Manufactured Outrage

Curious. At the height of the pandemic flyers would smash the face of any flight attendant who dared tell them to wear a mask. Yet during the SW debacle passengers with a right to rage express sympathy for stressed airline staff & disappointment in SW. https://t.co/JTzOFTXiEN

— Yonette Joseph (@YonetteJo) December 29, 2022

No one’s on TeeVee/the Intertoobs telling you to punch an airline employee in the face for Freedumb.

I was recently in a small store in a small town in Texas whose main business was selling candles they made. They also screen printed their own t-shirts, most of which bore anti-mask legends. The candles were selling well. The t-shirts weren’t drawing any interest at all. That outrage is pretty much over.

I’ve been in stores that still ask you to wear a mask, and visited a hospital with the same requirements. Nobody seems to mind.

When social expectations collapse, our reaction is usually one of calm, not rage. Rage against the machine is more often manufactured than spontaneous.