If you’re a regular MSNBC or Fox News enjoyer, you’re no doubt privy to both networks’ recurring the-other-guys-are-literally-Satan routine. If you don’t watch either network, you may catch wind of something along these lines from acquaintances, friends, or family members. If not them, then from politicians, social media posts, Internet memes, picket signs, bumper stickers, novelty mugs—the list is inexhaustible. To call politically motivated hatred “popular” would be a severe understatement. At this point, it’s more accurate to refer to it as a way of life. It’s become as American as reality TV, the Super Bowl, and unmitigated gun violence.
Is only political media to blame? Surely not. We’re the ones who choose to consume it, right? Our addiction to sensationalist, wrath-inspiring political journalism and rhetoric comes from the same place as our social media “doomscrolling,” a term describing the mindless consumption of negative media. Oddly enough, doomscrolling has been identified by medical professionals as an anxiety-assuaging coping mechanism. It feeds on anxiety, uncertainty, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression, and tricks its practitioners into believing that they’re simply staying informed and up-to-date. Partisan media is the same: it thrives on the uncertain and disgruntled, intentionally fueling their contemptuous fires.
The most attractive offering of both doomscrolling and sensationalist media, believe it or not, isn’t how depressed and angry they make you—these are generally undesirable feelings. We drown ourselves in manufactured misery because it offers absolution, the freedom from responsibility and accountability. The social media doomscroll suggests that all is lost, the world is on fire, and you’ll never have the body, car, or home of your dreams, so why try? Just keep scrolling. Partisan media suggests that the opposition is destroying your country from within, but fret not—talking heads and politicians will fix that for you. Just keep watching.
There are few feelings, if any, as intoxicating to humans as the feeling of not having to do anything. We search our entire lives looking for our next hit of this drug. Vacations, retirement, your spouse doing the dishes—during these moments, life can feel glorious beyond compare. So when Bret Baier tells you that Democrats, immigrants, and Black Lives Matter are chiefly to blame for America’s social ills, or Lawrence O’Donnell mockingly enumerates every action of Trump’s daily itinerary to support the notion that America has gone near-irrecoverably mad, you get high. “Ahhhh,” you say, “that’s the stuff.”
This feeling, like many highs, is a deceptively dangerous one. If we feel absolved from personal responsibility, it follows that we will do nothing to improve our own lives or the lives of others. We will remain inactive and unmoved. We will be angry, yes, but we won’t feel compelled to translate that anger into meaningful, positive change. Even worse—and politicians and news networks know this well—is that this feeling opens us up to manipulation. If we wait for a savior and allow this to reinforce our lethargy, we will mindlessly do the bidding of whoever repeats our preferred talking points. We will no longer be individuals, but mindless, thoughtless views and votes. So, for God’s sake, turn the TV off every once in a while.
Featured image courtesy of Sammy-Sander on Pixabay.