I have been thinking this for a long time and have written about it from different perspectives over the years before, and again it becomes salient. And what it is, is the sustainability of drama in the media, or any place for that matter. The media runs on sensationalism, and social media incentivizes a continual ramping up of everything, as in order to trigger the algorithms today, it has to be a little more extreme than what was offered yesterday.
I remember reading a story from some war-torn area in Africa, where a warlord was cutting off the limbs of children because only through such cruelty, would the western media take any notice. And, this is pretty much like everything across all forms of media, where it has to be bigger, bolder, more violent than previously, otherwise, it gets no air.
Monetized extremism.
I have also talked about it in terms of Hive, where there are users who have continuously tried to generate drama of some sort or another, because it is the easiest way to get attention. They spam tags, and try to goad users into arguments, and if downvotes arrive, they use them to justify the ramping up of the drama.
It never lasts.
The reason is that while drama is a fast and easy way to get attention, the more it ramps up, the more tired the audience becomes. It isn't only not sustainable to keep getting more extreme, but it is also unsustainable to keep carrying the same level of care and attention to consume the drama. The audience becomes worn out by the constant emotional charge without respite, and start to tune out the noise.
What I have been wondering in the last few weeks is whether this is happening in the US presidential elections. While I don't follow the circus too closely, from what I have seen, it seems a bit like there is no more ramping up to go for the Trump side in order to engage the audience as heavily as they have been able to in the past. Perhaps it has just become too mainstream, no longer cutting-edge...
More of the same.
And as such, whatever messages are being thrown out into the public domain, they aren't having the impact that they had earlier. Perhaps while it was Trump versus Biden there was some reprieve as people didn't have to really pay that much attention, and could just work on automatic pilot and support mindlessly, but now they have to think a bit more. Not because Harris is any better than Biden, but because she is different. And now they have been forced to turn off the automatic pilot that has been guiding them, they aren't finding Trump as compelling as before.
I don't know if this is actually the case and it is hard to judge by what is found in the media, because the media is somewhat skewed. However, I wonder for those living in the US and who might be paying attention, is this what is happening, are people as enamored of Trump as previously and do they carry the same zeal?
In a society with an increasingly short attention span and very little brand loyalty, are the political brands and the marketing they employee still as engaging as they were almost ten years ago, or has the hype faded? Are people tiring of the drama and tuning into some other social movement that has grabbed their attention?
Just think, there was an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate and ex-president, and there was hardly any news after a few days, it just kind of disappeared. If we consider that the news offerings are driven by the algorithms that maximize advertising revenue, does this tell us that this brand of drama isn't selling like it used to?
While not making any predictions, I suspect that unless Trump is able to generate some more drama in the next few months that exceeds what he has done so far, a fair percentage of his supporter base will drift. But, if he does ramp up the messaging and become more extreme, will it be a step too far and even his own people will remove their support?
Politics has become more than a circus, it has become a business, with parties looking to gain power to maximize their own profits. But in making it a competition against each other, rather than for us, they have diluted their power to effect change and therefore their relevancy. The more drama they create, the more illegitimate their claim is that they are the right ones to hold the reins and lead us. And the more we will look at alternatives, or create them.
They are killing themselves.
But in order for new to replace old, space needs to be made.
At some point the drama will subside and in its place, there will hopefully be people serious about doing a good job at improving this mess we call a society, and a world we have almost destroyed.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]