Profiting from outrage

You know those tantalizing articles that you see online... The ones that ping that synapse in your lizard brain and make your fists clench. The ones that make you want to head straight to the social medias and share.

They're profiting off of our liberal moral outrage (feel free to insert 'conservative' there because it's the same on your end of the online political algorithm).

When you share that post online without a thought (I've been there!!) because you feel that fire surge within you and you just want to expose "them" for who they are...

Click. Share.
Cha-ching.

Wait...
Cha-Ching?
There's money changing hands here?

Yep... That media outlet that you just shared got money from your attention and the attention of those who trust you.

Those media companies profit directly from our nefarious impulses.

They don't care about you or your relationships. They don’t care about the withering away of family and friends around your dinner table.

Why are we so quick to believe all of these horrible things about... "them" (whoever "they" are for you)?... Who cares about the source, if it's legit, or if it EVEN HAPPENED?!

It doesn't matter. That headline had our number from the get-go. We had no chance. Our biases have all been manipulated and used against us (and each other).

Some good questions at this juncture...

What need is being filled in me when I click and share that post?

What inner thirst in me is being quenched to feel that kind of fervor against this other person/people?

Another good one that I've been holding...

What would we left-leaning people do with our xenophobia if we didn't have Trump and his supporters to scapegoat?

"They're" one or two degrees "worse" than us, so it's they who should pay.

Ugh…

There's an opportunity for divinely guided defiance here - to not participate in this wretched media system that profits from our tattered relationships.

Our soul is at risk. Our human connection is at risk. And people are profiting from it.

I'm writing this for me as much as for anyone else. This is a struggle. I don't know if we can get around it.

But I pray that we can at least understand the economics of our outrage on both sides of the spectrum.

Grace + Godspeed,
Jonas