Scandal sells…
From the Fifty Shades books to the NY Times and Wall Street Journal’s reporting about Gov. Cuomo, we have ample evidence for this truism. Scandal is the opium of the masses today, not religion. Better said, scandal as reported in the media has become the new religion for most people, and they can’t seem to get enough of it. Where there’s a demand, there’s a supplier, and publishers, writers, and media outlets have jumped on the bandwagon and are shoveling the SOS out by the truckful.
We can’t really blame sleaze-meisters like Ronan Farrell or Pierce Morgan, or even Fox News or MSNBC pundits, who are out to shock their viewers. People love their doses of scandal, and others feed that addiction for profit. Blame the media outlets’ producers and writers. The sleaze-meisters are just their toadies.
There’s absolutely no concern for the people who might be hurt unfairly by scandalous accusations for the simple reason that they are assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. Even when proof of innocence is available—i.e. the scandal doesn’t just reduce to an X-said-Y-said, as in the case of Cuomo (you don’t thing a high percentage of politicos didn’t favor their families with Covid testing or vaccinations?)—the public only remembers the initial claims of scandal and never the proof that there was no scandal, or it was often simply an attack generated by a few disgruntled people with an agenda (Cosby’s case was a classic, because the AG was running for office; in Cuomo’s case, you have a new generation of pols aching for a chance at power—his first accuser is also running for office and the twenty-years-old story of abuse came from a de Blasio supporter—guess which Dem in NY state is Cuomo’s biggest enemy!).
Often the person accused of scandal has to face a lynch mob spurred on by the likes of Morgan and Farrell, who become judge and jury for the lynching—this group includes such “fair and honest” news media stars as Jake Tapper. The media know scandal sells, there’d demand for it, and they supply it.
This is all exacerbated by the speed of communications nowadays, mostly social media, where bandwagons for scandal abound. Some of us rush to keep up with the scandal; others (I’m one) are more logical and reasonable and say they’ll withhold judgement until all the facts are in (i.e. due process takes place, and the scandal is proven to be true or false in absolute terms, not a storm in a teacup). But most people are scandal mongers—they buy, sell, and consume scandal.
The scandal’s often not there, folks! Some social media sites even create it out of thin air, leading to all those conspiracy theories that seem impossible to debunk.
QAnon started that way, and that phenomenon is based on and started with non-existent scandal described in a tweet. In general, it can even arise from someone’s interpretation of honest humor and satire! Facebook, for example, about the worst sinner in propagating scandal, real or not, perceived a scandal in Matt Bors’s satirical cartoons, taking them down when they stupidly confused his honest satire with promoting violence. In other words, stupid people can generate stupid scandals that other stupid people latch onto, making the scandal go viral!
I never saw a book take off as fast as Fifty Shades of Grey! Either some people were reading it and vicariously enjoying the lead character’s adventures into S&M, or they were saying, “I have to read that” because of the perceived scandal! I never saw a scandal-laden bandwagon like the one involving Gov. Cuomo move so fast either, now a bandwagon pulled by a lynch mob, driven by politicos with agendas, and pushed by the media. Should I attribute the latter to Covid-boredom and the former to how depraved the general population has sunk! Or is it just more evidence for Einstein’s famous quote (now appearing on my “Home” page)?
I wish psychiatrists and psychologists would do their damn jobs and tell us how to stop this disease before it’s too late. It’s yet another virus afflicting our society.
***
Comments are always welcome.
Meet the MECHs! These “Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans” cause their friend, ex-USN Master-at-Arms Mary Jo Melendez, lots of problems in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” Russian agents steal the MECHs, and a clandestine CIA offshoot frames Mary Jo, in Muddlin’ Through. CIA and Russian agents out to find out where the MECHs are, as well as your garden-variety stalker, pursue Mary Jo, in Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By. And Chinese agents kidnap her family to force her to divulge the MECHs whereabouts, in Goin’ the Extra Mile. The series takes readers from the US to Europe and South America, back to the US, and then to the final showdown in China. Perfect for binge-reading, these “evergreen books” will keep readers guessing and their adrenalin flowing. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
