The Outrage Based Economy

Great ideas are inevitably polluted, and you can even say this about the no-so-great ideas too. Though the greatest ideas are the ones that survive the most tampering and interference.

From time to time, you will get a platform, a device, a movement, an idea, or any other 'next big thing' and you will see the potential of this thing catch people's imaginations and passions on fire. This could be a march for peace, a new social media platform, a new electronic device, a music festival, a meme, or any other 'hot topic' that everyone all of a sudden has to be a part of.

You have to be on there.

You have to share yourself with it or on it.

You have to make your voice heard about it, for or against.

You have to have one.

Whatever it is, it is the nature of being with it makes you a notch more important and relevant in the world in which we live. It is the nature of saying "I was there" and showing your peacock feathers to the not-haves or not-cool of the world.

For those of you that reject the notion of social media high-school popularity contests and taking a part in one, you can stop reading now. Go have a coffee and enjoy the rest of your day. But there are two groups of people who seem to be always in on these movements, new platforms, and 'hot social issues' who I always seem to notice.

One is the 'me too' crowd using the cause for their own promotion. I don't blame them, if the 'X whatever challenge' is popular on Youtube and you want to take part to raise some attention for your books or products, more power to you. You are taking part and then letting people know you are alive and out here doing something cool, and I really have no problem with that. You have to do what you have to do to get noticed.

There is another crowd that I wonder about, and this is the 'this is really about us' crowd. They are typically the ones who try and come in and hijack the movement, bring in a bus full of marchers or a crowd full of topic posters, and take over the message and make it all about them and not what the original idea was supposed to be about.

It is like a protest about saving the habitat for polar bears, and then several buses of 'anti-wind power' protesters show up and make the event about them and not the polar bears. I know, in today's world 'media coverage' for your cause is a precious commodity and raw natural resource, and if you know cameras are going to be there you are going to show up anyways and make this all about you.

We live in an outrage-based economy these days, after all.

Units of 'outrage' are produced by viral videos, marches, 'the Internet is angry about' click-bait, or any other source...

...and it is picked up by the media and spread...

...where more outrage units are created and distributed over social media channels.

So the 'this is really about us' movements and groups have an incentive to jump into this economy. Someway, somehow I feel 'units of outrage' can be monetized somehow, like click-bait micro-transaction ad pennies for each fake news story (on either side) clicked on, rinse and repeat.

And it is not just social movements that are affected by this 'this is really about us' thing, you see social media platforms creating cross-platform links trying to steal users attention and clicks away from each other. Youtube posts on Facebook versus Facebook Video, for one. Each service knows the other has a natural resource of users, clicks, and eyeballs, and they do their best to jump in on each other's bandwagon and make 'online video' all about one site or the other.

If a new e-reader comes out, other companies try to jump on and get their books on it, without going through the normal store method. If a new music player comes out, other music companies try to make it a part of their ecosystem, Amazon Music on an iPhone, for example.

Some of this is competition, and that is fine. Some of this is one company or another trying to steal users from the 'next big thing' and take over the platform for themselves. Everyone has a reason to jump on the public forum and shout the loudest, I know.

But in other cases, especially social movements, the original idea becomes polluted by too much 'this is really about us' and I feel the important message is lost.

There are those who jump on the bandwagon, and then I feel there are those who try to take the bandwagon over. And then there are those who make money from all of this and keep the outrage flowing along - but never providing a solution.

After all, if the problem were solved there wouldn't be any money in click-bait articles, would there?

But for me, the things I like to share and be involved in have a higher standard and ideal. Free speech. Human rights. Equality. The pursuit of happiness. Causes based upon the notion of the concept of 'universal human freedom' - so there you have it.

Now watch, once I put a term out there like 'universal human freedom' you could see someone with their own agenda come along, borrow the phrase for their own cause, and then push the admittedly pop-culture term while advancing their own agenda.

If we live in an outrage-based economy, after all, finding these vague, get-behind-able pop-culture terms and phrases is just a part of the marketing plan for what they really want to sell you.