In the age of the internet, we’ve all heard of the outrage du jour — the thing everybody is supposedly pissed off about each day, replaced by something else to be pissed about the next day. The boldfaced truth of the matter is: nobody actually gives a shit.
“Oh no, Clodhopper! You don’t get it! You clearly don’t see! People are outraged!”
If that was your instinctive response, chances are good that you spend too much time on the internet. People on the internet appear to be outraged, to be sure, but that is part and parcel of hysteriapathy.
Hysteriapathy is the hysterical charade of caring a great deal while, in reality, not actually giving three shits, two fucks, nor a lone damn about the matter-at-hand. Behind all the hysterics however, there is ostensibly no impetus for action whatsoever…it is similar to a child who wears himself out throwing a fit only to in the midst of it forget what the fit was all about in the first place.
Hysteriapathy is not exclusively an online phenomenon, but it is certainly very widespread on the internet. Simply put, it is easy to feign outrage, concern, etc. using a keyboard. What is more, it makes one feel like one is with it; the hysteria of hysteriapathy gives the feeling of being part of a cause, of fighting for something. I.e., it makes a boring person feel like their life is less boring; it makes them feel like they’re “fighting” for something. Rah! Rah!
Moreover, there is incentive for the hysterics: the media has long since demonstrated that terror and outrage sell—it is why they basically never report on anything good, and treat everything as if it’s the end of the world. Feigning outrage triggers a response in people such that they in turn want to react emotionally, and often they become absorbed in the drama being presented. In short: feigning outrage garners attention, it gets people to react. The hysterical all get to feel heard.
But for all the feigning and hysterics, there is no palpable concern behind it. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but there are countless examples:
It looks just as retarded when you do it. If they actually gave a shit, they’d just fight.
Consider the recent assassination attempt on Trump and all of the hysterical retards doom-posting about imminent civil war. “It’s coming!” they assure us. “The left incited violence against Trump!” “People are outraged! The right won’t stand for this!”
It was the same doom-posting when the election was rigged. “Civil war!” “People are outraged!” “America won’t stand for this!
Nobody actually gives a fuck — not even the people doom-posting, assuring us civil war is coming. You know how I know nobody gives a fuck? Because they all go on about their business as usual. The public isn’t up in arms, people are still talking about who they’re going to vote for, where they’re going to go on vacation, where they went to eat last weekend, and everything else they usually talk about.
And this is good. Simply put, such is not the condition that sets the stage for civil war. Civil war happens when ordinary life becomes impossible, when people would rather do nothing else than take up arms and establish a two-way range in their backyards. Thank God we’re not there.
The simple fact is that for all the idle talk about this or that politician, nobody actually cares. The last time people actually cared about a political matter was 9/11. You know how I know they actually cared? Because they went in droves to recruiting centers and enlisted.
People cared about 9/11, and they were willing to gear up and go kill foreigners in a sandbox thousands of miles away because thousands of American citizens were killed. American politicians? They’re more akin to celebrities. Nobody cared about the attempt on Reagan’s life, and people didn’t care enough to question the Warren Commission’s telling of the JFK assassination.
Consider all of the covid hysteria. There was all sorts of freaking out on the internet, cursing and condemning, etc. But many of the same people would sit down to eat at a restaurant and take off their masks, only to put them back on when standing up. Clearly such a practice at restaurants is a dog-and-pony show, but hysteriapathy is, after all, all about outward appearance in the place of genuine concern. Similarly, I was at an old-time jam in October of 2020. Peak hysteria leading up to this point in time, all sorts of outrage and internet charades. Sure enough, these very left-leaning folks who were all about the covid hysteria had no problem passing joints, bongs, and bottles of booze around. Nobody passed on their hit, nobody turned down a swig.
Nobody actually gave a fuck.
Now this essay is not a loathing of the apathy, not by any means! While the hysteria part of hysteriapathy is absolutely obnoxious, disingenuous, and painfully annoying…the apathy is quite honest and, indeed, quite good.
Consider: the last time people actually cared about a political event, we ended up in a 20 year war that continues to cost America the lives of good men, that costed us trillions of dollars, that has created more and more turmoil across the middle-east, that has led to the Patriot Act and created a surveillance and security state that no doubt has America’s founding fathers rolling in their graves. They handful of people who kind-of-sort-of gave a fuck about the election being rigged? They’re still in prison for walking into the Capitol Building — and the guy among them who ostensibly cared most only cared enough to take a shit on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. While this act may have hit home for the congresswoman hailing from San Francisco, the current state of its perpetrator shows the consequences of actually caring even a little bit about politics.
There were also, of course, some folks who ostensibly cared about the whole covid show. They went and got themselves injected with a pharmaceutical cocktail that is being increasingly revealed to have a hand in causing heart problems and cancer due to contamination with SV-40.
It is demonstrably to your benefit — as well as the benefit of everyone else — to simply not care about the political outrage du jour. Indeed, most people already don’t care, and that’s great! Now if we can all agree to forego all of the hysteria and just keep the honest apathy, we’ll be much better off.
Indeed, the hysteria isn’t harmless: it’s certainly bad for the mental well-being of those who indulge in it and, moreover, as was seen with covid, January 6th, and people thinking that Al-Qaeda is coming to blow up their Ford Focus in particular: it affords the powers that be cover for ushering in all sorts of nonsense, from biopolitical tyranny to unprecedented domestic surveillance. Forego the hysteria, and shame on those who perpetuate it.
Go outside, talk to your neighbors about their garden, hang out at the pub, and enjoy the fact that life is good. Ignore all the nonsense…the grass is green, the sky is blue, the river is flowing, and three little birds sit by my doorstep.
Normally I'd say you're correct. Even for the bullshit lawfare convictions against Trump.
But when bullets start flying, the entire situation changes. The Reagan assassination attempt didn't generate much political heat bc it turned out the gunman had zero political motivation, and was just a nutbag.
It is *liberals and Leftists* who are just ho-humming this thing, and making "Har har, missed by an inch" jokes.
The centrist, conservative, and just generally *normal* people I know are (quietly) livid, and counting down the seconds until November.