2016 has been a very interesting year. Donald Trump swooped in to win the RNC nomination, Colin Kaepernick managed to rile up the country by doing exactly what everyone who was watching from home was doing, and worst of all, Harambe was shot on the 28th of May in the Cincinnati Zoo. Rest in peace big guy. Of all of the ‘scandals’ that have occurred this year, there is one that makes me far more angry than any others.
There are too many damn scandals to write about.
Last year when something interesting was occurring it stood out. It seemed like an important issue. It was easy to drum up the motivation and emotion needed to write a short opinion or analysis piece on something because there was not that much to choose from. This year it seems the universe, God, or the Lord of Infinite Silly Consequences purchased one of those calendars with a phrase or fact on it for each day of the year, but instead of a silly quote or joke it was a new scandal the world would endure.
Honestly, in my opinion, it is the media’s fault. They get ratings when they drum up some new thing to be outraged over. Everyone gets up in arms, makes a Facebook post, and moves on until next week’s juicy scandal. It seems to me that everyone is just looking for things to be angry about. Clinton said this, Trump did that, something happened to a kid somewhere.
I call it the Culture of Outrage. Everyone is just waiting to fly into a frothing rage about whatever new scandal the media delivers, and everyone does, without fail. I think the internet is partially to blame. Just as the newest dank meme can go viral and you will suddenly see it everywhere, so too can the latest scandal you are supposed to be upset about.
Now, there are certainly issues that deserve attention. Politics is an important issue to be following and staying up to date on, and being outraged regarding what this or that candidate did or said is at least in part warranted. My problem is there have been so many scandals that people have gotten upset about that many seem to go completely unnoticed. In 2012 Mitt Romney saw a huge decline in the polls after his “47%” and “Binders full of women” gaffes, some even point to those two specific lines as what ultimately cost him the election. Yet, when something arguably worse happens in the Clinton or Trump campaigns seemingly nothing severe happens. We watched Trump spit vitriolic rhetoric for months without a single percentage point loss in the polls. Clinton stored over 30,000 private emails on an unsecured server and yet it is hardly brought up as an issue anymore. None of it is important.
As stated before, with every week unveiling a new scandal it is impossible to care. It’s the Bed of Nails effect. One nail will punch right through your foot if you step on it, but when arranged in the hundreds they have no effect on the person on the bed. Because we see so many scandals each and every day we have become numb to their impact, they no longer have any power.
This is problematic for me because I lost the ability to become angry or inspired by current events. I just go through life without caring about what is going on because I just do not have the energy. If I cannot get angry, or inspired, or at least perplexed by an event, I cannot write about it. The worst thing about 2016 has been that there is so much content that I COULD write about that I have lost any inspiration to write anything at all. So now I have to get weird and meta about my articles and write articles about my articles.
Harambe was a big deal though. May 28th, never forget.
