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| Here are the correct opinions to hold about this week’s social media outrages | Here are the correct opinions to hold about this week’s social media outrages |
| (2 months later) | |
| “We don’t need to have a National Conversation about the Rolling Stone cover,” the prolific political-comedy tweeter @pourmecoffee observed on Wednesday. “We are already having like nine National Conversations.” Tell me about it. Here in the United States – no doubt partly because this boiling humidity makes people extra-cranky – it’s been a week of particularly irritating Twitter squabbles and Facebook feuds. (And probably Google+ fights, too – but who'd ever find out?) | “We don’t need to have a National Conversation about the Rolling Stone cover,” the prolific political-comedy tweeter @pourmecoffee observed on Wednesday. “We are already having like nine National Conversations.” Tell me about it. Here in the United States – no doubt partly because this boiling humidity makes people extra-cranky – it’s been a week of particularly irritating Twitter squabbles and Facebook feuds. (And probably Google+ fights, too – but who'd ever find out?) |
| Some of these disputes – such as the one about the image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used on the cover of Rolling Stone – were frustrating because they didn't deserve any outrage to begin with. Others, like Richard Cohen’s column about the Zimmerman verdict in the Washington Post, were frustrating because they were so deserving of outrage that they shouldn't really have arisen in the first place. | Some of these disputes – such as the one about the image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used on the cover of Rolling Stone – were frustrating because they didn't deserve any outrage to begin with. Others, like Richard Cohen’s column about the Zimmerman verdict in the Washington Post, were frustrating because they were so deserving of outrage that they shouldn't really have arisen in the first place. |
| Also, did I mention the unbearable weather? | Also, did I mention the unbearable weather? |
| And so to help put this week swiftly behind us, here are the objectively correct opinions to hold about all the major disagreements: | And so to help put this week swiftly behind us, here are the objectively correct opinions to hold about all the major disagreements: |
| 1. It really was fine for Rolling Stone to use that “angelic” photograph of the accused Boston bomber on its cover. Let’s ponder this for a moment. Is it likely that the magazine’s editors thought they’d boost circulation by appearing to celebrate someone accused of a universally condemned terrorist outrage? No. Did they cynically believe they’d sell huge numbers of copies to members of the eccentric ‘Free Jahar’ movement, outweighing the effect of any offence caused? Surely not. Isn’t it much more likely that they decided this innocent-looking image, previously reproduced on the front of the New York Times, made a striking contrast with the cover text – which prominently called him both “the bomber” and “a monster” – and with our knowledge of the accusations against him? | 1. It really was fine for Rolling Stone to use that “angelic” photograph of the accused Boston bomber on its cover. Let’s ponder this for a moment. Is it likely that the magazine’s editors thought they’d boost circulation by appearing to celebrate someone accused of a universally condemned terrorist outrage? No. Did they cynically believe they’d sell huge numbers of copies to members of the eccentric ‘Free Jahar’ movement, outweighing the effect of any offence caused? Surely not. Isn’t it much more likely that they decided this innocent-looking image, previously reproduced on the front of the New York Times, made a striking contrast with the cover text – which prominently called him both “the bomber” and “a monster” – and with our knowledge of the accusations against him? |
| Much of the outrage, I suspect, comes a) from people unfamiliar with the journalistic content of Rolling Stone, and b) from people unsettled by the realisation that (alleged) terrorists don’t always look like stereotypical Super-Evil Bad Guys. The main reason Dzhokhar Tsarnaev looks good in that photo, after all, is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is somewhat good-looking. Which isn't really Rolling Stone’s fault, and has no bearing on the horrors of which he’s accused. | Much of the outrage, I suspect, comes a) from people unfamiliar with the journalistic content of Rolling Stone, and b) from people unsettled by the realisation that (alleged) terrorists don’t always look like stereotypical Super-Evil Bad Guys. The main reason Dzhokhar Tsarnaev looks good in that photo, after all, is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is somewhat good-looking. Which isn't really Rolling Stone’s fault, and has no bearing on the horrors of which he’s accused. |
| Observed outrage level: 9/10 Justifiable outrage level: 1/10 | Observed outrage level: 9/10 Justifiable outrage level: 1/10 |
| 2. On the other hand, it’s not really OK for the magazine to call Tsarnaev “the bomber” when he’s pleading not guilty and a court has not yet reached a verdict on his guilt. Judging from this week’s fury, it’s outrageous to use a photograph showing what Tsarnaev looks like, but not outrageous to call him guilty before a jury has decided that he is. Hmmm. | 2. On the other hand, it’s not really OK for the magazine to call Tsarnaev “the bomber” when he’s pleading not guilty and a court has not yet reached a verdict on his guilt. Judging from this week’s fury, it’s outrageous to use a photograph showing what Tsarnaev looks like, but not outrageous to call him guilty before a jury has decided that he is. Hmmm. |
| Observed outrage level: 0/10 Justifiable outrage level: 4/10 | Observed outrage level: 0/10 Justifiable outrage level: 4/10 |
| 3. If you’re going to refer to Trayvon Martin as “understandably suspected because he was black” on the op-ed page of one of America's leading newspapers, you need to explain what you mean, and you need to do it really, really carefully. There are some charitable interpretations of what Richard Cohen might have meant by this now-notorious line. Perhaps he meant “understandable” in the strictest sense: susceptible to being explained, rather than justifiable in any way. Perhaps he meant that Florida's residential racial segregation (itself at least partly a result of racism) meant that George Zimmerman wasn't necessarily guilty of conscious bigotry in deeming the presence of a black stranger in his gated community more worrisome than had Martin been white. | 3. If you’re going to refer to Trayvon Martin as “understandably suspected because he was black” on the op-ed page of one of America's leading newspapers, you need to explain what you mean, and you need to do it really, really carefully. There are some charitable interpretations of what Richard Cohen might have meant by this now-notorious line. Perhaps he meant “understandable” in the strictest sense: susceptible to being explained, rather than justifiable in any way. Perhaps he meant that Florida's residential racial segregation (itself at least partly a result of racism) meant that George Zimmerman wasn't necessarily guilty of conscious bigotry in deeming the presence of a black stranger in his gated community more worrisome than had Martin been white. |
| But if you’re going to make this kind of nuanced and controversial argument, you have to make the argument. Otherwise, people will quite reasonably conclude that “understandably suspected because he was black” means what it seems to mean. It's hard to object to the outrage directed at Cohen. | But if you’re going to make this kind of nuanced and controversial argument, you have to make the argument. Otherwise, people will quite reasonably conclude that “understandably suspected because he was black” means what it seems to mean. It's hard to object to the outrage directed at Cohen. |
| Observed outrage level: 7/10 Justifiable outrage level: 7/10 | Observed outrage level: 7/10 Justifiable outrage level: 7/10 |
| 4. If you could refrain from accusing the New York Times of "trolling" every time it runs a story you don't rate particularly highly, that would be super. Kate Taylor's piece on the "hookup culture" among women at the University of Pennsylvania really wasn't so bad. (Was she stating the obvious, or distorting reality? Nobody seemed able to agree – and of course it's not incumbent on a narrative feature story to break astonishing news, nor include every possible variety of experience.) Chopped salad is getting more and more popular? That's quite interesting actually! And those wide-eyed uptown multi-millionaires who think Tribeca is the hip new edgy part of New York might be ridiculous – but the Times was telling us about them, not endorsing their viewpoint as reasonable. There's more on the overuse of the word "trolling" here. | 4. If you could refrain from accusing the New York Times of "trolling" every time it runs a story you don't rate particularly highly, that would be super. Kate Taylor's piece on the "hookup culture" among women at the University of Pennsylvania really wasn't so bad. (Was she stating the obvious, or distorting reality? Nobody seemed able to agree – and of course it's not incumbent on a narrative feature story to break astonishing news, nor include every possible variety of experience.) Chopped salad is getting more and more popular? That's quite interesting actually! And those wide-eyed uptown multi-millionaires who think Tribeca is the hip new edgy part of New York might be ridiculous – but the Times was telling us about them, not endorsing their viewpoint as reasonable. There's more on the overuse of the word "trolling" here. |
| Observed outrage level: 5/10 (average) Justifiable outrage level: 2/10 | Observed outrage level: 5/10 (average) Justifiable outrage level: 2/10 |
| 5. It’s OK for men to wear shorts. Personally, my approach to the summer is strictly no-shorts – and by that I should probably stress that I mean trousers, as opposed to underpants-only. But if you’re a man and you disagree, please go ahead and wear shorts; it'll make me one of the better-dressed men by comparison, which isn't something I get to experience too often. A more pressing question: is it OK for men (and occasionally women) to confect strong opinions about whether it's OK for men to wear shorts for no reason other than to attract web traffic? This is a profound philosophical conundrum that I leave as an exercise for the reader. Observed outrage level: 0/10 (excluding satirical outrage) Justifiable outrage level: 0/10 | 5. It’s OK for men to wear shorts. Personally, my approach to the summer is strictly no-shorts – and by that I should probably stress that I mean trousers, as opposed to underpants-only. But if you’re a man and you disagree, please go ahead and wear shorts; it'll make me one of the better-dressed men by comparison, which isn't something I get to experience too often. A more pressing question: is it OK for men (and occasionally women) to confect strong opinions about whether it's OK for men to wear shorts for no reason other than to attract web traffic? This is a profound philosophical conundrum that I leave as an exercise for the reader. Observed outrage level: 0/10 (excluding satirical outrage) Justifiable outrage level: 0/10 |
| Again, these positions are objectively correct, so please only leave comments agreeing fully. Have a lovely weekend! | Again, these positions are objectively correct, so please only leave comments agreeing fully. Have a lovely weekend! |
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