Outrage Culture

There is a very, very thin line between being legitimately annoyed at outrage culture and justifying ignorance with it, so allow me to make one thing immediately clear: the outrage which irks me at this point is not typically to do with people in a poor place being legitimately angry with the government. There is a time and a reason for voices to be heard, and subjects such as mental health, the refugee crisis, and all of that kind of stuff needs to be made as loud as possible if it is to be changed.

The kind of outrage culture I’m on about is in the everyday. They redesigned a website you commonly used? This is an outrage! Something isn’t working exactly properly? This is an outrage! Somebody messed up? They cannot be forgiven for this is an outrage!

I believe I’ve already stated that anger and hatred is seeping into our culture like a plague. Add anonymity and mob mentality into that mix and you’ve got a dangerous bag of self-justified people, mostly good at heart but for the moment, blinded by their own rage. Put aside your anger towards David Cameron for a moment – difficult, I know, but try it – and imagine being in his boots right now. Imagine that everywhere you turn, people are insulting you and baying for your blood. You look online and find threats of violence against you and your family. You post a tweet containing one sentence which gets picked apart and spat on by an army of people who can hide behind a wall of anonymity you don’t have the privilege of. If we are to understand that which seeks to do us harm, we have to put ourselves in their perspective, and sometimes it’s not a pretty place. It doesn’t justify what they’re doing, but sometimes it makes things make a little more sense.

I’m not just talking about famous people, either. People are visceral to one another, passive-aggressively if you’re lucky, messaging you with threats if you’re not. Because you’ve said something which has caused an outrage. How couldn’t you have known this? How could you be so fucking stupid? You’ll never be able to take back what you said; it’s an outrage!

Calm down. If you disagree with somebody, tell them why in a calm and measured way. Do not let your heart outspeak your mind, and remember that all people can be hurt by you as much as you are hurt by them.

Writing a Psychopath

I’m currently in the midst of writing a short story which features, rather prominently, a psychopath. I’m not talking cold and calculating, creeping from the shadows type madness. My guy finds hilarity in suffering and gore, and I think it’s fair to say he channels a bit of the Joker.

I’m somewhat concerned, though. Something that always worries me is that people will think that the free indirect voice of a third person character mirrors the author’s thoughts, and not the character’s. Now, this madman is the most explicitly, ah, raving character I’ve publicly written to date. And whilst I’m sure nobody is going to pin a finger on me as somebody who takes pleasure in garroting innocent victims, I do worry that people will look at the situation I’ve had my psychopath concoct and say, “Well… Kristian is the one who thought that up, though.”

And it’s true. I did. But whilst it takes one mind to think up all sorts of horrible things that could happen, it takes another to want them to. I’d be bloody terrified if this happened to me. It’s why thriller and horror authors aren’t locked up for moonlighting a bit of murder on the side. You don’t see people pointing fingers at young adult romance writers and declaring that they must have had a snog with a teen to write that paragraph.

It is the subtler characters that cause me most concern, though. I once wrote a character whose thought patterns didn’t seem all that bad until they led up to him rationalising his need to rob a shop at gunpoint. Not even that, I worry that if I was to write a character that was, for example, hostile towards religious people, that others would view that as a personal message against religious people instead of a condemnation or even a simple representation of that type of character.

That being said, I’ve never been called out on any of this, so I suppose it depends on how you write the character. And whilst I do consider the downsides of such writing every so often, I don’t believe you should ever let that stop you from creating a character or their world. The second you start second-guessing your readers, you’ve likely lost all narrative integrity and have henceforth created a psychopath who apologises for it all at the end of each chapter.

Infinite Butterflies

The butterfly effect is a concept that has fascinated me ever since I saw that Scrubs episode when I was twelve. I’m aware that Scrubs is making fun of / paying homage to a movie of the same name, but I’ve never seen that and Scrubs is superb, so we’ll stick to talking about Scrubs in this paragraph. Did I mention that I like Scrubs?

Anyway, if you’re not already acquainted with the concept, allow me to sum it up for you quickly. The idea behind the butterfly effect is that a butterfly simply spreading its wings can change the course of human history. A butterfly decides to take off, flying in front of someone’s face, causing them to stagger and laugh, making them forget their thread of conversation with their friend. This could have lead to an important revelation for the friend, which they will no longer encounter, changing that friend’s course of the day. For example, friend A was going to talk about getting a suit but forgot, and friend B was going to offer to accompany them suit shopping, which they didn’t. Friend B no longer meets his future wife whilst out shopping. This change could effect whether friend B has kids, which in turn could remove legendary figures of future history from ever existing, changing the course of human history forever.

So basically, Hitler was the fault of a lazy butterfly.

Of course, this thread of events is unlikely, but it’s a possibility, and smaller versions of this are always happening. Are you going to get the bus or walk to work? Your choice will affect your mood upon arrival, your physical being, and most importantly, your timing of arrival. These small adjustments then ripple through the day, changing more and more minor things until your day is shaped entirely by that morning’s decision.

What fascinates me is where it all begins. What causes the butterfly to decide whether it’s going to take flight or not? Where it’s going to land? What chain of events lead up to this butterfly’s current position and timing? Surely whether it would decide to fly or not would be based on the surroundings, the weather, and the butterfly’s current objective. So what events transpired to ensure that the world around the butterfly ended up how it did? Can you trace the placement of all events in the world back to one starting decision? Did some alien race way out in another galaxy accidentally create the human race by landing a craft on a meteorite and changing its trajectory minutely? What about the origins of that alien race?

In the end, it all comes back to the Big Bang, which we know precious little about. If the gasses and all of that universe creating variety mix exploded outwards from the Big Bang in a set fashion, then does that mean that all of time itself is predetermined? Or does the sentience of the human mind (and other alien creatures) deter that from being the case? Another factor that needs to be considered is where our ideas come from. If they are purely products from the world around us, then maybe everything has been set in stone from the beginning of time itself.

I like to think not, though. If destiny exists via a predetermined butterfly effect stemming from the Big Bang itself, then that makes the universe one incredibly variable machine, and I face a rather large existential crisis on my hands. And I can’t be dealing with that on a Tuesday morning.

So let’s talk parallel universes.

I don’t know if there’s any science to back this up or not, but I’ve always enjoyed the notion that for every decision we make, there’s parallel universes for the other possible decisions we could have made. I’m sure my friends tire of hearing me say, “there’s a parallel universe where you did decide to go out.” The reason this kind of stuff fascinates me is because of the butterfly effect, and the idea that somewhere else in some alternate reality, you will now be starting down the path of a completely different life.

I am well aware that nowhere near all of the small decisions we make stack up to be life changing, but I think there are more of them than you’d think. Usually to do with relationships; you may end up back on the same path later down the line, but if you deviate from it and end up having a child, you have created an entirely new entry into the ranks of human kind, and that is sure to have some lasting ripples and effects. Imagine how many of your friends may exist purely because of the positioning of the moon or the availability of a table reservation in a nice restaurant, paid for by a bonus from a generous boss who’s been influenced by someone else, and so on and so forth.

The idea of an infinite amount of butterflies causing an infinite variety of events entertains me greatly, and should I be lucky enough to be alive when we make discoveries about our origins or other alien life forms, then I greatly look forward to finding out if these theories have any credibility.

Is The Media A Pawn?

I’d like to discuss some issues I’ve been having with the media lately. However, as somebody who would potentially pursue a future career in journalism, a blog post documenting such issues would be a nice few paragraphs of me shooting myself in the foot.

So, without further ado, let’s load that pistol and aim it right between big toe and, ah, the next toe.

The media has become a pawn and it is infuriating me. I have two examples I can bring to the table here that have happened very recently. The first example is Kanye West announcing at the VMA’s that he’ll be running for President in 2020. This is a man who has a track record of stealing the show at music awards for the sake of publicity (see: Imma let you finish). But the media doesn’t see it that way; the media (and I’m talking gossip magazines and news websites alike) are quick to snap up the story in a frenzied rush to get the most traffic to their website.

I’m aware that for this example, there’s probably some unspoken agreement between celebrities and the media (think, you scratch my attention-seeking back, I scratch yours). However, this only perpetuates a culture which idolises ordinary people to great heights and then follows their actions with a vigour that transcends all moral concern. And whilst I’m not trying to crap on anyone’s idea of fun or how they live their lives, I do bring it into question when the popular “you only live once” mentality ends up endangering lives, usually those who follow it themselves.

The other, more serious example I want to discuss is the shootings in America.

Now, it’s impossible to know why some people snap and decide that it’d be a lovely idea and end innocent human lives. However, I think it can be widely agreed that a lot of the time, it’s because they want to be immortalised in the media. They want to become the next Ted Bundy, a name whom everybody knows and who the media have cemented as a part of history.

I’m not saying anybody does this on purpose. I’m just suggesting that attempting to make somebody a figure of widespread hatred in an effort to deter other would-be homicidal people from making their attacks actually has the opposite effect. By raising a killer as a target for public anger, you are instead ensuring that their identity become known to more people than it otherwise would, whilst the victims fade into deeper reading.

I’m of the belief that if the media has to sensationalise anything, it should instead be the tragedy of the victims, so long as it does not impose on the privacy of their families, whilst keeping the identity of the killer as un-sensationalised as possible. And I know for a fact that I’m in no way the first person to have this opinion. It might sell less newspapers, but it could also stop giving would-be murderers the idea of immortalising themselves in blood. One might argue that anybody with the capability of gunning down innocent people for their own ends is going to act this way given the motivation to do it or not, but I’m inclined to think that they might do despicable things to themselves instead of other people should they not have any hope of taking their place in history. I hasten to add that ideally, they shouldn’t be doing any kind of despicable thing… but if I had to choose, I’d rather leave innocent bystanders out of it.

One last note on the media, and trust me when I say I’m not kissing ass over here. I believe that the power of the media has the potential to do great things, given that so many of us rely on it for information. If small changes like remembering the victims before the killers could be made universally, then I believe we could work our way towards a media which delivers facts instead of relying on anger and negativity to sell copies or clicks. The rise of not only websites but now, Twitter and Facebook trends has, I believe, pushed the press to be more and more extreme in their efforts to remain viable as a source of making money as their customers instead get their news in a sentence long bulletin. I sincerely hope a middle ground is found in which both necessities can be appeased, for the media does have a powerful part to play in shaping society and the minds of those who form opinions regarding the most crucial matters.

Weekly Updates!

Hello there, everyone! I’m about to announce a really bloody brilliant and/or somewhat terrifying idea which will ultimately end in either a surge of productivity or a quivering heap of disappointing failure! I am talking, of course, about the rather unoriginal but still harrowing idea of WEEKLY UPDATES, which you have most likely already garnered by the less-than-subtle header, therefore rendering this opening paragraph, ah, completely useless.

Let’s face it, I’ve been rubbish at updating this thing. I won’t make excuses but I do feel obligated to tell you it’s not out of a lack of interest but instead, partially the lack of knowing what to write in a blog with no set subject matter and partially, (most probably mostly) due to the fact that whenever I consider voicing an opinion, I fear that a thousand winged demons will descend on me telling me that I’m wrong and pretentious and smelly.

You’ll have to excuse the runalong sentences, I recently marathoned some Zero Punctuation and as such, everything I write has, in my head, taken on the voice of Yahtzee, the show’s host. His rampant disregard for oxygen when ripping into games leaves me thoroughly amused. Probably not the best writing tactic, though.

Speaking of video games, I will additionally be updating my almost-untouched gaming blog, 32 Bit Brain, with a post every week. The blog posts for Perpetually Perturbed will be appearing on Tuesdays, because nothing really happens on a Tuesday. The blog posts for 32 Bit Brain, however, will be appearing on Thursdays, because nothing really happens on a Thursday, either, but it’s a little bit closer to the end of the week, the fabled time for video game happenings in a working gamer’s quaint abode.

One issue which you may be thinking is that if I force myself to write blog posts every week, then the material within those blog posts will also feel forced and uninterested. And I’ve taken that into consideration, due to the fact that the lack of motivation to write blog posts has resulted in this barren wasteland in the first place. But worry not. I’ll simply write a blog post whenever I feel like it, or in batches, and release them over the course of weeks. In theory, this pushes me to exercise and enjoy my blog writing in a flexible creative manner, whilst also poking me and telling me to actually do that thing wot I like doing.

So… let’s see how this goes!