When I look at the kinds of articles people post on social media and the comments under them, it feels like there’s an overwhelming amount of hate and anger in the world - or at least among the people posting and commenting. (Maybe it’s just that non-angry people don’t spend much time in this kind of spaces.)
In contrast, when I think about my own life, I realize that I’m almost never angry. I feel many other negative emotions, sure, but anger isn’t one of them, and even when it arises it’s usually quite short-lived. I can’t even name a single person I hate - neither in my personal life nor in the media. I simply don’t spend time dwelling on people I’m not interested in or being angry at the world for not meeting my expectations.
This makes me wonder: is my experience rare or unusual? Or is hate and anger simply overrepresented in the media because those emotions motivate people to engage, making them seem far more widespread than they actually are?
I’m trying to understand rather than criticize. I can’t take credit for not being angry because whatever tha skill is doesn’t translate into other things like anxiety. I’m anxious about equally trivial things and I can’t help myself. I guess I’m just glad I don’t need to deal with this constant anger too.
Start from the perspective that there is a huge machine out there that is monetarily driven to attract views, name whichever business sector you want, but it’s probably going to be something to do with media.
The most successful ways to get views are fear and anger.
Now couple that with people that want fake internet points, get real money, or want to drive you to a place for someone else to make money, and they’re also going to post fear and anger.
Of course this type of information incites some really strong feelings. Couple this with people doing the same with literal lies, distorted and incomplete facts, and even plain old bad spelling, all designed to drive interaction and views, and now you get an internet spammed with hate and anger.
Fear and anger sell like crazy. And everyone wanting a view or a click are posting it everywhere to drive interaction in order to profit in some way.
So I would say that yes, the take you have about this stuff being overrepresented is correct. It’s deliberately overrepresented for engagement reasons.