Once in a while I can be trusted to take notice of something beyond fishing weather and the price of gas at the pumps. I don’t spend all of those other moments hiding under a rock. Keeping up with important details isn’t so bad. It just seems to me that 24/7 is more time than I spend doing anything else but breathing. For this very reason I left social media (for the most part) some time ago. There was simply too much pressure to take too much notice of too many things before finishing my first cup of coffee.
Social media was, in my estimation, a place in which every person could be the next rockstar-Napoleon-Guru. Under the same post, within the same thread, some “friends” told me that I should be far more forgiving of the murderers of some extended family members…And that if I couldn’t be forgiving I could go to Hell, where I deserved to be.
While it stands to reason that people will change their minds from time to time, it was obvious that some folks just wanted to talk. They wanted to talk a lot. There was no concrete moral pillar upon which they stood, unmoved by the winds of change. These weren’t stoic philosophers attempting to inform mankind in some powerful, selfless way. They were just people that wanted to be seen and heard.
Before I forget that point, may I draw your attention back to that 24/7 news cycle? With pressure to fill 24 hours with relevant news, news agencies have taken to manufacturing at least as much news as they find. Every hurricane is now the worst hurricane in recorded or geological history. Every violent act is a cultural T intersection, demanding a sharp turn in the direction of legislative controls and bureaucratic red tape dispensers in every state government complex.
Wouldn’t it be the natural course of things then, that as news agencies press for more excited talk about everything, we should see writers, reporters, and industry leaders hired and promoted for their interest in talking excitedly about everything? Isn’t it the circle of communication being completed when a young “journalist” makes a birthday balloon release into the new Hindenburg disaster?
Isn’t the product shipped after we place the order?
As I sit at my desk sipping mint tea and referencing the news on a few websites, it is abundantly clear that the business to make money in, today, is talking. Not just any talk, though. The real money is in writing, speaking or conveying fear. There are tiny packets of valid information being dispensed across the board. For that I am grateful. It is that thick layer of dread ladeled onto every serving that really sticks in my craw.
Who am I, though? I was part of the speculation mob on Facebook. It was as much my interest in knowing all things right now, as anyone else that could shoulder the blame.
When things get better (and they will) I hope with all of my heart that this culture will become more willing to talk to neighbors about fishing weather and summer vacations than the next trend in cool crisis communications. Maybe it slows the mechanism of this month’s bradycardia. Maybe it isn’t as riveting as apocalyptic narratives but then who will notice if the fishing’s good?