Dunk-happy media clowns
But it's not entirely their fault, I guess
So, my last piece—from yesterday, no less—offered a theory, that the democratization of the internet coupled with its nature is what makes people more obnoxious on social media than they might otherwise be in real life:
I would argue that this reality, these constant misunderstandings of what people are saying and/or the tone of what they are saying, tends to make people more belligerent on social media than they would otherwise be in real life (thought I also think there’s a feedback loop here, wherein peoples’ online personas have begin to influence their real life personas in quite negative ways). And I would argue that—again—this is a consequence of the democratization of the internet, of the fact that there are just so many people on social media and that so many of them just suck at processing what people are saying, at recognizing the intent behind a lot of what is said. I have no solutions for this problem, apart from maybe having people take reading comprehension and IQ tests before being allowed on the internet. Really, those who fail should also be barred from voting, if not simply put to death or sold China to work in the coal mines.
And damned if a high profile personality didn’t mouth off on twitter shortly thereafter, both supporting my thesis and requiring me to add a small addendum. You may have already seen this, but here it is again, NBC’s chief DC correspondent and noted literary scholar, Andrea Mitchell:
For anyone unaware—and it’s hardly a crime to not know this, much less an indicator that one is stupid—Faulkner took the title of his book, The Sound and the Fury, from one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquies, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” from Macbeth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
So Cruz’s attribution was, in fact, correct. And it was something he said during a live TV appearance on Fox’s America’s Newsroom. He wasn’t sitting at a computer when he made the remark. I note this because if, in fact, Cruz had made a mistake, he could maybe be forgiven (though no one on the left would forgive him, just as no one on the right would forgive a Dem politician for botching a quote). In contrast, Mitchell—obviously watching the Cruz interview, was sitting in front of a computer and had to not only type out her comment, but also had a chance to review it before she posted it.
But obviously, she was quite certain in her knowledge of Shakespeare and Faulkner, so she didn’t bother confirming her claim. Or maybe her certainty was a less of a consideration, as compared to “live tweeting” (make comments about an event in real time, as the event is taking place) the comment, so as to maximize attention on her, so as to get lots and lots of likes and retweets. More of the latter than the former, I am sure, because like so many other high profile people on social media, Mitchell desperately needs to be noticed, needs to score points by “dunking” on famous people (in her case, politicians).
This is hardly a new development. Witness the perils of being Gwen Ifill (an otherwise excellent journalist whose premature death was a tragedy) and dunking on an assumed easy target, one Sarah Palin. In a speech back in October of 2010, Palin told a crowd of supporters—most of them a part of the Tea Party crowd—that it was “time to party like it was 1773,” a reference to the year of the actual Boston Tea Party. One can, I think, be forgiven for not knowing this reference, but Ifill and others—like Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas—opted to mock her with tweets because they wrongly thought she got her dates wrong, that she intended to say 1776:
Incidentally, the use of “dunking” as a description for this kind of stuff is easily understandable and perhaps makes it a more accessible thing, but I think we should be clear on what this is: dunking on someone means to quote them on twitter mock that quote for being ignorant, stupid, out-of-touch, or the like. And it’d done for the benefit of the dunker, so as to get their tweet noticed and—hopefully—retweeted and like. Here’s an article at Slate from 2017, explaining dunking and arguing that it probably makes twitter—and social media—worse:
The rise of the quote-tweet, which Twitter revamped in 2015, has enabled a culture of dunking, one that’s all but taken over Twitter. It took a little while for people who were using the retweet function for years to get accustomed to quote-tweeting, which, perhaps combined with our particular political moment, has set the stage for our suddenly dunk-happy times. It’s hard to believe it, but before this year, we didn’t have “the ratio,” a concept that now so aptly describes the experience of Twitter that it’s become a verb—to “get ratioed.” 2017 gave us ratios—the notion that a bad tweet is often accompanied by a high ratio of replies to likes and retweets, and the higher the ratio, the worse the tweet is—and now it gives us dunks.
Should we celebrate the dunk or bemoan it? Some, including Farhad Manjoo, former Slate and current New York Times columnist, lament this development as having made Twitter less civil (as if it ever was).
It is fundamentally an awful thing: making fun of someone else in order to get people to like you. It’s almost…schoolyard? It’s certainly immature. But as the Slate piece notes, it has become standard operating procedure in social media world, especially on Twitter, because it seems to be the easiest way to get attention, the chief goal for most active social media participants. Indeed, dunking has become the lifeblood of many political organizations, as well, like The Lincoln Project, which essentially has managed to scarf up millions in donations, simply because it has people who are good at dunking on Trump:
The Lincoln Project, a liberal Super PAC founded by shlubby white dudes who weren't very good at sports growing up but compensated for that as adults by owning people on Twitter, went an abysmal 0-7 in key Senate races this cycle despite spending almost $12 million in support of Democratic candidates.
Imagine a business model built entirely on trolling political adversaries on Twitter. That’s The Lincoln Project. But then again, imagine a business model built on allowing people to troll others to their hearts’ content. That’s Twitter.
But I digress (kind of). Let’s return to Andrea Mitchell. Her initial tweet—wherein she tried to “pwn" Cruz—received plenty of like and retweets. Indeed, many people congratulated her on her superior intellectual prowess, or at least went along with her dunk, like these brain surgeons:
And yes, that’s WaPo writer Jennifer Rubin up there, demonstrating her unbridled intellect (confession: I used to read Rubin and follow her on twitter, but she has become so unreadable that I blocked her account on my feed, so I only know about her reply because I saw it in a story at the NRO).
But many more people eventually started to correct Mitchell. Indeed, the event turned completely on its head, as Mitchell’s failed dunk on Cruz blew up in her face and became on open invitation to dunk on Mitchell. Cruz was one of the takers, predictably:
And soon enough, Mitchell offered up a mea culpa, sort of:
I mean, it’s not much of an apology. Really, it’s a lame “I’m too smart for my own good” kind of statement. But it’s better than nothing, I guess, because the truth is that most people don’t own up to mistakes on social media. Hell, Gwen Ifill tried to shake off her comment about Palin as not being intended to mock her at all, when everyone knew exactly what she meant. Still, despite Mitchell’s obvious and admitted screw-up, she has defenders, like this (which is easily my favorite, when it comes to stupid takes on this fiasco):
Jesus, that’s stupid. First, on what planet is Faulkner’s book title “far more famous” than one of Shakespeare’s most quoted soliloquies? Second, if Mitchell had been correct, than by the above logic she would have been dunking on Cruz for a silly goof. And finally, it ain’t peak twitter, it’s everyday twitter.
And the last, well I guess that’s my real point here. Consistent with the piece from Slate, it’s apparent that far too many people on Twitter—especially when it comes to journalists and politicians—are there to dunk on others, as a means of upping their own social media profiles and/or advancing one agenda or another. And this culture of dunking ultimately rests on having an audience, one that loves to see dunking exhibitions. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work. So again—returning to my initial thesis—the nastiness on social media is, to some extent, predicated on and influenced by an audience made up largely of people who just aren’t that bright who who otherwise can’t be bothered to be certain of the facts. The show is the thing, or—to paraphrase the rock band Rush—all of social media is indeed a stage and we are merely monetized accounts.