Episode 11: Outrage Culture: How Anger Keeps Us Engaged Online

April begins Season 2 by talking about why we seem to be so angry these days, and what we can do to take it down a notch.

Episode 11 Show Notes

Here's Nancy Rommelmann's op-ed describing the fallout from the online outrage against her and her husband: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rommelmann-me-too-portland-20190222-story.html

Harvard's Elizabeth Bartolet writes about the things that trouble her about the MeToo movement: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/1/16/bartholet-metoo-excesses/

An NPR story about outrage with Steve Inskeep and Shankar Vedantam: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/09/768489375/how-outrage-is-hijacking-our-culture-and-our-minds

Some of the short and long-term effects of anger can be found here: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/anger-how-it-affects-people#:~:text=The%20long%2Dterm%20physical%20effects,learning%20relaxation%20techniques%20and%20counselling

Richard Ford's excellent Stanford blog post about what he calls the "outrage-industrial complex":
https://law.stanford.edu/2019/12/20/the-outrage-industrial-complex/

Psychology Today author Rob Henderson writes about the social underpinnings of outrage: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201906/moral-outrage-why-we-attack-each-other

Victoria Spring's article in Scientific American about the positive and negative aspects of outrage: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-outrage-be-a-good-thing/

Some great ideas from journalist Zaid Jalani on how to de-escalate your social media outrage: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_avoid_the_social_media_outrage_trap

Transcript

Episode 11: Outrage culture—how anger keeps us engaged online

Hi everyone, it’s great to be back for Season Two of Think It Through. I’ve got some really fascinating topics lined up and some great interviews to share in upcoming episodes. In Season 1, we looked at some basic concepts associated with the way we think, feel, reason, and react to the world and the people around us. If you just found this podcast, I recommend that you go back and listen to Season 1, because I build on previous episodes and I don’t want you to be confused. Lots of people listen to podcasts when they’re exercising, doing chores, or driving, so you have lots of opportunity to get all ten first season episodes done, and then you’ll be ready for Season 2!

This season, We’re going to continue focusing on thinking more clearly, the ways we are persuaded, as well as how we persuade others; and how the internet and social media have affected our beliefs, ideas, and frankly, our very identities.

In this episode, we’re looking at “outrage culture.” You may not have heard that term before, but I’ll bet you are very familiar with the feeling of outrage. Let’s start by looking at an example of how this kind of culture sometimes plays out online.

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A February 2019 Los Angeles Times Op-ed by journalist Nancy Rommelmann described what happened after she started a YouTube video series called the MeNeither Show, in which she discussed some of what she believed were excesses in the MeToo movement. She described them as often misguided, like Al Franken resigning his Senate seat. She’s not the only one who thinks that way; for instance Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartolet also thinks that there’s a problem with rushing to judgment in at least some of these claims, and that people’s careers can be ruined with little to no investigation of the facts. Now, Nancy Rommelmann is the kind of journalist who doesn’t mind pushing boundaries and talking about uncomfortable things, so she thought this would be an interesting topic that would generate discussion and maybe some pushback, and she was prepared for that, but she wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Once her show went live, a former employee of Nancy’s husband (who owned a coffee roaster shop in Portland), sent an email to all his current and former employees as well as to the media, saying that because of his wife’s opinions, the husband’s business was now a threat to female employees and the community at large. Long story short, the Twitterverse got involved, major outrage ensued, many of her husband’s baristas quit and many of the business’s corporate accounts were canceled. Articles with titles like “Portland woman’s videos attack MeToo victims” were published in local and national media. And as of December 2020, Nancy Rommelmann’s husband finally closed the doors to his business forever; it was a victim both of the pandemic and of his inability to overcome the outrage that was unleashed against him, even though, when it comes right down to it, he actually had little, if anything, to do with his wife’s podcast or her opinions. 

Now, you may actually agree with the people who lashed out against Nancy Rommelman. You might think she and her husband deserved everything that happened to them, that the outrage that played out on mainstream and social media was justified because of the importance of the MeToo movement. And you wouldn’t be alone. According to NPR’s Shankar Vedantam, the host of Hidden Brain, it seems that anger and outrage is often the point. Making people feel angry is a very effective way to get and keep their attention, and there are a lot of people who think that outrage is a perfectly appropriate and necessary emotion; that without it we will never move forward against injustice. Now, there may certainly be something to that, and we will address that in a few minutes.  But here’s the problem—outrage is definitely NOT a good emotion to feel on a continual basis! The emotion of outrage is a very powerful one, it’s actually a secondary emotion comprised of anger, shock, and indignation, and a single expression of outrage can actually have a visceral physical reaction—our brains get a dopamine hit that can be quite pleasurable. But constant outrage can begin to affect us negatively, triggering our fight or flight response and causing increased heart rate and blood pressure, headaches, digestive problems, anxiety, depression, and potentially even heart attacks and strokes. So why would anyone choose to feel that way on a continual basis? Well, it’s not like we wake up every morning and think, “I can’t wait to be outraged about something today!” But here is what we do, and it’s often the first thing we do when we wake up—we pick up our phone and look at our Facebook feed, or Twitter, or Instagram to see what’s happening in our little social media bubble. And it’s almost a certainty that we will see something while scrolling that triggers outrage. And social media platforms are very happy to keep us engaged, to keep our eyes on the page, and if during that morning doomscrolling session we end up feeling outraged and anxious, oh well.  That is a very effective way to get us to see all of those advertisements that we may not even realize we are looking at, because they’re targeted just for us and slickly integrated into our feeds. Yes, the media platforms we rely on to keep us in touch with our friends and the world in general are frankly incentivized to allow us to virtually scream at each other on a regular basis, because it means more money for them. Outrage, it seems, is good for business. And it extends beyond social media and into mainstream and alternative media, political action committees, you name it; there’s money to be made from outrage. In fact, Professor Richard Ford from the Stanford Law School refers to entities who profit from outrage as the Outrage-Industrial complex. I’ll link to his blog post; I think you’ll find it enlightening.

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So, it’s no surprise that a lot of people express outrage on social media. However, that outrage doesn’t just happen because we’re on these platforms; after all, while their algorithms tend to push us towards things they think we want to see, it’s not like they are forcing us to feel this way. In a Psychology Today article, PhD candidate Rob Henderson says that there are also powerful social incentives for us to be outraged—when you’re as angry as your online friends are about the same topic, it shows your commitment to the values of your community. To quote him, “If you express the right amount of outrage, then I know you’re part of my group. But if you don’t, then maybe I need to question where your loyalties really lie.”

I had an online experience that illustrates this. Some years ago, when former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was on trial for sexually abusing young boys, I happened across a FB discussion on a friend’s page about Sandusky’s wife, and how she had been in the house when the abuse was occurring but never seemed to know anything about it and never tried to intervene, she even denied in court that anything had occurred as far as she knew. The discussion was about how she HAD to be aware of what he was doing, what a horrible woman she was, and how she was as guilty as her husband and they should lock her up and throw away the key. Now, me being me, I responded by saying something nerdy and academic like, “Well, there are a lot of reasons why she would seem to be oblivious to abuse occurring right under her nose. She was probably in denial, either because the reality of what was going on was simply too horrible for her to contemplate, or she was so invested in the relationship that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her.” I guess I was expecting that my comment would lead to an interesting discussion, but instead, the conversation turned from how horrible Sandusky’s wife was to how horrible I was. I hadn’t immediately jumped on the “omg what a horrible person she is” bandwagon, I was more interested in why she denied the obvious, because that’s how my brain works. But that wasn’t what the people in this conversation wanted to hear at all, at that point they questioned what was wrong with MY morals because I hadn’t condemned the woman. “How dare you try to excuse her?” one person said. I was a little taken aback and replied that I had given a possible explanation for her behavior, not an excuse. But it didn’t matter, because now the outrage was focused on me. I got the hell out of that conversation pretty fast, and an apology from my friend later for letting that whole thing spiral out of control. I had not expressed outrage, and so I got outrage expressed back at me.

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Let’s go back to something I brought up a few minutes ago—whether outrage is ultimately more beneficial or harmful when it comes to perceived injustice? An article in Scientific American entitled “Can Outrage Be A Good Thing?” by Victoria Spring, a doctoral candidate in psychology, found that the experimental results on outrage were mixed—some studies found that outrage drives disproportionally aggressive behavior (think of a lynch mob, or maybe the group that stormed the Capitol), while others found that outrage could serve as a glue that bound activists together to fight against injustice (like, say, a peaceful protest). So does it pull people together, or drive them apart? Well, it’s complicated; the author says that the expression of outrage is sometimes “moralized” and is really just a thin façade for other, more self-serving motives like virtue signaling, which is publicly expressing an opinion not because it is truly what you think (although it might be), but instead you do it only BECAUSE it you think it demonstrates your good character and moral correctness to other people. So if attempting to appear like you’re a “good guy” is your primary motivation, then outrage isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s also obviously not a good thing to use outrage as a weapon to cause harm to those we see as different from ourselves, who are outside of our groups and we don’t see them as worthy. However, the researchers also discovered that marginalized populations, like minorities and immigrants tend to be thought of as more “angry” than other groups, I’m sure you’re familiar with the stereotype of an angry black man or woman. And when a person in a marginalized group expresses outrage it is often perceived as inappropriate and extreme, when in fact it might be less extreme than outrage expressed by someone in the majority. But when marginalized people band together to express their outrage, it can be part of a collective action against things like bias and discrimination, and the researchers also found that such focused anger by marginalized populations can actually result in the reduction of these social ills. And reduced discrimination can often lead to what they describe as “more positive intergroup social behaviors,” so yes, it’s true that focused outrage, done for the right reasons, can be a positive force. Victoria Spring says that outrage is neither inherently good nor bad; it can be used as a weapon to destroy, or as a tool for positive change.

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I’m going to wind up this discussion by telling you what the experts say when it comes to lowering your online outrage thermostat. Remember, even though it has the potential to be a good thing, constantly feeling outraged can cause the kinds of mental and physical issues that I discussed earlier. Professor Ford says, and I quote, “The Outrage industrial complex debases our politics, swindles us out of our time and money, and makes us miserable. It’s an outrage!” So, what can we do to avoid feeling this way on a continual basis?

·      Since social media is the place where we are triggered to feel the most outrage, the most obvious solution is to reduce the time we spend on those platforms. I know, it’s difficult, especially when for so many of us it’s our connection to our friends, family, and the world. But we don’t need to be constantly online (and when I say we, I mean me). Most smartphones have trackers that will tell you how much time you’re spending on which sites, and if you pay attention to them you might be shocked to find out how much of your day is spent surfing your favorite social media sites. 

·      But even if we do reduce our amount of time online, most of us are still going to spend a significant amount of time there, and it’s inevitable that we are going to see and hear things that spark outrage in us. How can you think more clearly in these situations? Zaid Jalani, author of “How to avoid the social media outrage trap” gives us a few ideas:

o   Try to avoid jumping to conclusions, and basing your response on a stereotype, or on too little information. 

o   Be aware of something called “pluralistic ignorance”—we tend to jump on the outrage bandwagon just because the other people in our group are expressing outrage. Our social media networks are mostly composed of people with whom we generally agree, so if we see everyone angry about something, we tend to assume that’s the way we should feel as well. When we fall into this trap, we tend NOT to take the time to really look at an issue or an event to see if outrage is really the best response, we just reiterate what we see online.

o   Here’s something novel—walk in the shoes of your opponent. Well, it’s not really novel, it’s been a way to overcome conflict for millennia. But in these days of polarization, the very idea that you might try to see an issue from the perspective of someone you consider an enemy? Well, that’s just so crazy that it might work. I mean, you’re still looking for claims with good solid evidence and reasoning, but if nothing else you can try to determine the underlying reason why someone feels or thinks the way they do about an issue, even if you’re certain they’ve come to the wrong conclusion. And remember that messages sent with less outrage are more likely to lead to conversations with opponents rather than bitter arguments. 

o   Zaid Jalani says that one reason we may feel outrage is because we’re having difficulty controlling our personal anxiety, so taking some time to practice mindfulness techniques like meditation, or even doing something simple like getting outside and into nature for a walk can reduce anxiety and diminish our knee-jerk outrage reactions.

·      Finally, be very picky about why, when and to whom or what you express outrage. If outrage can have a positive purpose, then you should make sure you are using it to accomplish something positive. The next time you have those feelings of outrage, ask yourself:

o   Why is this making me so angry? 

o   What is it that I want my outrage to accomplish? Is it my intention to hurt, belittle, damage or even destroy someone or some entity? 

o   Am I sure that would fix the problem, or would it just make me feel better, if only temporarily?

o   Can I focus my outrage in a way that would make sure the issue is recognized, justice is properly served where it needs to be, and positive changes occur as a result?

o   If after some self-reflection you realize that your outrage will accomplish nothing positive, and in fact may simply be making you and the people around you miserable, then walk away. Professor Ford says we should “starve the profiteers of outrage by ignoring them, because without our rage, they are nothing.”

Remember, outrage is an emotion, NOT a behavior. It can overwhelm us if we let it, or we can choose to use it as a motivation to take positive action.  I’ll end with another quote from Rob Henderson, “rather than allowing momentary outrage to hijack our attention, we can be more thoughtful about which threats to focus on and how to stop them.”

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And that’s it for this episode. If you like what you’re hearing, let me know by writing a review on Apple Podcasts, or going to my Facebook page. Just type Think It Through; the Clearer Thinking Podcast in the search bar and like my page or send me a message. Thanks for listening, and I hope you use the knowledge you gain here to help you “Think It Through.”