WHY YOU SHOULD HATE THE HATE-READ

Seemingly perpetually now, in a roughly two-week rhythm, I’m being forced to Know About Someone that I really shouldn’t. Not someone of any global or even local importance, but a figure that I could, without a single ill effect, make it to my deathbed never acknowledging. I won’t fuel the fire by naming the current villain we’re all meant to tsk-tsk over, the same way I will never construct a word of which a portion is made up of the term “maxxing.”

I’m not saying no one should ever have to hear about someone unpleasant. There are plenty of real jerks from history past and current it’s good to stay abreast of. What is unnecessary is, really any attention given to some every snide little whelp who’s happy to piss people off until somebody makes the mistake of taking the bait and exposing them to an audience they would have never had previously.

The modern world is made up of a rogues’ gallery of desperate children, either literal or mental, craving attention and figuring out that outrage is a good way to feint relevance. All they have to do is set up a social media account and start screaming cultural obscenities until people gather in curiosity. You can’t control how rubbery TikTok’s collective neck is, but that should be where these leeches struggle and die, deprived of fresh blood to boil.

Unfortunately, the media seems physically incapable of keeping their hands out of the cordoned-off area that, ideally, would form around these zones of infection. They can’t help poking their hands into the cage at the zoo. Whether it’s a misguided attempt to keep their finger on a manufactured pulse, or, realistically, just dollar-sign eyes bulging at content built to spawn algorithm-counted comment engagement, they keep bringing the sick dog inside to show everyone.

Despite the existence of an actual armory of cliches running through eras warning against exactly what the result will be, they keep cracking open this petri dish. More recently in the internet age, and seemingly forgotten completely, the adage of “don’t feed the trolls.” Historically, the saying that you’d think every journalist would be deeply familiar with is “any publicity is good publicity.” Publicity being precisely what button-pushers need to pretend they’re some sort of bona fide iconoclast instead of yet another asshole trying to derail a school assembly so they can confirm they exist.

It doesn’t matter how damning a rebuke of the subject the article ends up being, those are details beside the fact that they’ve provided the exact vector some social virus is looking for. I don’t care how careful your prose is, let’s, for the love of god, avoid the “I Let Myself Be Bitten By The Infected, Foam-Mouthed Monkey. Here’s What I Found Out” explainer piece.

You might notice that I’ve been careful up to this point never to describe any of this attention-seeking behavior as “controversial.” As an adjective, I think “controversial” has fueled a hundred conversations that never needed to be had, while also legitimizing beliefs that aren’t anything more than antiquated and boring. “Controversial” labels its subject interesting, worthy of discussion. The muck it’s slapped on rarely deserves any thought at all.

A million racist, sexist, and widely bigoted screeds have benefited from being labeled as controversial, which has only served to create a conversation around them that’s long been settled. A Nazi, whether neo or not, is not a “controversial figure.” It’s someone who’s clinging to an antiquated, bigoted belief that’s been thoroughly disproven by both science and experience. “Controversial,” whether it’s your intent or not, implies validation that some of the things being discussed are up for, and worthy of, debate. One which you’re promptly drawn into.

I’m not pointing my finger squarely at journalists, and I hope it hasn’t come off that way. I know, maybe better than some, that the days of someone deciding what they’re writing about and even the angles they’re taking, are often out of their control. Newspapers and online publications are now mostly exercises in packaging, and communicating information accurately is allowed only when it doesn’t conflict with that goal.

The only writer-centric mistake that I do think is sometimes made is someone who’s convinced that, through clever riposte, they can be the one to lance the boil. That they’ll lay some farce bare, leave these ragebaiters flayed and exposed, a mess of apology and contrition. This is because one side cares about being correct, and meets error with apology.

The subjects of these constant attempted takedowns do not really have the goal of coherence in any way. They want to fill seats, not win the fight. If, out of the ten million daily readers of a publication of high repute, ninety-nine percent of them recoil in disgust? The target will happily tank that disdain, knowing that they may be walking away with 100,000 people that are willing to listen a little longer. These furor merchants need to be turned away at the peephole, not even given the courtesy of a door chain pulled taut to allow a closer look.

For publications gorged on the idea of their own legitimacy, it’s shocking to see how easily they’re fooled into lending it out. In combat sports, a hobby that seems to be distressingly aligned with this sort of pond scum, there’s an idea of earning the right to fight people at the top of their game. Decorated fighters don’t agree to matches with loud-mouthed upstarts with undemonstrated value as an opponent. Especially ones with pretty transparent secondary motives. 

Yet, repeatedly, papers that have existed for centuries are happy to climb into the ring with someone obviously leaking plaster from both gloves. They don’t even realize that they’ve handed their opponent a separate victory, before the bell ever rings, just by allowing them to share the bill. As a lapsed stand-up, one of the biggest rules you’ll ever learn is, never invite a heckler on stage. No matter how soundly you “destroy” them, or how many clips you harvest from it, you let them make it their show. It’s something the news could learn from.