The Exchange Rate of Outrage
As the five Boshemia readers who watch Question Time are fully aware, on last Thursday’s episode, actor [citation needed] and musician [citation needed], ruffled feathers over the nation by claiming that the treatment of Meghan Markle by the press wasn’t racist. You know, the press that pinned Mexican draught, murder and human rights abuse on her eating avocado toast. Since then, he’s been playing White British Boomer Bingo, rattling on about political correctness, an overly woke society, and reverse racism. You know, the classics.
But who is Laurence Fox? Prior to last week, I’d never heard of him. Let’s do a delve into the latest reactionary white guy who’s sending the internet ablaze with outrage.
Laurence Fox is a British actor, singer and songwriter, perhaps best known for his—
Wait, stop. Stop the article, I don’t care and I have a migraine.
Ben Shapiro, Gun Girl, Tomi Lauren, Meghan McCain, Piers Morgan, Alex Jones, Jacob Wohl, Katie Hopkins I’M TIRED AND I CAN’T KEEP UP. Who the fuck are these people and why are we paying them any attention?
In recent years, outrage has become a currency. It’s easy to pile on Jacob Wohl and his terrible opinions and terrible travel pictures and feel better about yourself. It’s easy to look at Laurence Fox and berate this white, privately educated rich boy for even attempting to be the expert on race relations in the UK. It’s easy to look at Megan McCain, make another “bUT mY FaTHer” joke, pat yourself on the back and continue to seeth at her. But what exactly are we gaining from doing this? In a week, Laurence Fox has gone from supporting character on BBC show that may or may not be made up, to talk show regular. He’s spewing bile everywhere now! On Question Time, podcasts, and even Good Morning Britain. The nation's Cheerios are being ruined by racism!
But isn’t it secretly a tiny bit fun to laugh at his ignorance, come up with a timely Twitter joke and feel your blood pressure rise a little bit?
When Tomi Lahren was invited on The Daily Show, she was basically an internet star. Lahren had a nightly show on The Blaze, an online platform run by Glenn Beck. Her videos would get millions of views as people would watch her compare Black Lives Matter to the KKK. Following her appearance on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah claimed that he was reaching across the aisle and trying to get in the headspace of someone with such different political beliefs. Lahren claimed it was another instance of liberal media bias painting her as a villain. A few months after the interview she was hired by Fox News, and now hosts a talk show on Fox Nation. Nobody's mind has been remotely changed, and now the zeitgeist is more aware of yet another racist white girl. Good work everyone involved.
Over the past decade, the lines between politics and entertainment have blurred. It probably started when Nick Griffin went on Question Time in 2009. Question Time used to be a slightly boring show where politicians and members of the media would answer audience questions. In 2009, BNP leader Nick Griffin was invited on and chaos ensued. The British Nationalist Party were a political party who stood for exactly what you’d expect them to stand for. At the time, they were polling in 6th place with 6.26% of the vote. So barely worth paying attention to, right? 8 million people tuned in as Nick Griffin looked like an angry owl blustering his way through the questions using classic arsenals like racism, sexism and homophobia. And oh how we were outraged. There were public protests, the nation was divided; was this simply a platform for free speech? Should we be giving such views a platform like this? The actual show is fairly uncomfortable to watch. It’s less an episode of Question Time as it is a public flogging. Griffin clearly did badly, but the whole show looks like a set-up made to look him bad. Well, to make him look worse. Surely that’s a good thing right? Let’s get the bigots on TV and humiliate them? Nope. 243 people called into Ofcom and complained that the show was biased against him, and The BNP claimed that it got an increase in donations and membership. Since then, the BNP has dissolved, but that’s almost definitely due to the rise of UKIP, and the fact that Nigel Farrage is, sadly, much better on TV.
Guys, you’re never going to get a racist on TV, own them, and change their minds. You’re never going to persuade people that racism is, in fact, bad by tweeting a solid burn. Save your outrage, it doesn’t work. Don’t tweet about them, don’t click articles about them, don’t watch videos where they’re spewing their bile, just ignore them. By engaging, their platform increases, and they spread their shit to even more unsuspecting members of the public. Social media algorithms will show you more similar content and your internet feeds will get clogged up with racism. They get invited on more TV shows, more podcasts, and soon enough, they’ll get a stand-up show or a memoir inevitably entitled “Triggered”.
When the internet is filled with nice things like Greb Comics and videos of ducks, why pay attention to right-wing reactionaries? Ignore them. They’re not worth the retweets.
