Are We Addicted to Controversy?

A while back, I wrote a post condemning the mainstream media for its constant glorification of violence. In general, our news media kind of sucks, but I wanted to shed some light on an area I thought most people were missing.

Without intending to, I ended up creating a modest amount of controversy, and that post has become the most popular post to date on my little blog. I’d like to talk about this unexpected social experiment a little bit and get your thoughts on it too.

Hate Sells

I’d love for you to read the article yourself, but the gist of it is this: We end up creating more of whatever we focus on, and the mainstream media, with its focus on all things violent, is actually directly helping more of it to occur.

Out of all the posts on my bog, most of which are of a positive, constructive nature, this post has received the most hits by far.

The content of the post is somewhat controversial in nature. That was intended. I wanted to capture the attention of the kind of people who are probably attracted to the type of headlines I was ranting against. I wanted to stir up the pot a little bit.

But rereading it a few months later, I notice there’s quite a bit of real anger in it too. I was pissed off. And definitely vented some anger while writing that post.

I wonder now whether that is hypocritical, considering the nature of the article. But I have to ask: did that have an affect on people’s reaction to it? The article now reminds me of the same hateful tone that many radio and TV political pundits like to use. Very popular political pundits.

Would it have been as popular without the angry tone? On one hand, I’m glad more people got to read it. On the other, I regret stooping down to that level.

Check out the StumbleUpon page for that post, where the post has 19 reviews. About seven of them are negative reviews. That means that 7 people were negatively affected enough by my writing, they felt it was necessary to voice their opinion on it.

The disagreement is cool with me. But some of the comments were really interesting. Some of them are so insulting and dripping with so much vitriol, while simultaneously criticizing the article for its hateful tone! Check this one out:

fleurdeluz rated 3 months ago
The actual point of this gigantic piece of failure is completely watered down by this person’s self interest. It is evident from the first few sentences that the author decided that their ‘controversial’ opinion was of such merit that just about any half-assed argument could be made, posted, and revered. Wrong. The author would do well to first get over his or herself before so haughtily warning the entire United States of America to get over itself.

And this one:

Terrible, angsty, over-stated mess of opinions written by a guy that is obviously perfect in every way. This article really rubbed me up the wrong way, and displays a complete misunderstanding of “what media should be for” and “what media is actually for”. Just generally has a bad attitude to it.

You know, they might be right. Maybe it was a crappy post. It definitely doesn’t deserve a Pulitzer. I’m proud of it, because it was written from the heart, but I can’t objectively judge my own creations. And I am perfect after all.

However it’s odd that people would dislike this article so much that they would go out of their way to post their disagreement with it. Were they angry that other people enjoyed it? Or did they just hate it in general? Wouldn’t it be better just to ignore it? That is, after all, the point of the article.

(And why exactly do I care about the opinions of someone named “Angry McHatecock.” Or someone whose favorite pages on StumbleUpon include “Stuff White People Like?“)

In the end of my post, I urge people to join me in paying less attention to the mainstream media, since that is the only way to get them to change the way they report.

Isn’t it strange that people could read that article, disagree with it, and then let me manipulate them in such a way, when the subject of the article was how the news media’s controversial headlines are manipulating us?

Then again, I might be no better than the group I’m criticizing. In my article, I copied a quote from the taped manifesto of Cho Seung Hui, the gunman in the Virginia Tech shootings, which was aired on NBC. I wanted to drive home the point that the mainstream media was helping these killers get their message out. But in doing that, I was helping spread his words as well. Is that hypocritical? Maybe.

So what are we to do? How can one rant about hate without sounding hateful? When our senses are so dulled that our attention can only be captured by the goriest, raunchiest, most gut wrenching stuff, how can we inform others that there is a better way without also stooping down to that level?

I don’t really have an answer to that…

But for the sake of adding a little more controversy to this post, and thus driving more traffic to my website, I just want to say “f&$# you!” to all of you who disagree with me. Just kidding.