What problem do these quotes address?
"They’ll be aggrieved, and they won’t be wrong.”
“[It could be] a disaster…. a betrayal."
“We are giving it the utmost thought and consideration.”
"It’s been divisive in some ways with the regulars here.”
A crisis on the front lines of a war?
An investigation into government corruption?
A dangerous plot to undermine society?
Well, not exactly:
"Some “Jeopardy!” fans have bristled…”
That’s right.
A front-page story by the Wall Street Journal celebrity columnist (WSJ, 7/26/21). Twenty-plus paragraphs about who will become the next celebrity host of a television show, albeit a beloved one. Written with a pocket-thesaurus-amount of provocative adjectives and breathless quotations.
Have we lost our minds?
Other words appearing in the article: Aggrieved. Wrong. Divisive. Bristled. Backlash is virtually inevitable. Disaster. Betrayal.
These are words we used to associate with real crises, used to describe a media popularity contest. Turning something otherwise fun, creative, exciting - into an audience-dividing battleground.
Now go read the commentary around Simone Biles’ deeply personal and difficult decision to withdraw from the Olympics. As she insightfully put it, “Doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people.” Nameless, faceless people whose only claim to fame is their ability to post nastily in the comments section. Consider also an opinion piece calling the real estate industry a “cartel” that charges “outrageous fees.” Readers aren’t asked to consider alternatives or weight circumstances: but to join in the rage.
Even the weather is full of “nightmarish storms” and reservoirs “plagued” by algae.
How’s your anxiety now?
Imagine what this steady diet of superlatives does to your mind. To your nervous system. To your perception of the world. Consider the impact of perpetual dire straits on young people’s minds whose points of reference are still growing. Then connect the dots to the hardened positions of political and social institutions whose main tools of communication - bullhorns and televisions, emails and tweets - resemble a never-ending shock and awe campaign. If they don’t do it, the algorithms they rely upon to distribute their message won’t pay any attention, and neither will we.
When entertainment articles spare no extremities, it’s time to challenge the voices shaping pictures in our heads. When someone’s difficulty is turned into “a shame” and themselves into “a sociopath” to senselessly game our attention, it’s time to consider rebooting the infoplex.
Before we all go insane.
Because life isn’t a perpetual crisis.
Because we need to “be care-ful”
Not of any real danger,
But of our contribution to the conversation.
And the words we let into our heads.