NYT technology writer Farhad Manjoo attempts to shut off Trump news...
and finds that he cannot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/t...ia-ignore.html
Quote:
It wasn’t my aim to stick my head in the sand. I did not quit the news. Instead, I spent as much time as I normally do online (all my waking hours), but shifted most of my energy to looking for Trump-free zones.
My point: I wanted to see what I could learn about the modern news media by looking at how thoroughly Mr. Trump had subsumed it. In one way, my experiment failed: I could find almost no Trump-free part of the press.
But as the week wore on, I discovered several truths about our digital media ecosystem. Coverage of Mr. Trump may eclipse that of any single human being ever.
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Eight. More. Years.
Quote:
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The new president doesn’t simply dominate national and political news. During my week of attempted Trump abstinence, I noticed something deeper: He has taken up semipermanent residence on every outlet of any kind, political or not. He is no longer just the message. In many cases, he has become the medium, the ether through which all other stories flow.
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Manjoo then recounts a list of haters who
just gotta hate, as all media inserts mostly anti-Trump messages into the nation's biggest television shows, the Grammy, the Golden Globes, the Super Bowl. He's not just everywhere, he's the only topic anyone is thinking about, anywhere!
Leaving no oxygen for other important news:
Quote:
On most days, Mr. Trump is 90 percent of the news on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and probably yours, too. But he’s not 90 percent of what’s important in the world. During my break from Trump news, I found rich coverage veins that aren’t getting social play. ISIS is retreating across Iraq and Syria. Brazil seems on the verge of chaos. A large ice shelf in Antarctica is close to full break. Scientists may have discovered a new continent submerged under the ocean near Australia.
There’s a reason you aren’t seeing these stories splashed across the news. Unlike old-school media, today’s media works according to social feedback loops. Every story that shows any signs of life on Facebook or Twitter is copied endlessly by every outlet, becoming unavoidable.
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This is why it happened, and this is why it's going to happen again in four years. Every day a glorious orgasm of Trump across all channels. We just can't think about ANYTHING else.
How will it work out? Maybe there will be crisis/crises which continue to cause people to mainline the hatery. Or maybe we slowly become fed up, and take up a cultural diet of anything else. Maybe disco will come flying back and everybody will get laid. Clams on the half-shell, and rollerskates! Rollerskates!
Or, maybe there will be a war. Disco or war, which one are you hoping for? Either way, I can't wait.