The Problem of Platforming on Anger
Seeking God may mean accepting less online engagement
A pastor recently asked my opinion on another Christian speaker. The pastor expressed reservations concerning the manner the speaker in question tends toward being, in his words, provocative and ungracious. Under normal circumstances I avoid discussing other speakers, but this speaker had come up in conversations several times lately. Rather than attack the man, I suggested we look at some general cultural considerations which encourage people to experiment with questionable communication strategies. In more straightforward language, the way the internet works may encourage people in ministry to act like jerks.
Social media success prioritizes impressions and interactions over quality of content. The sensitivity of the algorithms registers more than likes and shares. If you pause on a reel or video while scrolling, it is noted. Which means Christian content creators, just like all content creators, need to capture the attention of doom scrollers immediately if they want to build an online platform. Content must stand out from the flood of reels, YouTube videos, and TikTok material published in a social media industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. What is the best strategy for engagement? It appears to be making people angry. A 2024 paper argues that, although the traditional belief is people seek out material online consistent with their own views (confirmation bias or congeniality bias), engagement is more often driven by seeing things that make us mad.[1] In short, we scroll past things which affirm our beliefs, though we may linger to watch, but we comment when something triggers our desire to alert the world how stupid that something is. They call this the confrontation effect. Do you ever notice how accounts begin their reels or videos with someone from the opposite side of the political spectrum saying something to which they then respond? The comments rage against the original comment rather than affirm the response. The engagement is driven by the desire to confront.
Author Amanda Ripley coined the term conflict entrepreneur in her 2021 book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. She defines a conflict entrepreneur as someone who exploits high conflict for their own gain by fueling fear and division. It is far easier than we may like to believe for well-meaning people to dabble in this practice, even convincing themselves the inflation of conflict doesn’t merely benefit their platform but serves some greater purpose. In The Cost of Discipleship, Deitrich Bonhoeffer warned of the capacity for self-deception when we don’t take God’s commands on face value and convince ourselves God’s intent in his commandments can be served by breaking them. Single-minded obedience requires too much of us, but we can reasonably ascertain from Jesus’s commands his intent and offer back what is acceptable. He can’t really want us to give up our fortune, he must mean to keep it and not care about it. If we prioritize the spiritual intent, literal obedience isn’t necessary. Finally he reaches this example:
“Perhaps Jesus would say to us: ‘Whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ We should then suppose him to mean: ‘The way really to love your enemy is to fight him hard and hit him back.”[2]
Despite clear and repeated commands to seek peace and not sow division, people driven to grow their online influence, for the Kingdom of God of course, exacerbate negative emotions for engagement. A dangerous game is afoot.
Conflict requires a foil. If none arises naturally on any given day, because content must be produced at breakneck speed to keep up with the demands of the audience, then one will have to be found. The activist must remain in action. David Letterman hosted the 1995 Oscars, and as he introduced celebrity activists Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins he added, “Pay attention – I’m sure they’re p***ed off about something.” It feels that way when certain content creators pop up on my feed. Outrage sells, outrage works, so finding things over which to express outrage becomes a goal. Many years ago, I posted daily on blog. As the audience grew, I felt pressure to produce more content. One day I realized I had spent a week waking up in the morning and scouring the internet for something to react to that day. No one asked for a response to anything, and the stories I chose had not naturally come across my feed due to receiving unusual attention. I sought out anything, even obscure unnoticed things that had no discernible impact on the world and drew it out to have a foil for the day, something to react to for the audience. From that point on I committed to writing for nobler reasons. It is one thing to notice something dangerous receiving unusual attention and responding to inform the audience. It is another to seek outrage wherever it may be, to call it out of obscurity into the light to subject it to my witty response and elevate my platform.
Even worse, people turn their vitriol on their brothers and sisters in Christ. When our greater efforts confronting the principalities and powers of this present darkness frustrate us, there can be a temptation to look to our allies and cobelligerents and blame them for the frustrations. If only they fought in the true spirit, we would not struggle to make gains. To be clear, corruption and error must be confronted. Repeated biblical admonitions make it clear sowing division is a grave offense, so our correction must serve the Spirit of truth and not ourselves. We must resist the urge to raise our platform by attacking the platforms of others.
I once heard author and scholar Matthew Lee Anderson say it just may be the attributes which make us successful online and the attributes which contribute to us being the human being God desires us to be are at odds with one another. If the online world is largely motivated by anger, we need to be careful how we contribute to that. Rather than think so highly of ourselves, we are above the Godless passions of the masses, we ought to intentionally safeguard against engaging out of anger and roiling up the emotions of others. Virtue matters more than platform.
This pastor and I talked about all of that in regard to this other speaker. In the end, the most charitable understanding I could come to in our discussion was this. The world rewards and applauds flamethrowers. However satisfying a flamethrower is, the flamethrower is far too imprecise a weapon in most tactical situations. I know my own heart. Anger comes easily. That is not the part of us we ought to be quick to share with the world. I asked the pastor, “Look around at the world we are making. Do you really think the problem is we are not angry enough?”
[1] David Mochon & Janet Schwartz, “The confrontation effect: When users engage more with ideology-inconsistent content online,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Volume 185, October 5, 2024, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074959782400058X
[2] Dietrich Bobhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (New York: Touchstone 2018, Originally published 1937) 80-81