The Appalling Consequences of Audience Capture

One of life’s great struggles is that we're never quite sure why people like us. 

Dating, friendships, entire personalities, most people just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, and see if anything sticks. If it does, they lean into it. 

And that goes triple for anybody who's even close to the public eye. 

I mean, do you think Russel Brand’s hair looked this ridiculous without a team of expert coiffeurs on 24-hour standby? Do you think Dylan Mulvaney's “girl” schtick is any more authentic than the “flaming queen” or non-binary animal whisperer personas that weren't quite as marketable? Do you think Tucker Carlsen used to wear a bowtie on prime-time television because he thought they looked cool?

Every detail of these personas is carefully crafted, meticulously rehearsed, and if people happen to like them, slavishly adhered to. No matter what. 

After all, there’s no telling if we’ll get another chance to get these details right.

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In the social media age, the popularity game has become so competitive that it's killing us.

YouTubers transform themselves from fit, violin-playing vegans into morbidly obese gargoyles just to amuse their viewers. 

Influencers starve themselves to death so their audiences will tell them how cute they look. 

Daredevils risk their lives (and the lives of the public) to boost their ailing channels.

There’s no limit to how far some people will go. And while this is bad enough when they're trying to entertain us, it's far worse when they're supposed to inform us. 

There are the online trolls like Ian Miles Cheong, whose willingness to shill whatever homophobic, xenophobic narrative gets the most clicks has earned him well over half a million followers. 

Or race-baiters like Saira Rao, whose talent for stoking white guilt and racial outrage has driven countless eyeballs to her terrible books. 

Ask yourself why Joe Rogan would challenge the Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development to “debate” a guy who thinks AIDS is “caused by poppers,” that wi-fi causes cancer, and that the water supply is making boys (and frogs) transgender.

Or why that same scientist would claim he respects Rogan while simultaneously telling his followers that Rogan is part of “a coalition with neofascist leanings.” 

(Hint: it has something to do with the 250 million views their little squabble generated.)