I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, a kind of internal audit of my own emotional responses, and it's led me down a fascinating, slightly unsettling rabbit hole.
It all started with a seemingly trivial incident: my fast-food order was wrong. Not heinously wrong, mind you, just a minor misinterpretation from the counter clerk. And in that moment, I felt a disproportionate surge of annoyance, a simmering frustration that, if left unchecked, could have easily spiraled into a full-blown "ruined my afternoon" narrative. But then, almost immediately, a question popped into my head: Was I really this pissed off, or was it just the on-trend thing to be now?
This wasn't an isolated incident. I’ve found myself overreacting to things increasingly often – a slow driver in the fast lane, a forgotten item on a grocery shelf, a buffering video – and then, after the initial flicker of irritation or outright anger subsides, I start questioning myself. Was it really that bad? Did it really ruin my day? And, perhaps most tellingly, would I have been this bothered five years ago?
The surprising, and frankly, somewhat alarming answer I’m discovering is: no, not across the board. Far more often than not, the answer to that last question is a resounding ‘no’. Five years ago, I might have shrugged, chuckled or simply rolled my eyes. Today, there's a quickness to the burn, a readiness to ignite that feels both unfamiliar and strangely… expected.
It’s almost as if we’ve collectively agreed that minor inconveniences are now legitimate grounds for significant outrage. And I can’t help but wonder if this heightened sensitivity, this hair-trigger response, is something we’re actively learning, consciously or unconsciously. Because when I look around, when I scroll through my social feeds or flip through TV channels, I see it everywhere.
Think about it. We are constantly exposed to amplified emotions. Viral videos dedicated to capturing public meltdowns, dedicated reality TV shows that thrive on conflict and dramatic outbursts. People screaming at customer service representatives, throwing fits over perceived slights, turning everyday frustrations into spectacle. (Right now -- literally this very moment -- I'm watching on the TV news someone being escorted off a plane because of a violent outburst.)
I’m not suggesting for a moment that people are always playing it up for the cameras; they rarely know they're being filmed, and they certainly risk looking foolish. But if they took a moment to ask themselves those same questions I typed above – Was it really that bad? Did it really ruin my day? Would I have been this bothered five years ago? – would they still react that way?
For many, perhaps the answer would still be yes. But I can't shake the nagging feeling that for a significant portion, the answer might shift. That by constantly subjecting ourselves to watching so many of those videos, we start to imitate the behavior, intentionally or unintentionally. We normalize it. We internalize the idea that this level of outrage is an appropriate, even necessary, response to minor setbacks.
And then there are the talking heads on cable news shows. The commentators yelling their opinions, getting into screaming matches with other panelists, their faces contorted in expressions of pure, unadulterated fury. Do they really hold the opinions they’re shouting with such ferocity? Or is it for the outrage, for the engagement, for the performative aspect that has become the currency of modern discourse? I’m guessing if you had a regular, one-on-one conversation with those panelists, their tone wouldn't be quite so heated. Their arguments might be thoughtfully articulated, not just shouted.
This isn’t merely speculation on my part. I recently had a conversation with my boss, a seasoned journalist with over 20 years of experience in radio. He's conducted hundreds – if not thousands – of interviews. He shared a particularly striking anecdote about interviewing someone from the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Off-air, he told me, the woman was pleasant, spoke normally and was remarkably respectful to him – even though he is openly gay, a demographic her church would unequivocally condemn.
But once the interview started, once they were "on," everything changed. He described how the woman immediately launched into the character that is so widely seen at those controversial protests. Her voice shifted, becoming shrill and condemnatory. She delivered her well-known rants with a practiced venom. Then, when they broke for a commercial, he said, she instantly reverted. Her tone noticeably softened, and she engaged in regular, polite conversation. But the moment they were rolling for the second half of the interview, she portrayed the hateful church leader that has become her reputation.
It's wild to hear that she was pleasant – almost professional – to a gay man when an audience wasn't present, only to suddenly launch into her familiar rants when the microphone was live. It's important to note, my boss clarified, that even when on the air, she wasn't disrespectful to him personally. Her ire was directed at the "sin" and the "world," not at him as an individual in that moment, despite his identity being in line with what she would publicly condemn. But the stark contrast in her persona, the immediate shift from cordiality to vitriol and back again, was a powerful illustration of performative outrage. She was playing a role, fulfilling an expectation.
So, when I consider all of these examples – my own evolving reactions, the viral videos of public meltdowns, the shouting matches on cable news, and that chilling anecdote from my boss – I have to ask: are all of these people I just described as angry as they appear? Is it really worth destroying a restaurant because fries were cold? Do cold fries really make you that angry? And would that have enraged you so just five years ago?
I don’t know. But I suspect that for many, the answer to the last question is a resounding no. We are living in an era where anger, or at least the display of anger, has become deeply embedded in our societal fabric. It’s profitable for media, it’s attention-grabbing online, and perhaps, subconsciously, it offers a perverse sense of power or validation in a world that often feels out of control.
It’s time, I believe, for a collective pause. A moment of introspection. The next time a minor inconvenience sparks that familiar flicker of disproportionate rage, let’s ask ourselves: Is this genuine fury, or am I merely echoing the cacophony of outrage that surrounds me? Am I truly this bothered, or have I simply fallen into the habit of reacting as if I should be? Because while genuine anger has its place, a constant state of performative fury is an exhausting, disingenuous way to live. And I, for one, am starting to wonder if we might all be a little less genuinely pissed off than we pretend to be.