Everyone Everywhere Offended All At Once

Let’s avoid manufactured outrage

Earlier this year, back in March, I deleted my Twitter account from my phone, and later in the year, I deactivated the account entirely. There were a multitude of factors in my decision, but one of them was the toxicity of it. People consistently get into fights with each other, canceling each other and getting outraged by every other sentence made.

While on a journey in my head and having a conversation with myself, (I do this a lot, and yes I might be crazy) I was exploring the current state and the evolution of America’s political parties. And how they have evolved even since my coming to this country 14 years ago. I reached out to a friend of mine, Tobi, and he hit me with the following:

Usually, different eras have an ideology and culture. Right now, it’s “tolerance”. That is, everyone can do whatever, and as long as you are tolerant, you are accepted. In the past, the culture was “respect and properness”. You could do whatever you wanted as long as you were respectful and proper by society's standards, you were accepted.

This rang so true to me, that I immediately pulled out my laptop and started writing. It answered a question I have had for a while. Why do people get so offended about things in recent times? I believe that people would go out of their way to get offended by something, knowing deep down, it wasn’t intended in an offensive way nor were they offended by it.

Is everyone just trying to one-up the other person? “I can be the most tolerant” and as such, we all keep going further and further and get “offended” by things. But we’re not offended by the original definition of the word but in a way that we are seeking an internal validation of our current era and ideology of tolerance. “If I am not offended, then can I be a proper part of society? I will be offended because I am standing up for someone else somewhere, maybe.”

As we exist in society today, I believe that there are a few different types of outrage. Actual outrage, manufactured outrage, and learned outrage. Actual outrage would be one being offended by something and reacting as thus. Manufactured outrage on the other hand would be one thinking it through, then deciding on whether or not to be offended by it. An example of this would be the Will Smith slapping of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards in 2022. Chris Rock told a joke, Will Smith found it funny and even laughed. Then decided he should be offended by it, became outraged, and then acted as such. Outrage is defined as “ an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock, or indignation.” There is a difference between feeling immediately offended and outraged by an action and thinking then choosing to proceed with outrage to an incident.

I believe the latter of the two is where we are in society and why people seem to get offended by things at a higher rate than ever before. I do not think people are more “soft” than in the past. I just believe “we” are just making a more conscious choice to be offended by things. Back in 2018, I went to Russia for the Soccer World Cup. Deciding to go for that event was a stressful one for me, On one hand, I am massively obsessed and passionate about the sport. And on the other hand, one doesn’t hear great things about Russia. In the end, I decided to go ahead with it. It ended up being the best experience of my life so far. The people were some of the nicest people I have ever met. There was one odd thing that happened when I was over there. It seemed like people over there were not used to seeing black people. So I had about 50–100 people trying to take photos with me daily. At a certain point, I turned to my brother who was on the trip with me, and asked “Should we be offended by this?” But in the end, if you have to inquire as to whether an action is offensive or if you should be offended by something, then you’re clearly not offended by it.

“These days, it feels like everyone is in an echo chamber. If this makes my friends offended, then I should be too. And by friends, it could be real or fake friends. Reals friends in your day-to-day as well as “friends” from social media.” Our default setting as individuals is to form a community. The rise of social media has seen us withdraw from our physical communities and see us seek communities virtually via social media. As a result, people just take sides, rile each other up, and feign outrage over a situation. And because voices on social media can be so loud, all it takes is a minute percentage of people to be offended by an issue to cause it to become a social media meltdown. And naturally, the echo chamber ensues, and you end up in a “controversy”. I see this happen on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States. Dave Chappell tells a joke. Almost everyone laughs and moves on. A few people feign outrage. The echo chamber of the internet spreads outrage. Then you have outrage and people calling for the cancellation of a person. On the other side, a young actress criticizes a movie that came out in 1937, Snow White. And you have a meltdown regarding her criticizing the “woman in despair” narrative. And again, one person raises an eyebrow regarding the comments. By the end of the day, you have the entire internet outraged and calling for her cancellation.

Lastly, I want to mention another type of outrage, the learned one. This version is a little bit different from the others. It’s the kind that without prior knowledge or education on the matter, one would not become outraged. I think of something like blackface. There is an entire history behind that and why it is an offensive action. Should a white person want to dress up as an 80’s basketball player for Halloween and decide to paint himself to reflect? Do I see that and immediately feel outraged or offended by the action? The honest answer is no. But I understand why it is offensive because of its history. I do not believe it is an action that fuels one with rage, but one that one has been taught to be offended by. And we proceed in such a manner.

There are three variations of outrage. Actual outrage. That results from one actually being offended by words or actions. Manufactured outrage, aka, the Will Smith outrage. Where one makes a decision to be outraged by something and then proceeds to act as such. And lastly, the learned outrage. This comes from the education we have received on certain subject matter.

In conclusion, my point is that, let’s avoid manufactured outrage.

Stop making a decision to be offended by something when you’re genuinely not offended by it. I think sometimes people jump over themselves to feign outrage over subjects fewer than one percent of people take issue with. Proceed to pick up fights online or cancel people who dare say anything that doesn’t fit into their idea of tolerance. I think we should all take a step back.

Give it a thought.

Am I genuinely offended by this? Or am I pulling a Will Smith and making a conscious choice to be outraged by something I am not offended or outraged by? We decided to get outraged then we went on the internet then rile each other up and a minute issue balloons into something much larger and is blown out of proportion. Just think people, am I being Will Smith at this moment? If yes, sit back down, have a laugh, and move on with your day.