Outraged
Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking
Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles
Having read it
★★★★☆
A book that should be read by everyone (and definitely every social media obsessive) as it’s concise, relevant and very good with the perspectives and comments raised that aid its message.
The interviews she uses throughout really add to the realities of what society faces and that it seems to be obsessed with outrage which often just ends up misdirecting any meaningful progress and action on real systemic issues.
A good passage
In the age of the retweet, hashtags often make decisions for us. Instead of generating our own views we simply regurgitate someone else’s. That digital ditto lets us bandwagon ideas rather than forming our own. In our abundantly digital era, we are falling into line without a second thought, and at times abandoning thought altogether.
A second good passage
...I choose to be the architect of my own experience (in a world that would have me believe that the blueprints are not mine to design). I choose not to be excessively outraged, not out of weakness or out of some colonial submission, but because it’s my goddamn prerogative.
A third good passage
...when you finally decide to use your outrage sparingly, you grant yourself autonomy. You free yourself from the shackles of public opinion and reclaim your volition. You refuse to be sorted into society’s pecking order where the powerless are outraged and the powerful are serene. Freedom from outrage is freedom from control. It sticks a middle finger up at the capitalism of social politics and shatters the business model of outrage-mongers. It allows you to redirect your energy away from the performative and towards the productive.