'Why we're addicted to online outrage'

Good stuff here.

http://theweek.com/article/index/257915/why-were-addicted-to-online-outrage

On one level, "outrage porn" at least promises to stimulate an internet grazer who is bored at work, or perhaps even bored with life. It makes him feel like an actor in a great moral struggle, either as victim or as triumphant voice of justice. Indeed, savvy media organizations train their headline writers to find the "stakes" that matter to readers, and one way to do that is to generate anxiety about being in the unfairly hated or the righteously hating parts of American life.

 

As a 55-year-old white middle-class American male, I'm offended that the author believes my outrage is not genuine.

 

Yeah, I'm sick of the "This person said/wrote/tweeted this and now we hate them." that so many seem addicted to.

It is so rare that the outrage seems merited. Michael Richards, Mel Gibson... Most of the time it's people overreacting to a bad joke.

 

Goddamn it.

 

That's outrageous.

 

The perpetually outraged live on this site. Who's kidding who.

 

Poor punctuation pisses me off too. Although who can really blame me.

 

I punctuate when I wish, Little Gauss.

 

Whom.

 

I'm not paying the ticket so go cite somebody else.
And I was using a common turn of phrase, you tedious dolt.

 

Comma comma comma chameleon, goddamn it.

 

I'm only perpetually outraged because I'm perpetually surrounded by perpetual assholes.