The ‘naive cynicism’ of Russell Brand’s hasty defenders

BobTheBoozer@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 55 points –
The ‘naive cynicism’ of Russell Brand’s hasty defenders
spectator.co.uk
17

  1. Accuse a person with no police involvement

  2. Accused person states their innocence

  3. Media storm breathless that accused person claims to be innocent.

  4. Accused persons fans and supporters, call for more data, call for a criminal investigation to clear this up.

  5. Media storm breathless that people who support the accused would want a proper investigation.

  6. Companies affiliated with accused person, drop accused person for fear of bad publicity.

  7. Accused person supporters now outraged that the accused is being punished extrajudicially

  8. Accusers supporters outraged that people are outraged that somebody's being punished extra judicially

  9. Optional - criminal investigation starts ...

At every step along the way there's great drama, and opportunity for media coverage, to get clicks. Was this a coordinated media attack? Absolutely. The newspaper and the television show came out on the same day at about the same time referencing each other. That's coordination.

Are the accusations without merit? We don't know, we need the criminal investigation to happen in order for us to know.

From my personal perspective, he probably did it. But I just get triggered by news articles being flummixed the people are reacting to news articles.

The outrage drama cycle is exactly what they're trying to create. Them getting outraged at people acting out at their outrage is outrageous

If you aren’t the alleged victim, or personally know the alleged victim, kindly shut the fuck up as you have no idea beyond your personal biases.

Gatekeeping opinions is not the way to build a open discourse.

And writing stories about the uninformed opinions of anonymous strangers on the internet isn't journalism.

Arguing about theoretical controversy is the foundation of online discourse.

For instance, did you know that Leonardo DiCaprio once ate a hotdog without mustard, in public, and then farted, and blamed it on the hotdog vendor? True story, I heard it from a friend who listens to a podcast about celebrity gossip. And it's DISGUSTING.

I feel the same way about the coach at MSU (Michigan State University) they said they are firing him before he can even defend himself. And it was a phone call, dude lost his job over a phone call that she could have just ended and blocked him.

That's a lot of words to say "I don't believe people who call the police and file police reports". Also, that's a lot of words to say "I feel that private companies shouldn't have the ability to moderate their platform, and they should be forced to host accused rapists, despite what their advertisers believe is a good look for their brand." Of course there will be an investigation. This isn't a coordinated attack on Brand. This is reporting the news. Was it a coordinated attack on Danny Masterson? A coordinated attack on Trump supporters in the days following Jan 6th? Assuming that the investigation will undoubtedly clear Brand's name is the naive cynicism that the article is referring to.

To your first point, trust but verify.

To your second point, I never said alphabet has to host Russell Brand's content. They're private company they're free to do as they like.

I'm going to ignore the what-aboutisms.

The original comment was not about this particular incident, but the media playbook for any outrage incident. Getting people to engage with media sources is the goal of media, so regardless of the underlying facts, this outrage cycle is very profitable for some people. As the article was about people reacting to media, it was relevant.

Meanwhile, I still can't be arsed to give a shit about Russell Brand, and don't understand why anybody would.

I don't care about "celebrities". I'm back in my workshop. Bye.

This is the sanest Spectator article I've ever read.