The media’s chronic addiction to shock-value
During the pandemic, my favorite band Bring Me The Horizon released an album. Just like for so many other artists, it was mostly a collection of music born in and through times of self-isolation. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the album’s opening track, “Dear Diary”. The lyrics tell a story of mentally exhausted people, disconnected from the world; the heavy metal guitar riff speaks of the times that brought them so low.
Reading the news was our only way to connect with the world outside — despite the fact that the reporting was all but misery and terror. In Sweden, we had daily press conferences with state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell against a backdrop of the daily headcount in intensive care, to break up the never-ending stories of sudden death. Some moments offered a glimpse of life as it used to be, like the “mental health walks”. I myself used to walk around a nearby lake. However, not even then could I escape the insane situation we all found ourselves in. Because, as soon as I had to pass someone on the narrow gravel path, I made sure to drift out into the grass, sometimes even holding my breath behind my face mask.
Now, the pandemic is over, but some behaviors remain. I have kept reading news from several different outlets and keep up to date on the latest trends on Twit–, I mean on X. It’s barely a conscious choice at this point — I open and close the different apps automatically. And of my doomscrolling state, I see no end. No end to prophecies and predictions, or to the press conferences telling us about said prophecies and predictions. No end to red numbers and extreme weather, to people in desperate need, to brutal gang violence, to societal crises and war. No end to racking up screen time either. It’s my duty to be aware of what’s going on in the world, I tell myself as I read and read. As I worry.
Reporting is sometimes as extreme as the weather, or as my latest weekly screen time tally (up 47 percent from from the week before!). The latest crisis is always “the worst ever”, and just like a five-car pileup on the highway, it’s hard to look away. People like me add fuel to the fire that is modern-day media reporting: less focus on facts, grayscale and reason, and more space for clickbait headlines, edited images and shocking quotes. And as such, Dear Diary, it does bring me so very low. But, it’s what people — myself included, apparently — want. A fast, easily-digestible story; inevitably buried in the endless content stream before too long.
Back to the heavy metal record. The song “Dear Diary” is in many ways more than a product of the pandemic. It is a polaroid of the times we live in. Bring Me The Horizon’s lead singer Oli Sykes screams out the chorus: The sky is falling, it’s fucking boring. And that’s where we are. Only a few months ago, a whistleblower within the NSA was heard about the possibility of aliens having already landed on Earth. In Sweden, that story was merely a blip on the news radars of all the major outlets. There’s already so much other, and much more awful, stuff to report. The sky is actually falling, and it’s just so fucking boring.
