If 2014 has taught us anything, it’s that you need to step away from the computer or the smart phone every one in a while or else all the outrage and vitriol out there will drive you mad. Social media reached a fever pitch so often this year, you might think there was something new to get upset about each day. Well, you’d be right. Slate has even put together a handy calendar for the year so you can look back and see just what was causing so much agitation. Some of it, in retrospect, was pretty silly.
2014: The year in online outrage
“Over the past decade or so, outrage has become the default mode for politicians, pundits, critics and, with the rise of social media, the rest of us,” Slate’s Julia Turner explains. “When something outrageous happens — when a posh London block installs anti-homeless spikes, or when Khloe Kardashian wears a Native American headdress, or, for that matter, when we read the horrifying details in the Senate’s torture report —it’s easy to anticipate the cycle that follows: anger, sarcasm, recrimination, piling on; defenses and counterattacks; anger at the anger, disdain for the outraged; sometimes, an apology … and on to the next.”
What’s alarming is how often these instances are cropping up and how much the reactions are becoming commonplace. The chart, by the way, only covers up to December 23, so you’ll just have to remember everything you were angry about in the last week. We don’t think it will be too difficult.
Follow Ned Ehrbar on Twitter: @nedrick
