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We've been on stage for a lot of News Moments. Horrifying ones, strange ones, calm ones. It used to be that you'd watch the news percolate through the audience: someone would look at their phone, nudge the person next to them. Notifications and buzz and fading attention, refocused eyes and watching SOMETHING diffuse through the audience.
Recently, both the shooting at the Trump rally and Biden's resignation from the presidential race happened while we were on stage. Both times we had no clue anything was afoot until a break, and even then it was a more politics-attuned fan that told us about it. We didn't experience that seismic shift of watching knowledge spread through the crowd.
I don't know what that means.
Mayhaps we're just past caring?
I know I'm right about there. I don't know the last time I felt emotionally moved by something I read in the news. I can't decide if that means I've been beaten into submission, or if I'm recentering.
It was interesting to be overseas where American politics was just a background buzz, not an overwhelming ROAR, but I'm back in the echo chamber, Checking My Socials and leaving the TV on for background noise, with every splash screen on my browser, every scroll on Instagram, every "quiet" moment on YouTube, every second filled with a spewing vomit of political vitriol, messaging and ... failing at intelligent messaging, simple red meat hatred.
The only time I'm not receiving is when I'm transmitting. |
