Sensationalism, Individualism, Mainstream Media Bait & Switch Tricks

I have and hunch that these three things (Sensationalism, Individualism, Mainstream Media Bait & Switch Tricks) are all linked — as if they were all parts of the same “complex”. [1]

The complex situation I am referring to is the “Bait and Switch” game which most mainstream media organzations engage in. You might think that grown adults would not be susceptible to such trickery, but if you do actually think that way, then you would almost certainly be wrong. It is quite the contrary: sensationalist bait-and-switch tactics are the bread and butter of mainstream media.

Is this simply a natural phenomenon — a so-called “fact of life”?

I don’t think so — let me tell you the main reason for thinking the way I do: Sensationalism builds on a steady supply of outlandish stories.

The sensational story begins with some exceptional individual case. For example: Person A is threatening to destroy the world; or Person B is attempting to save the world. Often, such sensational persons claim to do such sensational acts by themselves, individually, as a “leader” or something like that. And because this seems so fantastic, it also seems difficult to ignore.

Just the other day I was involved in a heated discussion about ignorance. [2] I said that ignorance is always bad. But I do admit that I find it difficult to say that ignoring such manipulative games is bad … or good? What am I trying to say? I am trying to say that if we realize that whenever manipulative experts invite us to participate in a manipulative game, we ought to ignore their offers, free deals, and opportunities to act now.

You may say “very well, OK — but how can we realize that manipulative experts are out to trick us this way?” The answer is actually astoundingly simple: follow the money.

Why does mainstream media exist? Do people go to their workplaces in the mainstream media industry simply because they love to spend their days manipulating things? Or do they get paid to do so? Obviously: they get paid. Well, who pays them? Certainly not the people who are getting “free deals“. The way mainstream media gets paid is that advertisers must pay for advertising. The reason why advertisers are willing to pay for advertising is that this is a quick and easy way to reach gullible suckers to whom they can offer free sales pitches for products and services.

Now let’s punch in some numbers. Let’s say there are a billion people online (more or less). If there are only just one percent crazy people and only just one percent gullible suckers, then that means there are 10 million crazy people and 10 million gullible suckers to work with. This means: Mainstream media can easily rely on a steady stream of crazy people for crazy stories, and the publishing industry can reliably offer the advertising industry an ample supply of gullible suckers who can be (more or less) easily tricked into buying their products and services.

It also means I can (more or less) easily refuse to pay any attention to any of it.

[1] Quite often, the things I write about are precipitated by the things I am currently reading about. Of course, I (just like everyone else, I guess) read about things that interest me. Many of my interests go back many years. So if I mention that I recently read (and reviewed) the article I posted about in “When I see a heading that even sounds a little bit interesting I will start to read the article” [ fuckwith.news.blog/2023/08/03/when-i-see-a-heading-that-even-sounds-a-little-bit-interesting-i-will-start-to-read-the-article ], then I am mentioning that mainly to accentuate how current the topic continues to be these days. These topics have also been written about for decades, if not centuries, but I am not going to start putting book-length bibliographies into single little itty-bitty footnotes like this.

[2] In part, this discussion is related to “Self Mythology” [ socio.business.blog/2023/06/24/self-mythology ]