viral, sees their follower count explode, and gets their tweet featured on news media outlets, who still have no idea what’s actually going on.

 
24-48 Hours: Of the tens of thousands of “takes” that were posted in the previous 24 hours, a couple dozen come out as clear victors in terms of winning in the attention colosseum. These handful of narratives get repeated and reshared to such an extent that they quickly become the conventional wisdom and basic facts about the Significant Event. People who follow the news closely begin informing their friends and family over dinners and boozy happy hours of what they’ve heard about the Significant Event. This makes them feel informed and intelligent.

 
48-72 Hours: The Primary Viral Wave has reached its saturation point. There’s little new to say about the facts of the Significant Event which hasn’t already been said. As a result, intrepid journalists, bloggers, authors, and influencers begin to look closer at the data and information of the Primary Viral Wave. And sure enough, wouldn’t you know it, this video is fake! And that photo has been Photoshopped! And that data analysis was done incorrectly!

 
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Πηγή: markmanson.net