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[Langdon Alger]

Not really, at least not to the extent people think. The advent of social media has made things more transparent than ever before and it becomes easier than ever to see behavior that used to have distance and opacity to it. Some girl throwing a tantrum at college isn't part of some enormous shift in how college students act, its a girl throwing a tantrum and there was probably a girl like her at college in the 70s as well

I dunno, the idea that people would get "outraged" for fake reasons because they like being mad has never resonated with me. I tend to assume that if people are angry about something they're actually upset, they're not just faking it

Colleges in the 70s weren't banning teaching Ovid, or removing a famous campus statue of a naked man because it might be triggering, or banning the display of the American flag. There are a ton of examples of crazy stuff like this happening in colleges today. It's not just a matter of a few individual students overreacting.

 

[igordennis]

Its quickly becoming a parody of itself unbeknownst to the people who use it seriously just like sjw did.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

everything seems to have a culture/ sub culture now

Because people can now interact in groups without leaving their homes.

 

[Future]

Im not sure if outrage culture is a real thing, or that nowadays social media makes once persons outrage heard and "liked" by millions in hours... At which it becomes viral and then talked about in other social media like this forum.

The internet also cements whatever the person is outraged about in stone (in a posted video, tweet, Facebook post, hell even cell phone message), so millions with a like mind can also be outraged about it instantaneously

It's not outrage culture. It's social media culture

 

[benicillin]

A lot of it is manufactured for the 24 hour news cycle.

https://medium.com/@parkermolloy/5-things-the-media-does-to-manufacture-outrage-ba79125e1262

Absolutely required reading. Outrage culture as it's commonly known on the Internet is, the vast majority of the time, a right-wing conjured boogeyman.

 

[Camjo-Z]

I don't think outrage culture exists in the sense that there are people who get mad about things solely to get mad about things. (Well, aside from conservative news hosts.) I do think that there are definitely a lot of situations that people tend to blow out of proportion, such as the OCD sweater or Starbucks cup stuff, and it becomes especially difficult to voice dissent when the issue is related to a minority group because the people outraged are often quick to claim that anyone not with them must be a bigot in some way.

Because whenever I see someone pull this card out, what it really means is either:
A) "I don't think this thing you're upset about is important so you shouldn't either" or
B) "If I wanna make a shitty joke picking on a minority group that's already been picked on plenty, it's my god-given right to do so"

The OP is a good example. It's basically the inverse of outrage culture - instead of assuming that people who get outraged about things are doing so just for the sake of outrage, it assumes that the people complaining about outrage culture only do so because they want to silence everyone else and/or oppress minorities. It is possible to hear why some people think something is offensive and disagree without having some sinister ulterior motive behind your reasoning.

 

[Tesseract]

if the exchange of ideas upsets you, it's time to go home and be a family person

 

[excelsiorlef]

I don't think outrage culture exists in the sense that there are people who get mad about things solely to get mad about things. (Well, aside from conservative news hosts.) I do think that there are definitely a lot of situations that people tend to blow out of proportion, such as the OCD sweater or Starbucks cup stuff, and it becomes especially difficult to voice dissent when the issue is related to a minority group because the people outraged are often quick to claim that anyone not with them must be a bigot in some way.



The OP is a good example. It's basically the inverse of outrage culture - instead of assuming that people who get outraged about things are doing so just for the sake of outrage, it assumes that the people complaining about outrage culture only do so because they want to silence everyone else and/or oppress minorities. It is possible to hear why some people think something is offensive and disagree without having some sinister ulterior motive behind your reasoning.

Big difference Starbucks got a presidential candidate to say boycott Starbucks. Target got some people tweeting hey that kinda makes light of a mental illness that already doesn't get taken seriously.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

if the exchange of ideas upsets you, it's time to go home and be a family person

Omae Wa Mou.. Otosa!

 

[Avixph]

Yes. Outrage culture is basically people being outraged at women, LGBT, and minorities not taking shit anymore and standing up for themselves.

When said groups do this, you see people crawl out the woodworks about how annoying it is. That outrage culture.

It's just a way of dismissing an issue you don't care about or aren't affected by. It's automatically indicative of how willing the person using the word "outrage culture" is to emphathize with other human beings.

It exists in the sense that there are people who, for political or financial reasons, manufacture artificial outrage about topics of little significance in order to draw attention to something that people would usually ignore. It's just that the majority of the people doing this are the ones throwing a fit abut "outrage culture," rather than the ones supposedly being offended, and they (at least the leaders) are doing it consciously as part of a media strategy.

As an example, take a look at this story from Parker Molloy about the recent "controversy" over a lipstick called "Underage Red," which tracks the exact process by which media outlets take a totally normal expression of dislike and transform it into a vague and menacing wave of "outrage," and ironically creating far far more offense on the part of internet randos furious about "outrage culture" than anyone actually had over the lipstick.

EDIT: Took too long to write this, see I've been scooped. Outrage!

Thank you all for posting this.

 

[charlequin]

Yeah, I think it's fair to say it is a thing. Shirtstorm, for example.

This is maybe the archetypal example of how media attention, intended solely to draw views and clicks, amplified a non-story into a giant flap and in the process produced far more abusive and inappropriate behavior than had occurred previously. Good summary of what the attention at the time actually looked like.

Colleges in the 70s weren't banning teaching Ovid, or removing a famous campus statue of a naked man because it might be triggering, or banning the display of the American flag.

How do these examples establish the existence of a meaningful broader trend? How do we know that colleges in the 70s (which, if you look back to period media, were regularly depicted as extreme left-wing bubbles that were out of touch with reality) didn't have any sort of overreactions or humorless student actions about minor problems, when the media landscape at the time wouldn't have echoed any minor event out to the world the way social media and clickbait sites do today? This is supposed to be this ominous implication of how terrible and destructive this modern academic culture is but you have to extrapolate pretty far to get from a little bit of anecdata to a meaningful conclusion.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

The Internet has made it real.

Most of the people that get mad at one another today would never interact IRL.

 

[ryseing]

There's an entire subreddit dedicated to it, and said subreddit is fucking hilarious.

So yes, it's a thing.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

The hypersensitivity that comes with "outrage culture" is a thing on the left and right.

Everyone is offended by something, no matter how slight or trivial it is they'll complain about it online (assuming what it is wasn't online which then they're share it) and if they have enough like minded people paying attention it'll blow up and go beyond the social media echoing chambers and it'll turn into an internet mob.

Then you have stupid shit with the right and the "war on Christmas" that Fox News and Bill O'Rly loves to push this time of year because poor poor evangelicals are feeling oppressed despite their religion making up the majority. Fox News is pretty much the grandfather of modern outrage culture.

 

[BigDes]

Outrage culture seems to be ysed by reactionary people who want to control what other peopke talk about.

You see it here sometimes a civil thread discussing something calmly and somebody will come in accusing everyone of being outraged.

I have no doubt we give credence to things that in the past would just blow over these days but I have never seen someone using the term unironically add anything to a discussion or a debate

 

[Dryk]

Yes but it's ironically overblown

 

[DICKS AHOY]

Depends on the context and I think it's largely subjective as to how big an issue it is. There's been a ton of times I've rolled my eyes at something people (mostly online) are getting up in arms about being offensive, but there's been other times there's stuff I'll clearly recognize as racist/homophobic/sexist/etc., I'm pretty sure IRL would be labelled as such by most people, yet you suddenly get WELL HERE COMES THE PC POLICE style comments I simply can't relate to. Had to unfollow a few people on a few social networks because they started going on about Muslims killing all of us if they had the chance during the Paris terrorist attacks, and I don't think I was being overly sensitive thinking that line of thinking is blatantly racist and I don't particularly feel comfortable following someone who'd paint such a broad stroke about a billion people. Given I only followed them for art/gaming reasons and they're not even that political the fact they probably only think that way because of some dumb GG pandering or whatever makes it even dumber they'd take up such an extreme mindset because it tangentially relates to 'getting rid of SJW's in gaming' or some similarly banal bullshit I doubt they thought particularly hard about.

I don't think it helps that online discussion misses a lot of nuance and subtleties having these discussions out in the open would have, so you probably have people just playing around who come across as more abbrassive and assholish than they intended when they crack a joke at more progressive type's expense, and other people who come across as more 'controlling' when they're trying to point out how words personally affect them. In the context of GAF, when you combine that with nerdy habits like gaming, cartoons, comics etc. which already have a ton of fans used to getting picked on and maligned by a lot of outsiders to the point where they'll be overly defensive by default and you have a recipe for disaster.

I agree with some of the examples given though where I don't see why conservative 'outrages' like the fucking War on Christmas (glad we don't have anything quite as trivial and pointless as a major discussion point over here) and the color of Starbucks cups can't count as a part of 'Outrage Culture' as well.

 

[MIMIC]

When I think "outrage culture", I think Twitter.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Cecil the lion incident proves it is.

 

[Sol..]

Its mostly a straw man people use to attempt to obfuscate their feelings/beliefs on issues in fear of what other people would think if they were upfront.

 

[Loakum]

Every Fox News headline is of an "Outrage" that "Some critics" are "Outraged" about. Any and everything is subject to outrage, now-a-days. Outrage culture is PC Culture.

 

[DICKS AHOY]

Cecil the lion incident proves it is.

Oh yeah, when you have like, thousands of people spending a few weeks publicly wishing death on a guy and their family, without holding much sympathy for the guy or his illegal actions I think you need to step back a bit and reexamine your priorities.

Stuff like Twitter magnifies everything ten-fold to extremes the target, justified or not normally wouldn't have to endure if social-networking didn't exist and they had to face the social repercussions of their actions in-person more than over the internet where anyone can use a few clicks to threaten your life.

 

[Bearthgar]

It is the next door neighbor to the "no fun allowed" robot and the poor triggered tumblr woman with thick glasses.

 

[Oersted]

Just because someone has his or her sensibilities "offended," especially when it's caused by a joke, doesn't make it an opinion that should be revered.

The ideas of "outrage culture" and these "Oppression Olympics" definitely seem real to me.

Someone feeling offended does not mean they are outraged or acting like it.

 

[ivysaur12]

There are examples of collective overreaction.

HOWEVER, I think the casual usage of "outrage culture" or "PC" are just from people who have never had their POV challenged by those with less privilege. You're sort of seeing that now with the Missou protests. People are screaming "PC gone amock!" are those who are coming from a place where they would never need to protest a climate in which they don't feel welcome. Instead of trying to engage, there's an appeal to tradition of when people didn't need to complain about such things! (The truth being that people did, but no one listened. And now we're listening)

Sarah Silverman did a good bit on this with the term "PC" being thrown around.

 

[Quixzlizx]

At what point am I allowed to roll my eyes at someone for being offended? Should I be equally conciliatory toward someone saying "I demand that rollercoasters be banned because they exclude the height-challenged" as someone saying "I demand that the police stop gunning down unarmed black people"?

Offense is a subjective, emotional state, so obviously anyone can be offended over anything at all without being "wrong." But I don't think that I need to bend over backwards over every individual's instances of being offended as a prerequisite in order to be an empathetic, moral person.

 

[Inferno313]

Tangentially related, but I found it amusing that this girl who spends the most amount of time of anyone I know complaining about outrage culture on facebook made a post this week about how Muslims are comparable to Nazis.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Tangentially related, but I found it amusing that this girl who spends the most amount of time of anyone I know complaining about outrage culture on facebook made a post this week about how Muslims are comparable to Nazis.

That's not even remotely surprising.

 

[petethepanda]

Absolutely, though I do think the idea is too often evoked to disregard grievances that are actually valid.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

That's not even remotely surprising.

Definitely. The real outrage culture now is that people are outraged that can't be horrible people without consequences.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

Definitely. The real outrage culture now is that people are outraged that can't be horrible people without consequences.

This is how I feel, especially since I can easily look back into my own past and see the times where I said and did exactly the same shit, largely because I was immature and unconcerned with the plight of people who aren't me. I can't say I've seen a single person moaning about "outrage culture" who didn't come off as either immature and simply unwilling to entertain the idea that maybe their behavior is shitty.

 

[Einchy]

Definitely. The real outrage culture now is that people are outraged that can't be horrible people without consequences.

I guess it's easier to think anyone who disagrees with you is some racist, sexist and other ists monster rather than normal sane people.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I guess it's easier to think anyone who disagrees with you is some racist, sexist and other ists monster rather than normal sane people.

It's never about the disagreement, it's about the *way* people disagree, often by simply dismissing the entire concept that the thing a person is speaking out against is in any way a problem, often based entirely on an empathy-free examination of their own experiences.

 

[Banglish]

Im not sure if outrage culture is a real thing, or that nowadays social media makes once persons outrage heard and "liked" by millions in hours... At which it becomes viral and then talked about in other social media like this forum.

The internet also cements whatever the person is outraged about in stone (in a posted video, tweet, Facebook post, hell even cell phone message), so millions with a like mind can also be outraged about it instantaneously

It's not outrage culture. It's social media culture

This this thiiiiis. Outrage culture? That's some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

 

[Skellig Gra]

This this thiiiiis. Outrage culture? That's some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

A little hyperbolic here. One could even say you sound outraged.

 

[Banglish]

A little hyperbolic here. One could even say you sound outraged.

Outrage-ception. I feel this is just the regular functioning of social media. Information is retrieved by people -> said people have similar opinion(s) on retrieved information. Is that too simplistic?

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Yeah it's a thing. When people want to speak about social issues or discuss existing inequalities there's absolutely a response from a group of people who want to maintain the status quo which can be described as outrage.

 

[Inferno313]

I guess it's easier to think anyone who disagrees with you is some racist, sexist and other ists monster rather than normal sane people.

I mean, in the specific case of my post that he's replying to, I can't think of much of a defense for demonizing 1.6 billion people as being comparable to Nazis. Even if you believe that religion as in institution is bad, which was her larger argument. She's more of a Bill Maher-esque "Militant Athiest" (her own words) than a right winger.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Outrage-ception. I feel this is just the regular functioning of social media. Information is retrieved by people -> said people have similar opinion(s) on retrieved information. Is that too simplistic?

I think it's more like people want to be heard in a sea of noise so they greatly exaggerate their actual feelings.

 

[Camjo-Z]

It's never about the disagreement, it's about the *way* people disagree, often by simply dismissing the entire concept that the thing a person is speaking out against is in any way a problem, often based entirely on an empathy-free examination of their own experiences.

Is it even possible to disagree with someone on such a subject without in some way thinking that what they're speaking out about isn't as much of a problem as they think it is? I mean, if you thought it was in any way a problem, you wouldn't be against the outrage.

 

[Einchy]

I mean, in the specific case of my post that he's replying to, I can't think of much of a defense for demonizing 1.6 billion people as being comparable to Nazis. Even if you believe that religion as in institution is bad, which was her larger argument. She's more of a Bill Maher-esque "Militant Athiest" (her own words) than a right winger.

I wasn't speaking directly to that, of course someone who says that is insane.

However, in this thread there are other people who believe anyone who talks about outrage culture as not being a myth is someone who is a racist/sexist who just doesn't want to be called out which is a ridiculous notion.

Gaf is one of the most liberal places you'll find on the internet and a lot of its members rudicle how nutty some of the left has gotten this past few years. Am I to assume all of those people are racists and sexists since they're tired of the outrage culture?

 

[Jonm1010]

I don't think there is a outrage culture as much as a catastrophizing culture.

It exists on both sides of the political spectrum and even in non-political areas. But it certainly exists. It likely always existed to some capacity but the nature of the internet and certain popular social media sites have certainly fueled it directly and indirectly IMO.

From Fox News to TMZ to Tumblr liberals to Bret Bart Republicans. On Twitter, Facebook and message boards. There is a constant stream of catastrophizing and almost every week a new event that blows up in the cultural conscience. And the Internet and social media has given a voice and a level of instant power to people that hasn't really existed before. And those caught up in the whims of it often find their lives either ruined or elevated.

One week a person making potato salad on Kickstarter earns tens of thousands of dollars and the next an out of context inside joke amongst friends gets misconstrued and catastrophized and a persons life is ruined.

 

[biggersmaller]

The issue I have is with the quickly growing number of extremely liberal people who hoist their viewpoints upon the world while being unwilling or unable to even have a discussion. Calling this segment of people as part of "outrage culture" is not out of bounds in my book. Take the Tim Wolfe resignation as an example. I haven't read about any actions of his that I believe warranted such extreme forms of protest. So, I don't necessarily side with the protesters on this issue.

Now, there are several people I know who cannot shoulder even an ounce of doubt as to whether the call for his resignation was justified and will write off anyone wanting to even explore an opposing viewpoint as "ignorant" or "racist." So I simply can't engage with many people out of fear of being lumped in with the Sean Hannity crowd. It engenders a kind of sameness on the left that leaves people like myself having to call themselves "down the middle" to avoid association with people who simply want a social cause to fight for 24/7.

 

[mantidor]

Have a read.

Jesus.

 

[manfestival]

outrage of the outrage is far more entertaining to me. outrage culture is real. everyone wants to be outraged about something

 

[Tain]

note that "outrage culture" became a term after "rape culture" was being widely discussed

almost like a bunch of whiny reactionary pissbabies had to defensively coin a term to allow them to make rape jokes criticism-free

 

[excelsiorlef]

Have a read.

That is such a fundamentally bizarre article. It uses a single example (white guy being "attacked" by Hispanic guy) for 3/4 of the piece and then tries to tie it into Stop and Frisk and other more widespread phenomena of minorities being oppressed to argue the existence of said "Victim Culture" and then concludes by basically saying I'm just asking questions.

What I find fascinating is he seems to just accept that colleges encourage victim culture but is still questioning if the more widespread stop and frisk stuff counts. Despite that his entire college portion was about one hispanic guy and the others were about things happening to minorities and much more widespread. Like seriously this article is about a single incident at a single college.

 

[Ekai]

Because whenever I see someone pull this card out, what it really means is either:
A) "I don't think this thing you're upset about is important so you shouldn't either" or
B) "If I wanna make a shitty joke picking on a minority group that's already been picked on plenty, it's my god-given right to do so"

Then you gotta people getting offended over how someone else could possibly be offended over the thing they're not offended over, so then they're just as big a part of the "outrage culture" as they people they're accusing. I just see people that've gotten tired of being punched down on saying "Hey, could you knock it off for once?" and people getting huffy and puffy in response.

Nah, that pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. If any "outrage culture" exists it's from those who are angry at being called out for being the bigots/defenders of rape culture/criticizers of "victim culture"/whatever other nonsense they are. They apply the very term that describes them to those they attack with meaningless buzzwords meant to evoke quick hatred to put it bluntly. It's something certain types of people are great at in particular; creating phrases to marginalize and insult people that have extreme hollow meanings. Taker. Welfare Queen. Bears Fans. To name a few.

Gotta love it when people blame the one's they abuse with remarks of "they deserve it" in one breath and then accuse the victim of making up the abuse in the next and then say they're outraged and delusional and therefore should not be listened to. It's a common tactic used by trolls and hate movements in particular. This kind of attitude is cultivated in Web 2.0 sites as proper and it makes a really disturbing hivemind justification. But getting into Web 2.0 nonsense is a whole other slew of problems. This being just one of them. So yea, outrage culture is a thing, just not in the way certain people love to use the term. And it says way more of people who use that card than of anything else really.

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

I see more OUTRAGE culture on the right than on the left, but I may be biased about that.

 

[perfectchaos007]

I see more OUTRAGE culture on the right than on the left, but I may be biased about that.

The Right can take a joke quite well while he left gets rather offended when a joke is at them. Lorne Michaels knows from experience this is the case.