The unfortunate result of that dynamic is that a new media order that should be teeming with more vibrant viewpoints than ever is at risk of calcifying into a staid landscape, where original thought is muffled by the wet blanket of political correctness. \u201cThere\u2019s a funny, recurring instinct on the Internet now that if you don\u2019t agree with something someone\u2019s written, that it\u2019s not fair or relevant and that it shouldn\u2019t exist,\u201d Jezebel editor Emma Carmichael said recently on the Longform Podcast. \u201cOnline feminism has more and more rules lately.\u201d After editing out all of the statements that could be perceived, no matter how crudely, as biased or insensitive, \u201cThere are only so many things you can say.\u201c Even Suey Park, the creator of #CancelColbert who has drummed up Twitter outrage and caught her own backlash many times over, appears to be questioning the social media status quo. \u201cI myself have mistaken pile-ons for justice when oftentimes there was a small miscommunication. I would assume the worse of everyone,\u201d she tweeted this month. \u201cBut twitter can give you tunnel vision. It\u2019s fickle, fast-moving, and full of miscommunication and fabrications. It can be self-destructive.\u201d\n
Amanda Hess, \u201cThe Rigid Conventions of Identity Outrage\u201d
\nI\u2019ve been on the internet long enough now to have seen this cycle happen many times: someone (usually someone young) gains a reputation and attention for searching out and identifying terrible things, and writing cogently about why they are terrible. They do this for several years; it becomes a profession, or at least a\u00a0dedicated\u00a0amateur pursuit. Then, at some point, they talk about how this practice of publicly identifying and analyzing terrible things maybe goes too far sometimes.\u00a0
\nThe conclusion we should take from any individual instance of \u201cTwitter goes too far sometimes\u201d probably shouldn\u2019t be \u201cinternet outrage is about to chill out more.\u201d People have been saying this for years, but the chill-out hasn\u2019t happened. Instead, we should conclude that 1) people who feel comfortable and right generating internet outrage tend to lose this feeling over time, and 2) there will always be new people to replace them.
\nOr, to put it another way:\u00a0the internet pays the young to generate outrage.
\nIt\u2019s not always the young, of course. But the young can more convincingly perform the sort of pure anger that online audiences most respond to, plus they have more time to find things and tweet about them and respond to tweets, etc. And the practitioners don\u2019t always end up having doubts about it. But I think generally they do.
\nWhich means we have a free rider problem.\u00a0Online activism can have demonstrably positive effects that benefit everyone. But I gain those benefits regardless of what I do. I don\u2019t have to do the hard work of sifting through the oceans of public statements out there to find the things that can really make a difference, if properly publicized.\u00a0
\nIf that hard work is fairly distributed (you do the work on Sterling, then I\u2019ll take Cosby while you rest up), it\u2019s efficient. But we know it\u2019s not. We know the work is done disproportionately by the young, or at least those new to the game. And we know that doing this work has negative effects on the people doing it. But we rely on that labor to bring us the positive effects, whether that effect is \u201creal social change\u201d or \u201cseeing someone I dislike looking foolish.\u201d
\nThis work seems to take more of your self than traditional reporting does. For one, the writer\u2019s identity is often part of the vector driving the outrage, and so the writer\u2019s identity then becomes part of the argument, something that can be debated above and beyond the case they\u2019re making. For another, much of the work is done outside any official organ; maybe a writer gets things started with a piece on The Root, but the argument develops through the writer\u2019s personal Twitter account, which is often understood as a proxy for your identity. This professional requirement that your private self be part of the work means that the writer\u2019s identity is there on the table alongside their actions as a member of the media. This seems like something that,\u00a0prior to social media,\u00a0journalism did not systematically ask of its workers. And it asks this disproportionately of people on the outrage beat, who have less power to protest that particular condition.
\nI\u2019m not sure what to do about that; I\u2019m not even sure if it\u2019s bad or not. (Certainly many of the people on the outrage beat would have seen interpretations of their work tied to their identity before social media, too.) But I think when you hear people who have been laboring on the internet for years talk about how maybe it\u2019s not perfect, the conclusion shouldn\u2019t be that the internet isn\u2019t structured the right way. It\u2019s that the labor isn\u2019t structured the right way.
\n(via barthel)
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